NATO Reaches Into The Indian Ocean

By M K Bhadrakumar
October 21, 2008
Courtesy Of Asia Times Online

The informal meeting of the defense ministers of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) member countries in Budapest, Hungary, on October 9-10 was notable for three reasons.

One, it was United States Secretary of Defense Robert Gates' last engagement with his NATO counterparts. Unsurprisingly, there was curiosity whether Gates would bring to bear on NATO's Afghan war any new thinking. But that was not to be, as a strategy review is still underway in Washington.

Two, it emerged that the alliance sanctioned more muscle power for the war by authorizing NATO to use force against Afghan poppy cultivators and drug traffickers - a controversial decision which troubles many member countries.

Three, the Budapest meet deliberated on issues regarding the transformation of the alliance. Despite the global financial crisis, there was no loss of US hegemony. The NATO-Georgia Commission, created at the US's insistence, met on October 10 for the first time and the alliance reiterated its commitment to continue the supervisory process set in hand at the Bucharest summit in April "with a view to Georgia's Euro-Atlantic aspirations". A somewhat vague formulation short of Tbilisi's expectation, but a step forward nonetheless on the path of the alliance's expansion as charted by the US.

A Well-Planned Move

The most far-reaching decision at the Budapest meet was NATO's decision to establish a naval presence in the Indian Ocean, ostensibly for protecting World Food Program ships carrying relief for famine-stricken Somalia.

Announcing the decision on October 10, a NATO spokesman said, "The United Nations asked for NATO's help to address this problem [piracy off Somalia's coast]. Today, the ministers agreed that NATO should play a role. NATO will have its Standing Naval Maritime Group, which is composed of seven ships, in the region within two weeks." He added that NATO would work with "all allies who have ships in the area now".

By October 15, seven ships from NATO navies had already transited the Suez Canal on their way to the Indian Ocean. En route, they will conduct a series of Persian Gulf port visits to countries neighboring Iran - Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, which are NATO's "partners" within the framework of the so-called Istanbul Cooperation Initiative. The mission comprises ships from the US, Britain, Germany, Italy, Greece and Turkey.

NATO's Supreme Allied Commander Europe, General John Craddock, acknowledged that the mission furthers the alliance's ambition to become a global political organization. He said, "The threat of piracy is real and growing in many parts of the world today, and this response is a good illustration of NATO's ability to adapt quickly to new security challenges."

Evidently, NATO has been carefully planning its Indian Ocean deployment. The speed with which it dispatched the ships betrays an element of haste, likely anticipating that some among the littoral states in the Indian Ocean region might contest such deployment by a Western military alliance. By acting with lightning speed and without publicity, NATO surely created a fait accompli.

String Of Coincidences

By any reckoning, NATO's naval deployment in the Indian Ocean region is a historic move and a milestone in the alliance's transformation. Even at the height of the Cold War, the alliance didn't have a presence in the Indian Ocean. Such deployments almost always tend to be open-ended.

In retrospect, the first-ever visit by a NATO naval force in mid-September last year to the Indian Ocean was a full-dress rehearsal to this end. Brussels said at that time, "The aim of the mission is to demonstrate NATO's capability to uphold security and international law on the high seas and build links with regional navies." In 2007, a NATO naval force visited Seychelles in the Indian Ocean and Somalia and conducted exercises in the Indian Ocean and then re-entered the Mediterranean via the Red Sea in end-September.

The NATO deployment has already had some curious fallout. In an interesting coincidence, on October 16, just as the NATO force was reaching the Persian Gulf, an Indian Defense Ministry spokesman announced in New Delhi, "The [Indian] government today approved deployment of an Indian naval warship in the Gulf of Aden to patrol the normal route followed by Indian-flagged ships during passage between Salalah in Oman and Aden in Yemen. "The patrolling is commencing immediately."

The timing seems deliberate. Media reports indicated that the government had been working on this decision for several months. Like NATO, Delhi also acted fast when the time came, and an Indian ship has already set sail. Delhi initially briefed the media that the deployment came in the wake of an incident of Somali pirates hijacking a Japanese-owned merchant vessel on August 15, which had 18 Indians on board. But later, it backtracked and gave a broader connotation, saying, "However, the current decision to patrol African waters is not directly related [to the incident in August]."

The Indian statement said, "The presence of an Indian navy warship in this area will be significant as the Gulf of Aden is a major strategic choke point in the Indian Ocean region and provides access to the Suez Canal through which a sizeable portion of India's trade flows."

Indian officials said the warship would work in cooperation with the Western navies deployed in the region and would be supplemented with a larger force if need and that it would be well equipped. But Delhi obfuscated the fact that the Western deployment will be under the NATO flag and any cooperation with the Western navies will involve the Western alliance. Given the traditional Indian policy to steer clear of military blocs, Delhi is understandably sensitive.

Clearly, the Indian warship will eventually have to work in tandem with the NATO naval force. This will be the first time that the Indian armed forces will be working shoulder-to-shoulder with NATO forces in actual operations in territorial or international waters.

The operations hold the potential to shift India's ties with NATO to a qualitatively new level. The US has been encouraging India to forge ties with NATO as well as play a bigger role in maritime security affairs. The two countries have a bilateral protocol relating to cooperation in maritime security, which was signed in 2006. It says at the outset, "Consistent with their global strategic partnership and the new framework for their defense relationship, India and the United States committed themselves to comprehensive cooperation in ensuring a secure maritime domain. In doing so, they pledged to work together, and with other regional partners as necessary."

The Indian Navy command has been raring to go in the direction of close partnership with the US Navy in undertaking security responsibilities far beyond its territorial waters. The two navies have instituted an annual large-scale annual exercise in the Indian Ocean - the Malabar exercises. This year's exercises are currently under way along India's western coast.

Russia Reviving Base

To be sure, the littoral states would have taken note of the scrambling by NATO and India to deploy naval forces on a sea route that is crucial for the countries of the Asian region. Trade and imports of oil by China pass through this sea lane. All the same, China has merely reported on the NATO deployment without any comments. Russia, on the other hand, didn't bother to report but preferred to swiftly respond.

Last Tuesday, even as the NATO naval force left for the Indian Ocean, it was stated in Moscow that a missile frigate from Russia's Baltic fleet - aptly named Neustrashimy [Fearless] - was already heading to the Indian Ocean "to fight piracy off Somalia's coast". Moscow claimed that the Somali government sought Russian assistance.

Two days later, on Thursday, as the Indian Defense Ministry was making its announcement, it was revealed by the speaker of the Upper House of the Russian parliament, Segei Mironov, an influential politician close to the Kremlin, that Russia might resume its Soviet-era naval presence in Yemen. Interestingly, Mironov made the announcement while on a visit to Sana, Yemen. He said Yemen sought Russia's help to fight piracy and possible terrorist threats and that a decision would be taken in Moscow to respond in accordance with the "new direction" of Russia's foreign and defense policies.

"It is possible that the aspects of using Yemen ports not only for visits by Russia warships but also for more strategic goals will be considered," Mironov said. He further revealed that a visit by the president of Yemen, Ali Abdullah Saleh, to Moscow is scheduled in the near future and the issue of military-technical cooperation will be on the agenda. Significantly, Mironov explained that Yemen had threat perception regarding groups affiliated to al-Qaeda, which might be hiding in the Somalia region. (The Soviet Union had a major naval base in the former South Yemen, which merged with North Yemen in 1990 to form the present-day Yemen.)

In essence, Moscow has signaled to Washington (and Delhi and the other littoral states) that it, too, can play NATO's game and has the capacity and the will to fight a "war on terror" in the Indian Ocean.

The point is, Somalia has no effective government and the claim by NATO (or India) to have received the permission/request from Mogadishu to undertake naval patrolling in that country's territorial waters is untenable, to say the least. It is also a grey area as to whether such patrolling in the high seas will be in accordance with international law. NATO has taken cover under the pretext that the deployment is in response to a request by UN secretary general
Ban Ki-moon, but then, Ban never acts without an eye on what Washington desires.

Clearly, Russia is establishing its toehold as a matter of principle, asserting that NATO and its "partners" in the region cannot arrogate to themselves the role of policemen in the Indian Ocean.
New Cold-War Chill

Logically speaking, the endeavor on the part of the US and India should have been to see if the problem of sea piracy could be handled through a regional initiative by the littoral states in the first instance. India, in fact, has a cooperation platform with the Indian Ocean rim countries, which could have been activated. But this variant hasn't been explored. Instead, NATO - and India and Russia - have hastened to assume the policemen's role. At a minimum, there should have been prior regional consultations since this is a matter of collective security, which also doesn't seem to have happened.

It is obvious that these first blasts of the new cold war have blown into the Indian Ocean region against the larger backdrop of big-power relations. A new command, Africom, has just taken over all US military operations in Africa with effect from October 1. Previously, Africa came under the US Central Command. The widespread perception in Africa is that Africom signifies a hidden US agenda of a scramble for resources under the pretext of the "war on terror".

The Associated Press reported recently, "Resistance to Africom among African governments has been so strong that [US] commanders abandoned their initial ambitions to install a headquarters on the continent. It is based in Stuttgart instead, with about two dozen Africom liaison officers posted at embassies."

It added, "Some African suspicions are rooted in the past. Washington's Cold War legacy of supporting brutal dictators, coupled with Africa's tragic colonial history, has spawned a distrust of foreigners. And many believe it's no coincidence Africom was born as emerging powerhouses like China and India embark on a new scramble for the continent's increasingly valuable resources."

US officials are on record that Africom and NATO envisage an institutional linkup in the downstream. The overall US strategy is to incrementally bring NATO into Africa so that its future role in the Indian Ocean (and Middle East) region as the instrument of US global security agenda becomes optimal. For the strategy to succeed in the Indian Ocean, however, NATO will need to align three key littoral states - India, Sri Lanka and Singapore. Singapore is a Cold War ally of the US. It overlooks the chokepoint of the Malacca Strait.

Endgame Of Tamil Insurgency

As for Sri Lanka, from the US point of view, its highly strategic location overlooking the sea lanes connecting the Persian Gulf and the Malacca Strait is of great value. The island is well placed to play the role of a permanent aircraft carrier. Washington is pressing ahead with a military solution to Sri Lanka's Tamil problem at any cost so that the Western-oriented Sinhalese political elite can focus on aligning Colombo with US regional strategy and act in concert with Delhi and Singapore.

It is plain to see that the end game of the Tamil insurgency has begun. The continuation of the insurgency only compels Sri Lanka to seek assistance from external quarters, including such sources as Iran, Pakistan and China. The Sinhalese elite would gladly jettison such dependence and orientate policies in a pro-West direction if provided the opportunity.

The US and India have been closely coordinating their policies on the situation in Sri Lanka, keeping the geostrategy in the Indian Ocean in mind. Cleaning up the Tamil insurgency and restoring Sri Lanka's capacity to work in concert with US strategy in the Indian Ocean has become an imperative need. Both Washington and Delhi are clear on this.

But for the US's strategy in the Indian Ocean, it is Delhi that is undoubtedly the jewel in the crown. The plain fact is that like Singapore and Sri Lanka, India also has impeccable geographical location, but additionally it also has significant muscle militarily. The US has assiduously cultivated the top brass of the Indian armed forces, especially the Indian navy. It has cleverly played on the navy's ambitions and corporate interests to have an expanded, pre-eminent presence in the Indian Ocean. The Indian navy is besotted with the idea of gaining access to US defense technology. Delhi belatedly realizes that the Indian navy is a powerful tool for foreign policy and diplomacy.

Equally, Washington has astutely worked on India's fears regarding a potential "encirclement" by China. While a consensus may be lacking as regards the scope, speed and effect of China's entry into the Indian Ocean region, the US and Indian strategic communities agree that China is an important factor that needs monitoring. China's increasing power, intentions and role in the Indian Ocean inevitably figure as a "hot" topic in US-India cogitations.

Conceivably, the recently concluded US-India civilian nuclear deal will give a fillip to military cooperation, in which navy-to-navy is already the oldest and strongest salient. Washington insists that its embrace of India is as a regional power and as an independent actor, especially as a naval power, and the impetus is wider than "balancing" or "containing" China. Some influential sections of the Indian strategic community would be inclined to take Washington at its word.

On balance, therefore, it is entirely conceivable that Delhi made its move on naval deployment in close consultation with the US within the framework of the two countries' much-acclaimed "strategic partnership", while taking into account the imperatives arising out of NATO's decision as well as the official launch of Africom by the Pentagon.

To what degree the Indian decision targets the Somali pirates and to what extent it remains a strategic move to dominate the Indian Ocean remains a matter of speculation. Even a clever pirate of the Caribbean like Captain Jack Sparrow would be left wondering whether to use wit and negotiation or to fight - or to flee a most dangerous situation.

Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar was a career diplomat in the Indian Foreign Service. His assignments included the Soviet Union, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Germany, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Kuwait and Turkey.

(Copyright 2008 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved.)

The Pentagon's ‘SpacePlane’ For HotSpots

Pentagon Plans ‘SpacePlane’ To Reach HotSpots Fast

By John Harlow in Los Angeles
From The Sunday Times
October 19, 200
Courtesy Of The TimesOnline

The American military is planning a “spaceplane” designed to fly a crack squad of heavily armed marines to trouble spots anywhere in the world within four hours.

At a recent secret meeting at the Pentagon, engineers working on the craft, codenamed Hot Eagle, were told to draw up blueprints for a prototype which generals want to have in the air within 11 years.

Pentagon planners have been encouraged by technical breakthroughs from Burt Rutan, chief designer on Sir Richard Branson’s White Knight spaceship, which is due to begin test flights next year and to carry tourists on suborbital journeys from 2010.

Last week Rutan, 65, who built the first privately funded craft to reach space and won the $10m X prize for his achievement in 2004, gave his blessing to Hot Eagle, which could be based on White Knight’s technology. Rutan said it would be an expensive way to transport troops “but it could be done. It is feasible”.

Will Whitehorn, president of Virgin Galactic, which is funding White Knight, recently predicted that it could be used to airlift emergency supplies into disaster zones.

“It could be like Thunderbirds, like International Rescue,” he said. A passenger version would be capable of flying from London to Sydney in four hours.

The two-stage Hot Eagle would be launched from an aircraft carrier. A large booster rocket would carry a smaller spacecraft containing 13 “space troopers” 50 miles into space, far above hostile radar, before landing in enemy territory.

The marines first called for a spaceplane in 2002 after the US military failed to capture Osama Bin Laden in the mountains of Afghanistan. The project was known as the Small Unit Space Transport and Insertion programme (Sustain). Its advocates said it took too long on foot to reach the caves where Bin Laden was said to be hiding and helicopters were too visible.

General James Mattis, leading the marines’ Central Command at the time, said he wanted the spaceplane in the air by 2019. He was recently promoted to be one of the most senior officers in the US military establishment and Sustain has since become a priority.

Last week Lieutenant Colonel Mark Brown, a US air force spokesman, confirmed that Nasa and Pentagon officers had met for two days of talks to draw up plans for Hot Eagle.

Invitations to the meeting said participants would be discussing a “potential revolutionary step in getting combat power to any point in the world in a time frame unbelievable today”.

Although aided by Rutan’s breakthroughs in ever-lighter composite materials, there are many technological hurdles ahead for Hot Eagle.

Designers have not yet decided whether to build a relatively simple disposable craft, which the space troopers would destroy before being picked up by helicopter, or a vastly more complex vehicle which could fly them home.

Some critics dismiss Hot Eagle as Hollywood-inspired science fiction or an expensive toy. Others question how effective a fighting force of just 13 soldiers could be on the ground.

“That is, if they get there,” said Ivan Oelrich, of the Federation of American Scientists. “It would be wildly vulnerable as you cannot armoura rocket ship.”

Roosevelt Lafontrant, a former marine colonel now employed by the Schafer Corporation, a technology company, said the technology was advancing rapidly. “If we had had the Sustain programme in operation in 2002, Bin Laden would have been captured and history fundamentally changed,” he said recently.

The Anglo-American Total Security State

The OrwelloSphere: Anglo-American Drive to 'Total Security State' Rolls On

By Chris Floyd
Wednesday, 8 October 2008
Courtesy Of The BaltimoreChronicle

"...technology to wipe out truth is now available. not everybody can afford it but it's available. when the cost comes down look out!" -- Bob Dylan, "World Gone Wrong"

"...toleration of the unacceptable leads to the last round-up." -- Dylan, ibid.

In the whirlwind of anxiety and confusion surrounding the global economic meltdown, one thing is certain: governments will use the crisis to augment their own power.

This may occur directly, as with the Bush-Paulson bailout plan, which gives the Treasury Secretary virtually unlimited and unsupervised power to give billions of taxpayer dollars to his cronies on Wall Street, while also allowing him to override the few restrictions left on the machinations of raw greed in the financial markets. (Yes, of course, all of this will change completely after Barack Obama is elected: instead of Hank Paulson and George Bush doling out bailout pork to their Wall Street pals, a brand-new Treasury chief and Obama will be doling out bailout pork to their Wall Street pals.)

But the economic freak-out will also be employed as a distraction, with governments using it to enact measures hugger-mugger while public attention is obsessively focused elsewhere. A prime -- and chilling -- example of this can be found in a new law slouching its way through the legislative process in Britain, where it is likely to emerge in the stark light of day next year. And it is a very rough beast indeed; the measure will, as Jenni Russell puts it in the Guardian
[create a] centralised database that will track, in real time, every call we make, every website we visit, and every text and email we send. That information will then be stored and analysed - perhaps for decades. It will mean the end of privacy as we know it.

Or rather, what's left of privacy as we used to know it. And Americans should not take comfort in the fact that this truly Orwellian law is being prepared across the sea. Britain has long been a bellwether for repressive measures in the United States, blazing a path on detention without charges, omnipresent camera surveillance, "strenuous interrogation," and other liberty-stripping "counterterrorism" measures, many of them honed in the glory days of the dirty war with the IRA. [For more on how British dirty war tactics cross-pollinated American black ops in Iraq, see "Ulster on the Euphrates."]

Russell outlines in grim detail the full implications of the bill being pressed forward by the "progressive" Labour government:

In the name of the fight against crime, and the fight against terror, we are all to be monitored as if we could be suspects. Computers will analyse our behaviour for signs of deviance. The minute we become of interest to anyone in authority - perhaps because we take part in a demonstration, have an argument with a security guard at an airport, spend too long on a website, or are witness to a crime - the police or the security services will be able to dip into our records and construct a near-complete pattern of our lives.

Russell also notes a salient point of this measure -- and also of the plethora of other "security" strictures that are increasingly binding the lives of the citizens of the Western democracies: to instill fear and obedience, not only by the application of outside force, but more horribly, from within.

Stop and consider this for a moment. Think about how happy any of us would be to have our lives laid out to official view. All our weaknesses, our private fears and interests, would be exposed. Our web searches are guides to what is going on in our minds. A married man might spend a lot of time on porn websites; a successful manager might be researching depression; a businessman might be looking up bankruptcy law.

We all have a gulf between who we really are and the face we present to the world. Suddenly that barrier will be taken away. Would a protester at the Kingsnorth power station feel quite so confident in facing the police if she knew that the minute she was arrested, the police could find out that she'd just spent a week looking at abortion on the web? Would a rebel politician stand up against the prime minister if he knew security services had access to the 100 text messages a week he exchanged with a woman who wasn't his wife? It isn't just the certainty that such data would be used against people that is a deterrent, it's the fear. As the realisation of this power grew, we would gradually start living in the prison of our minds.

That last sentence is a shattering truth of our times -- again not only in Britain but also in the land of "free speech zones" wrapped in razor wire, where security forces raid privates homes in "pre-emptive" strikes against potential protesters, and trigger-happy tasers silence citizens speaking uncomfortable truths to the powerful.

As Russell notes, the proposed new law -- which is being smuggled into the government's legislative program with almost no debate at all -- is "only the worst manifestation of an official intrusion into our lives that is just about to hit us, but of which we seem strangely unaware." And again, the UK is leading the way:

The UK's network of speed cameras will soon be able to track every journey we make by road under the automated number-plate recognition system. Mobile network records can already place us, at any time, within 100 yards of our phone's location. The ID database will record every time we go to a hospital or a benefit centre, fill in a prescription or a draw a large sum from a bank. The children's database will give access to every piece of gossip or fact about our children or their family, perhaps in perpetuity. It will record that an older sister may be alcoholic, or that a father is in jail, or that a 14-year-old is thought to be having sex. Nobody will be able to break free of this information about their past.

Most alarming of all, for its breadth of knowledge about us, the NHS database will give hundreds of thousands of staff the ability to discover when we lost our virginity, the drugs we're on, our mental health history.

Once more, Russell zeroes in on a salient fact about the growing Anglo-American Orwellosphere:
None of this information will be safe, because we know three things about the mass collection of data. The first is that the authorities will mine it where it suits them. The second is that the data will be lost. And the third is that it will leak.

Already in America, more than 400,000 people (by the most conservative estimate; the real number is likely far higher) are now on a highly secretive "terrorist watch list" -- compiled arbitrarily by unknown officials, using unknown criteria (or none at all), for unseen ends. And of course, the American government has been conducing widespread, warrantless, unregulated, and patently illegal surveillance against multitudes of its own citizens for years. This KGB-style operation -- openly acknowledged by the president himself -- was later given ex post facto "legitimacy" by the Democratic-led Congress, which also granted blanket immunity for the corporations which aided and abetted the criminality. It was one of the most shameful Congressional actions in a decade jam-packed with them -- and Barack Obama supported it fully.

As Russell rightly notes of such measures:

I'm all for the targeted pursuit of crime and terror, but this isn't it. This is a multibillion-pound misuse of the state's time and our money which will fundamentally damage our freedom to think and to act.

Here again is the crux of the matter. The relentless barrage of "security" measures being heaped upon the British and American people will have almost no effect on terrorists and organized crime, which are their ostensible targets. As always, terrorists and criminals will game the system, whatever it is, finding ways to work around it, outside it -- and within it. What then is the real purpose of these measures? We took up this question here a couple of years ago:

With each passing day, it becomes more evident that the main purpose behind Bush's illegal, warrantless domestic spying program is not collecting intelligence on terrorists and would-be terrorists – a task for which the government's existing draconian powers of surveillance were more than sufficient. As many people have noted, Bush already possessed the legal right to order the immediate surveillance of any person in the country, subject to the sole restraint of having to seek approval from the secret FISA court within 72 hours. Given the established record of this court's near-total acquiescence to thousands of such requests over the years, it is simply impossible to believe that it would not grant its ex post facto approval to any surveillance ordered by Bush which had even the most tenuous connection to a potential terrorist threat.

This undeniable reality leaves us with only one logical conclusion: Bush's secret spy program is designed for activities not covered by FISA's copious security blanket. It is now apparent that these activities include using the vast powers of federal, state and local governments to spy on the Bush Administration's perceived political "enemies" – a vast group, given that the Bushist definition of an "enemy" is anyone who opposes any of their policies.

Again, we must note that the Democratic presidential candidate voted for the measure which "legitimized" this program. Therefore it seems highly unlikely that he will suddenly act to overturn it or de-legitimize it once he is in office -- much less prosecute any of the perpetrators of this vast criminality. It goes without saying that John McCain will also embrace this program, and all other accelerations of the Total Security State now descending upon us.

Chris Floyd has been a writer and editor for more than 25 years, working in the United States, Great Britain and Russia for various newspapers, magazines, the U.S. government and Oxford University. Floyd co-founded the blog Empire Burlesque, and is also chief editor of Atlantic Free Press. He can be reached at cfloyd72@gmail.com.

This column is republished here with the permission of the author.Read more:

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Copyright © 2008 The Baltimore News Network. All rights reserved.

Stalin Proposed Anti-Nazi Alliance

Stalin 'Planned To Send A Million Troops To Stop Hitler If Britain and France Agreed Pact'

Stalin was 'prepared to move more than a million Soviet troops to the German border to deter Hitler's aggression just before the Second World War'

By Nick Holdsworth in Moscow
Last Updated: 1:14AM BST 19 Oct 2008
Courtesy Of The Telegraph

Papers which were kept secret for almost 70 years show that the Soviet Union proposed sending a powerful military force in an effort to entice Britain and France into an anti-Nazi alliance.

Such an agreement could have changed the course of 20th century history, preventing Hitler's pact with Stalin which gave him free rein to go to war with Germany's other neighbours.

The offer of a military force to help contain Hitler was made by a senior Soviet military delegation at a Kremlin meeting with senior British and French officers, two weeks before war broke out in 1939.

The new documents, copies of which have been seen by The Sunday Telegraph, show the vast numbers of infantry, artillery and airborne forces which Stalin's generals said could be dispatched, if Polish objections to the Red Army crossing its territory could first be overcome.

But the British and French side - briefed by their governments to talk, but not authorised to commit to binding deals - did not respond to the Soviet offer, made on August 15, 1939. Instead, Stalin turned to Germany, signing the notorious non-aggression treaty with Hitler barely a week later.

The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, named after the foreign secretaries of the two countries, came on August 23 - just a week before Nazi Germany attacked Poland, thereby sparking the outbreak of the war. But it would never have happened if Stalin's offer of a western alliance had been accepted, according to retired Russian foreign intelligence service Major General Lev Sotskov, who sorted the 700 pages of declassified documents.

"This was the final chance to slay the wolf, even after [British Conservative prime minister Neville] Chamberlain and the French had given up Czechoslovakia to German aggression the previous year in the Munich Agreement," said Gen Sotskov, 75.

The Soviet offer - made by war minister Marshall Klementi Voroshilov and Red Army chief of general staff Boris Shaposhnikov - would have put up to 120 infantry divisions (each with some 19,000 troops), 16 cavalry divisions, 5,000 heavy artillery pieces, 9,500 tanks and up to 5,500 fighter aircraft and bombers on Germany's borders in the event of war in the west, declassified minutes of the meeting show.

But Admiral Sir Reginald Drax, who lead the British delegation, told his Soviet counterparts that he authorised only to talk, not to make deals.

"Had the British, French and their European ally Poland, taken this offer seriously then together we could have put some 300 or more divisions into the field on two fronts against Germany - double the number Hitler had at the time," said Gen Sotskov, who joined the Soviet intelligence service in 1956. "This was a chance to save the world or at least stop the wolf in its tracks."

When asked what forces Britain itself could deploy in the west against possible Nazi aggression, Admiral Drax said there were just 16 combat ready divisions, leaving the Soviets bewildered by Britain's lack of preparation for the looming conflict.

The Soviet attempt to secure an anti-Nazi alliance involving the British and the French is well known. But the extent to which Moscow was prepared to go has never before been revealed.

Simon Sebag Montefiore, best selling author of Young Stalin and Stalin: The Court of The Red Tsar, said it was apparent there were details in the declassified documents that were not known to western historians.

"The detail of Stalin's offer underlines what is known; that the British and French may have lost a colossal opportunity in 1939 to prevent the German aggression which unleashed the Second World War. It shows that Stalin may have been more serious than we realised in offering this alliance."

Professor Donald Cameron Watt, author of How War Came - widely seen as the definitive account of the last 12 months before war began - said the details were new, but said he was sceptical about the claim that they were spelled out during the meetings.

"There was no mention of this in any of the three contemporaneous diaries, two British and one French - including that of Drax," he said. "I don't myself believe the Russians were serious."

The declassified archives - which cover the period from early 1938 until the outbreak of war in September 1939 - reveal that the Kremlin had known of the unprecedented pressure Britain and France put on Czechoslovakia to appease Hitler by surrendering the ethnic German Sudetenland region in 1938.

"At every stage of the appeasement process, from the earliest top secret meetings between the British and French, we understood exactly and in detail what was going on," Gen Sotskov said.

"It was clear that appeasement would not stop with Czechoslovakia's surrender of the Sudetenland and that neither the British nor the French would lift a finger when Hitler dismembered the rest of the country."

Stalin's sources, Gen Sotskov says, were Soviet foreign intelligence agents in Europe, but not London. "The documents do not reveal precisely who the agents were, but they were probably in Paris or Rome."

Shortly before the notorious Munich Agreement of 1938 - in which Neville Chamberlain, the British prime minister, effectively gave Hitler the go-ahead to annexe the Sudetenland - Czechoslovakia's President Eduard Benes was told in no uncertain terms not to invoke his country's military treaty with the Soviet Union in the face of further German aggression.

"Chamberlain knew that Czechoslovakia had been given up for lost the day he returned from Munich in September 1938 waving a piece of paper with Hitler's signature on it," Gen Sotksov said.

The top secret discussions between the Anglo-French military delegation and the Soviets in August 1939 - five months after the Nazis marched into Czechoslovakia - suggest both desperation and impotence of the western powers in the face of Nazi aggression.

Poland, whose territory the vast Russian army would have had to cross to confront Germany, was firmly against such an alliance. Britain was doubtful about the efficacy of any Soviet forces because only the previous year, Stalin had purged thousands of top Red Army commanders.

The documents will be used by Russian historians to help explain and justify Stalin's controversial pact with Hitler, which remains infamous as an example of diplomatic expediency.

"It was clear that the Soviet Union stood alone and had to turn to Germany and sign a non-aggression pact to gain some time to prepare ourselves for the conflict that was clearly coming," said Gen Sotskov.

A desperate attempt by the French on August 21 to revive the talks was rebuffed, as secret Soviet-Nazi talks were already well advanced.

It was only two years later, following Hitler's Blitzkreig attack on Russia in June 1941, that the alliance with the West which Stalin had sought finally came about - by which time France, Poland and much of the rest of Europe were already under German occupation.

U.S. Involved In Afghan Drug Trade

How Deeply Is The U.S. Involved In The Afghan Drug Trade?

Experience in Indochina and Central America suggests that CIA, the principal paymaster for U.S.-backed Afghan warlords, may be more deeply involved in the drug trade than we yet know.

By Eric Margolis
Source: The Huffington Post,
October 15, 2008
Courtesy Of RAWA.org

Afghanistan is in a `downward spiral,' the Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen, admitted last week, giving the most negative view of that conflict heard in Washington.

Military men are programmed to always be optimistic, so Admiral Mullen's grim words were particularly noteworthy. They also flatly contradicted the rosy claims of `progress' in Afghanistan made by the Bush administration and its increasingly dispirited allies in Canada, France, Germany, Italy and other NATO nations that were dragooned into this deeply unpopular war.

Most Europeans see the Afghan conflict as a 19th-century style colonial war for regional domination and resources. By contrast, Americans are still being misled by their corporate media and posturing politicians of both parties into believing the seven-year U.S. occupation of Afghanistan is a noble `anti-terrorism' mission that is defending women's rights and rebuilding a ravage nation instead of another brutal grab for energy, this time from the Caspian Basin.

In a troubling example of Vietnam-style 'mission creep,' the U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Gen. David McKiernan, is calling for 15,000 more American troops on top of the 8,000 now slated to arrive in January 2009. His predecessor told Congress that 400,000 U.S. troops would be needed to pacify Afghanistan.

But McKiernan also called for talks with Afghan nationalists resisting western occupation collectively known as Taliban. Days earlier, it was revealed that senior British officers and diplomats in Afghanistan had called the US-led war `un-winnable' and advocated peace talks with Taliban.

Admiral Mullen also ordered U.S. and NATO forces to begin targeting Afghanistan's opium and heroin dealers. Under American tutelage, Afghanistan has become the world's leading narco-state, surpassing even Colombia, and now producing 90% of the world's heroin. Well over half of the nation's GDP consists of drug money. Considering this, Admiral Mullen's 'shoot on sight' orders seem rather overdue.

The 64,000 rupee question that arises from Admiral Mullen's new anti-drug policy is: Why was it not done seven years ago when the U.S. invaded Afghanistan? Why did Washington turn a blind eye to the Afghan drug trade and is only now taking some action?

The answer is simple and dismaying. America's local allies in Afghanistan, the politicians and warlords who overthrew Taliban in 2001, are up to their turbans in the heroin trade. Drug money is the blood that courses through Afghanistan's veins and keeps the economy limping along. The U.S.-installed Karzai regime in Kabul propped up by US and NATO bayonets has only two sources of income: cash handouts from Washington, and the proceeds of drug dealing.

When Taliban ruled 90% of Afghanistan from 1996-2001, it almost totally stamped out poppy cultivation as un-Islamic. The UN's drug control agency has confirmed this fact. The only remaining source of drug dealing was in the remote northeast of Afghanistan controlled by the Russian and Iranian-backed Northern Alliance, made up of Tajik Panshiri tribesmen, brutal Uzbek warlord Rashid Dostam, and the remains of the old Afghan Communist Party.

In 2001, the U.S. overthrew Taliban and put the drug-dealing Northern Alliance and Communists in power. Since then, Afghanistan's drug production has spread across the nation and exports have soared by 60-70%, making Afghanistan the source of nearly all the world's supply of heroin.

Washington called off efforts by the Drug Enforcement Agency to combat the Afghan drug trade for fear of endangering the power base of its former CIA `asset,' President Hamid Karzai. Starting with Karzai's brother, Ahmed Wali, the U.S.-installed regime's most important supporters are all involved in varying degrees with the heroin trade. As this writer has seen himself, almost every important warlord gets revenue from the drug trade. The Northern Alliance warlords are considered the biggest of the nation's narco-dealers. Ahmed Karzai denies involvement.

Moving against the drug warlords would have meant undermining Karzai's sole domestic support. So Washington held its nose and let the drug trade flourish in order to sustain the occupation. The faux `war on terror' and lust for Caspian energy trumped the old war on drugs.

Experience in Indochina and Central America suggests that CIA, the principal paymaster for U.S.-backed Afghan warlords, may be more deeply involved in the drug trade than we yet know.

Author Alfred McCoy's wrote a brilliant study in his ground-breaking `The Politics of Heroin' in which he documents how first French, then American intelligence was drawn into the heroin trade in Laos and Vietnam as a way of supporting anti-Communist guerilla fighters. The same thing happened in Central America where CIA collaborated with cocaine-dealing members of the anti-Communist Contras.

In both cases, drugs served as a currency and became more important than paper money. French and American spies even ended up transporting heroin for their local allies. The same may be happening in Afghanistan.

Equally disturbing, there is no way that simple Afghan farmers or Taliban fighters are running the drug trade, as Washington claims. Poppy sap is collected and converted into opium tar. Then it is smuggled to secret labs in Pakistan to be transformed into first morphine base, and then purified into heroin. None of these drugs would move south into Pakistan or be processed with imported chemicals without the full cooperation and assistance of the Afghan government, its supporting warlords, and local Pakistani officials. The drugs are then smuggled out of the port of Karachi, again under at protection by port and local officials. Pakistan is a key U.S. ally.

The Karzai regime has been totally corrupted by the drug trade, and so has parts of Pakistan's establishment. But the United States has also become corrupted in the sense that it has done nothing to combat this scourge and has collaborated with Afghanistan's drug barons by at minimum turning blind eye.

When the history of U.S. involvement in Afghanistan is written, Washington's sordid involvement in the heroin trade and its alliance with drug lords and war criminals of the Afghan Communist Party will be one of the most shameful chapters.

Related Links:

05.10.2008: Reports Link Karzai’s Brother to Heroin Trade

25.07.2008: Afghanistan president accused of protecting drug smugglers

30.06.2008: Turning Afghan Heroin Into Kalashnikovs

27.06.2008: Afghanistan ranks 172 in corruption index

27.06.2008: U.N. Finds Afghan Opium Trade Rising

09.06.2008: Afghanistan growing drug trade will prolong conflict 'for years to come'

03.05.2008: Corruption eats away at Afghan government

31.03.2008: Afghanistan: 'Opium Brides' pay the price

05.03.2008: UN: Afghanistan Should Hit Drug Lords With Links to the Government

17.02.2008: Russian state TV suggests USA involved in drug-trafficking from Afghanistan

24.11.2007: Corruption, bribes and trafficking: a cancer that is engulfing Afghanistan

15.11.2007: Karzai Criticizes High Officials, Deputies For Corruption

29.04.2007: Heroin is "Good for Your Health": Occupation Forces support Afghan Narcotics Trade

19.03.2007: Afghan government more corrupt than Taleban: Survey

08.03.2007: Afghan official a convicted trafficker

05.02.2006: Drug trade "reaches to Afghan cabinet"

ShadowPlay: The 9/11 PuppetMasters

Revealing dark PuppetMasters behind ShadowPlays of Deception...

What if 9/11 was not an act of Islamic extremism, but something far more sinister... an evil from within?

In the past, invisible elites lurking behind thrones have tightened their grasp on power by provoking attacks on their own people, then blaming the enemy as a false-flag pretext for imperial wars.

The idea that this could happen today is almost unimaginable...Or is it?

ShadowPlay.info

Arab Nations Must Learn From History

By Sobhi Ghandour,
Special to Gulf News
Published: October 19, 2008, 00:03
Courtesy Of GulfNews

The Arab nation enjoys the most important strategic location in the world, at the gateway of Asia and Africa and close to most of Europe. The Arab region is also the land of rich natural resources, the most important of which is oil - one of the main pillars of global economy.

Furthermore, the Arab nation is the land of divine messages and hosts the holy shrines of divine religions, which created a special relation between Arab culture and the Islamic world.

Arab Muslims are considered the leaders and reference of non-Arab Muslims all over the world, although they only comprise one fifth of the Islamic world's population.

So, taking control of the Arab region by any foreign party means seizing control of a significant strategic location and the world's most important natural resources, as well as of important religious shrines and centres.

Europeans waged their colonial wars against the Arab region for more than 200 years under the label of the crusades and on the pretext of the existence of Christian religious centres in the region.

On the other hand, the Ottoman Empire maintained its control over the Arab region for more than 400 years in the name of the Islamic Caliphate.

In fact, great powers deal with the Arab region as an integral unit within the framework of one strategic plan that targets the region as a whole.

Meanwhile, the Arab world was divided into more than 20 countries following international accords and arrangements between the four great European powers in the early 19th century.

This state of division has led to the scattering of Arab financial and human capabilities and to the difficulty of creating an Arab force capable of facing outside challenges or playing an influential regional role.

It also led to the weakness of security and the disability of Arabs to manage their crises and conflicts, as a pretext to seek assistance form foreign powers to solve their problems.

Today, the Arab nation is passing through similar conditions to what they faced 100 years ago, and is stepping into a new stage similar to what followed the First World War when many Arab countries became under international custodianship.

This makes one ask: Why did West European countries realise the importance of their unity, despite their multi-cultural, ethnic and social backgrounds, and a history full of wars and bloody conflicts, while Arabs have not realised the importance of their unity yet?

Why did these countries succeed in developing different kinds of cooperation between them in the past sixty years, while the Arab League failed to do so, although the Arab league and the European union were established in the same period? Does this not mean that the problem lies with the absence and misuse of the Arab political decision, and not with suitable conditions of available capabilities?

This is simply because points of common factors of unity between Arabs are much more than those between European Union countries.

Rectifying the mistakes of the past does not mean forsaking cooperation and federal integration, which maintain the national characters of each country, just like the European Union.

It simply means fixing the damages in the Arab political body and governments, as well as in the planning, legislative and monitory bodies, while preserving the target of Arab integration regardless of methods or mistakes.

European Experience

Another lesson to be learned from the European experience is that all these countries are governed by democratic bodies. The decision to join the EU is subject to public referendum in each country, and is never imposed.

Powerful European countries do not take over smaller countries, which is a lesson that Arabs must learn from their history and that of other people.

The responsibilities of intellectuals, academicians and scholars are similar to those they had at the early 19th century, when some of them were defending European modernisation of the region, while others defended the Ottoman Empire, justified its mistakes and held onto the dream of returning to the Islamic Caliphate.

Very few chose to highlight the mistakes of both the Ottoman Empire and the European colonialism.

The Islamic reformers, including Jamal Al Deen Al Afghani, Mohammad Abduh, Abdul Rahman Al Kawakibi, called for reforming Arab and Islamic thinking and identity as the only way to build a better future.

They also called for freeing the ideology from preconceptions and intellectual molds and stagnation, as well as getting rid of wrong traditions that deprived women from their civil and social rights.

However, these thoughts were confined to books and never turned into a popular movement for comprehensive change. The Arab society remained caught between two extreme ideologies, the first of which calls for western modernisation, while the second calls for return to the Salafi era.

The mistakes made in the past century are repeated now. Arabs still fail to reach a common future project, although they share a common view of the current situation of the Arab nation.

Nowadays, many political analysts discuss the nation's present, while many are holding onto the past. However, there are very few who prepare the nation for a better future.

It is very important for Arabs to learn from others' experiences and draw conclusion, like what Europeans did right after the Second World War, when they started laying the grounds for their democratic union.

Sobhi Ghandour is Director of Al Hewar Centre in Washington

The Veil Of US Adventurism Finally Lifted

Published: October 19, 2008, 00:03
Courtesy Of GulfNews

Public opinion in the Middle East always suspected the United States is behind every trouble in the region, especially the bloody conflict that plagued the region in the past three decades. This is often dismissed by the elite as "conspiracy theory" or an attempt to justify our resignation to the subsequent defeats, setbacks and the rise of oppressive regimes in some parts of the Arab world.

But the revelation on Friday that the US administrations under Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford may have, albeit unintentionally, paved the way for the Islamic revolution in Iran would no doubt give credence to the idea the American hands-on intervention in regional affairs has often led to conflicts. It is no secret the US supported the anti-Russian Islamist fighters in Afghanistan. This, as we later realised, resulted in the rise of the Taliban and religious extremism, which a number of Arab states continue to battle today.

Between 1974 and 1976, Nixon and Ford decided to put pressure on the Shah of Iran - American officials suspected then he was behind the rise in oil prices which stifled the US economy. The move weakened the regime, which succumbed to a new breed of revolutionaries in the Middle East, according to a report based on newly declassified documents. The rest is history, as they say.

But the fact remains the radicalisation of the region was born mainly as a result of the US policy of direct intervention, in Iran, Iraq, Egypt and other places. However, this should not, in anyway, justify condoning terrorism or our inability to fight extremism. Terrorists, especially those who claim to speak in the name of religion, must be defeated. Meanwhile, we hope the new US administration would try to mend fences with the people in this region, which has had more than its fair share of bloody conflicts.

Guided By An Invisible Hand

By Joesph Stiglitz
Published on Saturday, October 18, 2008
Courtesy Of The New Statesman

Make no mistake: we are witnessing the biggest crisis since the Great Depression. In some ways it is worse than the Great Depression, because the latter did not involve these very complicated instruments - the derivatives that Warren Buffett has referred to as financial weapons of mass destruction; and we did not have anything close to the magnitude of today's cross-border finance.

The events of these weeks will be to market fundamentalism what the fall of the Berlin Wall was to communism. Last month in the United States almost 160,000 jobs were shed - making more than three-quarters of a million this year. My guess is that things will get considerably worse. I have been predicting this for some time, and so far, unfortunately, I have been right.

There are several reasons for my pessimism. The extreme credit crunch is a result of the banks having lost a lot of capital. And there is still uncertainty about the value of the toxic mortgages and other complex products on their balance sheets. The US economy has been fuelled by a consumption binge. With average savings at zero, many people borrowed to live beyond their means. When you cut off that credit you reduce consumption. This, in turn, will dampen the US economy, which helps keep the global economy growing. The American consumer has not only sustained the US economy, he has sustained the global economy. The richest country in the world has been living beyond its means and telling the rest of the world it should be thankful because America fuelled global economic growth.

There are further reasons for my pessimism about short-term economic prospects, in America and Europe. In the second quarter of this year, growth in the US would have been negative were it not for the growth in exports. But with the slowdown in Europe and problems in Asia it is difficult to see how we can maintain net export growth. The strengthening of the dollar - due not to greater confidence in the US but to reduced confidence in Europe - will make matters worse. The fall of energy prices will help a little, but not enough.

Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson has now come up with a new bailout scheme. The original plan - buying up the thousands of "troubled assets" (read: bad loans and complex products based on them that Wall Street created) - was badly designed and rife with problems. How would they have been priced? Call in the same Wall Street experts who got us into the mess and mispriced risk before? It is a heads I win, tails you lose situation.

The worry is that the taxpayer will be left holding the short end of the stick.

The British approach, which Paulson seems to be following, is far better, involving capital injections into banks, with preferred shares to protect against losses and warrants to share in some of the upside potential. This is the approach that I - along with most US economists and people with good street sense, like George Soros - had been saying America should adopt.

Ironically, though Paulson wouldn't listen to us, he seems to have listened to Gordon Brown.

Many of the problems our economy faces today are the result of the use of misguided models. Unfortunately, too many took the overly simplistic models of courses in the principles of economics (which typically assume perfect information) and assumed they could use them as a basis for economic policy. Many central banks use the notion of inflation targeting - that they should focus exclusively on inflation, raising interest rates when inflation increases. But I would argue that central banks have a broader responsibility; they are supposed to ensure the stability of a country's economy. While monetary authorities in the US and elsewhere focused on price stability, they allowed the financial system to undertake risks that put the whole economy in jeopardy.

This crisis is a turning point, not only in the economy, but in our thinking about economics. Adam Smith, the father of modern economists, argued that the pursuit of self-interest (profit-making by competitive firms) would lead, as if by an invisible hand, to general well-being. But for over a quarter of a century, we have known that Smith's conclusions do not hold when there is imperfect information - and all markets, especially financial markets, are characterised by information imperfections. The reason the invisible hand often seems invisible is that it is not there. The pursuit of self-interest by Enron and WorldCom did not lead to societal well-being; and the pursuit of self-interest by those in the financial industry has brought our economy to the brink of the abyss.

No modern economy can function well without the government playing an important role. Even free marketeers are now turning to the government. But would it not have been better to have taken action to prevent this meltdown? This is a new kind of public-private partnership - the financial sector walked off with the profits, the public was left with the losses. We need a new balance between market and government.

© 2008 The New Statesman

Professor Joseph E Stiglitz is chair of the Brooks World Poverty Institute at the University of Manchester and a 2001 Nobel prizewinner

The Forgotten U.S. War On The Iraqi People

By Ghali Hassan
Oct 16, 2008, 19:42
Courtesy Of AxisOfLogic

On October 3, 2008, the Washington Post reported that the Pentagon is paying $300 million to U.S. contractors to produce pro-U.S. propaganda for Iraqi audiences “in an effort to ‘engage and inspire’ the local population to support U.S. objectives and the puppet government”. The aim of this psychological warfare is to normalise the murderous Occupation and cover-up the slaughter of innocent Iraqi civilians.

As Iraqis continue to suffer, the war on has receded from mainstream media headlines in order to remove people’s historical memory and to provide the Republican Party with a fictitious victory and improves John McCain’s chances of winning the presidency. In the same way the decade-long genocidal sanctions that killed 2 million innocent Iraqi civilians were normalised, journalists and media outlets in the U.S. and in occupied Iraq are promoted and paid to write “good news” stories about the ongoing Occupation.

As a result, few Americans are against the war, and most of the US poplulation still find it acceptable to perpetuate barbarism against defenceless population. The justification and rationalisations for the application of barbaric violence have been based on U.S. euphemistic doctrines with disregard to international law and civilised norms. Despite the enormity of the atrocity in Iraq, Americans have re-elected George Bush in 2004 and continue paying $12 billion per month to propel a criminal war which is destroying an entire society.

Indeed, since World War II, the U.S. has committed unimaginable war crimes against defenceless civilian population, more than any other nation on earth. It is astonishing that a large segment of US society is proud of these horrendous war crimes, and violence continues to play an important role in the US psyche. Just take a look at how the bigoted John McCain is portrayed by the media as a “maverick” and a war “hero” (not a war criminal) and even allowed to (deceptively) distance himself from George Bush and his own Republican Party’s ideology. His incompetence in foreign policy, the economy, and his erratic character and criminal record in Vietnam and Iraq have largely been ignored in the media.

It is certain, if the Republicans are re-elected and John McCain become president, the U.S. will declare a police state and will embark on a war agenda reminiscent of Hitler’s war agenda. The Republican ideology is a Nazis’-like ideology seeking to dominate the world through violence, racism and propaganda. With thousands of U.S. troops have been deployed on U.S. streets to control the population, the people of the United States do not need more serious warnings.

The World Ignores U.S. War Crimes

Why is the world ignoring the U.S.-perpetuated war crimes and crimes against humanity in Iraq? The primary reasons are: Western media complicity in U.S. war crimes through disinformation and distortion of the situation on ground; and most importantly, Islamophobia. The U.S.-Zionist media play an important role in spreading anti-Muslims propaganda throughout the world, demonising Muslims and distorting Islam in order to manipulate public opinion and justify war crimes against Muslims at home and abroad. Additionally, a deep-seated and inherently widespread dehumanisation of Arabs and Muslims by Western media, the Western ruling classes and opportunist politicians encourages silence and moral bankruptcy.

Recall how in 2003 the US people and a large segment of Western population were manipulated and deceived to support an illegal war of aggression against an entirely defenceless Iraqi population. Deep silence prevailed despite it was well-known that Iraq had neither weapons of mass destruction nor any link to “terrorism”, and that the pretexts were outright lies fabricated in Washington and London. The aggression against Iraq was and still is a crime against humanity and those who supported the crimes have blood on their hands.

Pretexts Used To Justify The Illegal War and Occupation

Immediately after the pretexts to justify the invasion were exposed, the U.S. began to engineer and used countless pretexts to justify the ongoing Occupation, including the incitement of massive outbreak of violence. For instance, the U.S.-drafted “Iraqi Constitution” defines Iraqis according to their ethnicities and religious sects. It was designed to divide Iraqis and sow the seeds of hatred and division that defined Iraq today. Hence, the Occupation-generated violence is a deliberate strategy to justify the presence of U.S. troops in Iraq. It is the Bush regime’s strategy to "stay the course". It has achieved what the U.S. regime has planned before the aggression; the destruction of Iraq’s unity and the establishment of a U.S. military foothold in Iraq.

More than five years of murderous Occupation, George Bush and his criminal accomplices remain unindicted. Moreover, the Bush regime is refusing to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq and restore the Iraqi freedom and independence. Instead, the Bush regime is bribing and coercing members of the criminal puppet government – whose survival depends on the Occupation – to sign a deal to permanently station U.S. troops in Iraq against the will of the Iraqi people. It is now clear to everyone that the motives for the premeditated aggression and subsequent Occupation are:

1. to establish a colonial dictatorship in Iraq through an open-ended military presence and use the country as a launching pad to attack other countries;

2. enhance Israel’s Zionist expansion in Palestine and the Middle East in general; and

3. guard Western multinational oil corporations seizing control of strategic Iraqi oil reserves.

The "Surge" and Ethnic Cleansing In Iraq

Meanwhile, the propaganda for a new “victory” in Iraq is in full swing. The so-called “reduction” in violence against Iraqi civilians has much to do with the mass killing and widespread ethnic cleansing that have left less people to kill not the “surge” in troops number as the Bush’s regime alleges. According to the Pentagon Quarterly Report, Iraq has become a nation of ethnically cleansed neighbourhoods, separated by concrete walls dividing communities and preventing free movement. This so-called “neighbourhood homogenisation” has been achieved only through a U.S.-controlled reign of terror and mass murder of Iraqi civilians. Today, a large part of Baghdad’s neighbourhoods have been emptied of their original population. At least 5 million Iraqis are either internally displaced or refugees in neighbouring countries.

Other studies have also pointed out to the ethnic cleansing perpetuated by U.S. forces and U.S.-controlled death squads and militias in reducing some of the violence against Iraqi civilians and have rejected the Bush’s regime propaganda that the “surge” is responsible for the “reduction” in violence. One of these studies is the UCLA Study. While the Study found that “the surge has no observable effect”, it is also deliberately misleading. The Study suggestion that the “surge” designed “to improve the materials condition of life and create a breathing space for political compromise between major factions” in Baghdad is a falsehood. The “surge” is part of the Republicans propaganda campaign which is designed to mislead the American public and provides John McCain with something to say about a murderous Occupation. The reality is that the Occupation remains the root causes of violence and destruction in Iraq.

Furthermore, Iraqi sources reveal that conditions are worsening in the Baghdad once again ‘despite the heavy presence of Iraqi security forces and a surge in number of checkpoints’. U.S. officials say the “surge” is “success”, but they also called the situation “fragile” and “reversible”, means the Occupation will continue.

Another factor that has contributed to the “reduction” in violence is that the U.S. began paying militias, including the Kurdish militia and collaborators to collaborate and stop carrying out killings (executions) anti-Occupation civilians. Additionally, Iran role in restraining Iranian criminals and Iranian-controlled militias and encouraged them to collaborate with the Occupation must be acknowledged.

At the timing of this writing, U.S. troops killed 11 people from one family while conducting a dawn raid on a house in the Seventeen Tammuz neighbourhoods, west of Mosul. It is an established fact that the ongoing violence is controlled by U.S. forces and their collaborators. This has been the norm since 2003. Of course, every time U.S. forces perpetuated a massacre of Iraqi civilians, they cover-up their war crimes by alleging that they have killed “al-Qaeda” fighters. The phantom, which the U.S. created to justify terrorism, keeps growing wherever U.S. forces invade a foreign nation.

The unprovoked criminal invasion and subsequent Occupation of Iraq have resulted in deliberate mass killing and physical destruction of Iraq in whole or in part. Every major population centre has been targeted by a campaign of terror and indiscriminate aerial bombings using all kinds of legally banned weapons of mass destruction. At least 1.3 million innocent Iraqi civilians, mostly women and children, have been killed since 2003. While this figure is a conservative figure, it is still much higher than the Rwandan genocide.

Only the U.S. and Israel (and their allies) could get away with such unimaginable war crimes against innocent civilians and terrorism. In every country the U.S. and its allies have invaded, they brought chaos and insecurity rather than “freedom” and “democracy”, they destroyed rather than build, they brought poverty rather than prosperity, and they sowed the seeds of violence rather than seeds of peace. The ongoing atrocities in Iraq and Afghanistan are just the current examples.

According to the UN Convention on Genocide, there is an ongoing genocide in Iraq. Genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group such as:

* killing members of the group;

* causing serious bodily or mental harm;

* deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;

* imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; and

* forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

Hence, there is overwhelming evidence to charge George Bush and his willing allies and accomplices with war crimes and genocide. An indictment of Western leaders with war crimes and crimes against humanity could pave the way for a peaceful and just world and reduce the eventuality of premeditated and unprovoked war of aggression.

Finally, the Pentagon-funded propaganda campaign is a psychological warfare designed to whitewash a murderous Occupation. The only way to end the colonial Occupation of Iraq and stop the mass slaughter of innocent Iraqi civilians is the immediate withdrawal of all U.S. troops and mercenaries from Iraq.

© Copyright 2008 by AxisofLogic.com

This material is available for republication as long as reprints include verbatim copy of the article its entirety, respecting its integrity. Reprints must cite the author and Axis of Logic as the original source including a "live link" to the article. Thank you!

Ghali Hassan is an Axis of Logic Columnist and independent writer living in Australia. Read his Bio and additional articles on Axis of Logic. He can be contacted at: ghalih1@yahoo.com.

BIO AND ADDITIONAL ARTICLES BY GHALI HASSAN

MI-5 Chief: 9/11 Response Was OverDone

Ex-U.K. Security Chief: 9/11 Response Was Overdone

By The Associated Press
Last update - 00:06 19/10/2008
Courtesy Of Haaretz

The former head of Britain's security services said in remarks published Saturday that the response to the 9/11 terror attacks in the United States was a huge overreaction.

Stella Rimington, who retired 12 years ago from Britain's domestic security service, MI5, said the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 were not that different from other terrorist attacks.

"You know, it was another terrorist incident. It was huge, and horrible, and seemed worse because we all watched it unfold on television," she is reported as saying in an interview published Saturday by the Guardian.

"I'd lived with terrorist events for a good part of my working life, and this was, as far as I was concerned, another one," she was quoted as saying.

Rimington has become a vocal critic of the British government's anti-terror legislation. She opposed the government's plan to extend the amount of time police can hold terror suspects without charge from 28 to 42 days, a proposal that was defeated in the House of Lords last week.
In the interview, Rimington is also reported to have said said the Iraq war led some young men to take up terrorism.

"If what we're looking at is groups of disaffected young men born in this country who turn to terrorism, then I think to ignore the effect of the war in Iraq is misleading," she is quoted as saying.

Britain's Foreign Office said it had no comment.

Imperialist Strategic Thinking On Iran

By Reza Fiyouzat
Online Journal Contributing Writer
Oct 17, 2008, 00:23
Courtesy Of OnlineJournal

In a recent policy paper by the New American Foundation (among whose board members sits Francis ‘End of History’ Fukuyama), it is argued that the next U.S. administration must engage Iran with a ‘grand bargain,’ which addresses both Iran and the U.S.’s strategic concerns. The paper argues that the piecemeal approach the U.S. has taken towards Iran has clearly failed to change the behavior of the regime in Iran, and a détente is not a desirable option. The only stable and strategically appropriate path to take is a full rapprochement.

The policy paper is very frank in its approach, as imperialists usually are among themselves. It argues that Iran is strategically too important to be alienated, and argues that in the absence of a full rapprochement, Iran’s leaders will have no choice but to flee to the Russian and the Chinese spheres of influence. Iran’s hydrocarbon resources are vast (second in the world, in combined oil and gas), and its strategic positioning in the Middle East is not something the U.S. can afford to do without for much longer. More importantly, Iran’s animosity toward the U.S. can be detrimental to the advance of the American interests in the region. So, the best thing to do is for the U.S. to strike a ‘grand bargain’ with a regime that has historically proven that it can cooperate with the U.S., but has never been rewarded fully for its past cooperation both in fighting the Taliban regime and their overthrow, as well as in the American military and political designs for Iraq.

The wish list of things to be granted by the U.S. and Iran in such a grand bargain include the familiar demands: Iran is to modify its nuclear program to accommodate Western powers’ concerns, disavow the ‘terrorist’ organizations such as Hamas, Hezbullah and the Islamic Jihad, and help stabilize the region for Uncle Sam. In turn, the U.S. is to guarantee that it will not militarily (or otherwise) try to change Iran’s borders or its form of government, lift all unilateral sanctions against Iran, and generally play nice.

Of particular interest is the following passage from the policy paper: “During their dialogue with U.S. counterparts over Afghanistan in 2001-03, Iranian diplomats indicated their interest in working with the United States to establish a regional security framework focused on Central Asia. Other senior Iranian officials raised such a possibility with us in 2003-04.” Hardly an anti-imperialist stance on the part of the Iranian regime! On the contrary, this is clearly indicative of a regime with ambitions for becoming a cop on the beat (much like the Shah’s regime was for the Americans), and wants that role officially sanctioned by the biggest cop on the global beat, the U.S.

These are recommendations of a group of professionals whose bread is buttered by thinking ahead and advising Uncle Sam on the best course of action to take in order to secure its long-term geo-strategic interests. The analysis provided by the New American Foundation shows that powerful forces within the imperil halls of the U.S. also find the ‘cop on the beat’ scenario for Iran as something desirable.

This line of thinking is not isolated to think tanks, as attested to by a Time magazine article of 4 October 2008, titled “Changing the conventional wisdom about Iran.” In this Time article, France is portrayed as the key European power to lead the charge for a strategic adjustment of policy as regards Iran.

As reported there: “‘The opportunity is there to move past the 30 year-old images of a defiant and frightening revolutionary Iran, and start encouraging cooperative behavior by engaging with Iran as the swiftly-developing nation and regional power it is,’ says Bernard Hourcade, an Iran specialist at France’s National Center for Scientific Research. ‘The key is direct American involvement in relations, because renewed ties with the U.S. is what Iran wants most.’”

Further, the Time article reports: “‘Iran’s biggest strategic concern is obtaining security assurances and accords, and the only nation that can provide those is the U.S.,’ says Didier Billion, deputy director of the Institute on International and Strategic Relations in Paris. The logic behind that view is supported by Thomas Fringar, chairman of the U.S. National Intelligence Council and the senior analyst in Washington’s intelligence community.”

There have been other indications as well. For one, there have been reports on the volume of U.S.-Iran trade, which have increases tenfold during the Bush administration. Another highly telling development was the plans of Bush administration to open a diplomatic post in Iran (see here). Though the plan was shelved, “in part over fears it could affect the U.S. presidential race or be interpreted as political meddling,” other reports indicate that it is still under consideration.

If the Bush administration’s stated animosity toward Ahmadinejad’s administration (or the Iranian regime as a whole) were as deep-rooted as the alarmists have been stating, whence did these considerations of opening a diplomatic post materialize?

The truth is that American imperialism is not on very solid foundations. Besides its military power, which alone does not acquire one an empire, most other aspects of its power are on very shaky ground, as the current financial meltdown has made plain. For its maintenance therefore it requires two things: prevention of other powers from rising, and a host of client states in geo-strategically important regions. The grand bargain discussed here addresses both requirements.

To summarize, these are important signs and the writing is on the wall that neither this nor the next president of the U.S. will be looking at bombing Iran; rather, he’ll be likely offering the regime of the mullahs yet more cakes and the keys to the heavens the mullahs have been asking for.

Zagari Fight

In a previous article (“A New Cold War?” Counterpunch, January 29, 2007), I likened the current relationship between Iran and the U.S. as to what in Iran we call a ‘Zargari fight,’ which basically is a verbal back and forth between two parties who have no intention of actually engaging each other in a hand-to-hand. ‘Zargar’ is an ironsmith, and when two ironsmiths engage is such a verbal fight, the purpose is mostly to gather a crowd, from whose patronage both ironsmiths can potentially benefit.

In that article and more recently, I have argued that the U.S. ruling classes do not want a regime change in Iran at all. On the contrary, they like and appreciate greatly the theocratic setup in Iran, and all they wish is for the mullahs cool it down on the rhetorical front and act differently with regards to a few agenda items dear to Uncle Sam’s heart as pertains to the regional setup in the Middle East.

For their part, the Iranian regime has no fundamental animosity with imperialists and in fact has open dealings with European imperialists, the IMF and the World Bank, and would very much like to join the World Trade Organization. As pertains to the Americans in particular, again we remind the reader of the full cooperation forwarded by the Iranian regime in the invasion of Afghanistan (and the installment of Hamid Karzai as a puppet president), as well as with the overthrow of Saddam’s regime and the installation of a puppet regime in Iraq.

These are facts. If these were not factual truths, no faction of the U.S. ruling class would be singing the praises of the benefits of engaging the mullahs with a ‘grand bargain.’ No such grand bargains were ever conjured up with regards to Saddam’s regime.

There are, of course, some organizations (e.g., CASMII) whose entire reason for being is to make mountains out of the molehill of the disagreements between the leaders of the two nations, in order to set themselves up with a political trading post, and in so doing they must talk up the imminent threats of war and destruction that is about to rain down on Iran at the hands of U.S. imperialism, and to justify their lobbying efforts in behalf of the theocratic regime in Iran.

Such organizations, however, have no problems with imperialists setting up open and legal shop in Iran, nor have they any objections to U.S. corporations looting our resources openly and legally with the blessing of our own government. Indeed, they consider such ‘economic cooperation’ as the spirit of our times and a blessing to be sought. And should anybody warn that the economic interests of the imperialists are the real driving force behind political-military actions that will land you the ready-at-hand label of ‘hawkish’ and hollow accusations of ‘struggling to sow antagonism against Iran.’

Much to these leftists’ delight, we are now observing the contours of an imperialist ‘grand bargain’ with the mullahs’ regime emerging (along the lines of the deal Nixon struck with China in early 1970s). This line of dealing with the Iranian regime is not surprising at all; Brzezinski, in the late 1970s, regarded the Grand Ayatollah Khomeini as a strategic ally of the imperialists in their efforts to strap a ‘Green Belt’ (of Islamist states) around the Soviet Union.

As a socialist, I do not reduce imperialism to its military moves. Socialists understand that war is another way of pursuing political objectives, so for those of us who don’t put the cart before the horse, it is clear that wars happen for political-economic reasons. Why would imperialists go through the gigantic mess of a war, not to mention carry the even larger financial burdens that currently they clearly cannot afford, when the adversary is willing to accommodate the imperialists’ wishes through mere negotiations? All that is required of both sides is to find a solution that leaves both their faces unmarred, one that both can take home to their people as a ‘strategic victory.’

The ‘grand bargain’ is clearly such a solution.

So, the likes of CASMII and their American friends can now stop their rhetorical abuses of Iranian socialists, who have been warning about such bargains, and can consider their work done. They can now register as legal, foreign lobbying agents at the service of this theocracy and bring consistency between their speech and their political acts. They can stop sounding like Zionists and their supporters, whose most ready-at-hand rhetorical grenade of choice is ‘anti-Semitism’ -- except, of course, those over at CASMII will call you ‘hawkish’ or a ‘neocon’ if you so much as direct any criticism at this theocratic dictatorship. These hard working deflectors can now concentrate on generating actual positive publicity for the Iranian government, instead of forever repelling criticisms directed at the mullahs by those who are truly fighting for social justice.

Reza Fiyouzat can be reached at: rfiyouzat@yahoo.com.

Copyright © 1998-2007 Online Journal

Kathmandu, Center Of U.S. Espionage In South Asia

By Wayne Madsen
Online Journal Contributing Writer
Oct 17, 2008, 00:21
Courtesy Of OnlineJournal

(WMR) -- The new U.S. embassy in Kathmandu occupies the grounds of a former CIA safe house and operations center in the Nepali capital. The embassy, in the Maharajgunj district of Kathmandu, is a one-block long fortress-like structure and the subject of derision among the Nepali people. The embassy is built along Stalinesque architectural standards now common with new U.S. embassies around the world: stark, rectangular structures that convey the notion that the United States is an impenetrable fortress that is closed to the outside world.

A drive-by of the embassy did not afford the opportunity to take a photograph of the monolithic building because the embassy frontage is well protected by Nepali contract security personnel.

WMR has spoken to a number of informed Nepali and foreign sources who confirmed that espionage has been and is the number one priority of the American diplomatic mission in Nepal’s capital. The current U.S. ambassador is Nancy Powell, who one Nepali official described as “weird.” Powell has done nothing to convince the Bush administration to drop its designation of the Maoist Communist Party that now governs Nepal in a coalition with two other Communist parties, as a “terrorist organization.”

There is widespread belief among the intelligence community that the Bush administration may try to carry out another massacre like the one its helped to plan and carry out against the royal family in 2001. This time, former Maoist People’s Liberation Army (PLA) of Nepal is being disarmed with a plan to integrate it with the Nepali Army and Police. In the meantime, the PLA have been directed to containment camps supervised by the United Nations Mission in Nepal (UNMIN), which is now trying to slow the military integration process, as well as delaying the process of writing a new constitution for Nepal. The stalling action by the UN and UNMIN head Ian Martin, against the backdrop of the U.S.-Indian nuclear deal, may be a prelude for another coup in Nepal, one designed by the United States to destabilize a country that sits between China and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC). In the event of a coup, the disarmed PLA ranks would be sitting ducks for a massacre similar to the bloody anti-Communist purge in Indonesia in the 1960s, carried out by the Indonesian government with the support of the CIA.

The new U.S. embassy was built without Nepali contractor assistance. Instead, the State Department contracted to have construction personnel brought in from Turkey, Kazakhstan, and Egypt, driving up labor costs because the foreign workers were housed in some of Kathmandu’s most expensive hotels.

The embassy is built on the grounds of the Brahma Cottage, a center for the operations of the CIA’s and State Department’s joint Surveillance Device Unit. The CIA contracted with Nepali contractors to carry out surveillance of the palace of the then-Prince Gyenendra and Nepal Police Headquarters. Gyanendra became King after the June 1, 2001, regicidal coup d’etat against the royal family, which saw Gyanendra accede to the throne. The Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) and its coalition partners later deposed Gyanendra and declared a new Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal.

The Brahma Cottage CIA center, which was next door to Gyanendra’s palace, was also used by the CIA to plan the regicide and coup d’etat with the assistance of former Nepali police officers and the cooperation of India’s Research and Analysis Wing (RAW). The old U.S. embassy was across the street from Brahma Cottage.

In September 2002, this editor wrote, “In the months leading up to the Nepali coup, the CIA established an office in the Maharajgunj District of Kathmandu, next door to the residence of Prince Gyanendra. Witnesses reoprtedly saw streams of Nepali police and military officials streaming into the offices. Other U.S. ‘civilians,’ said to be with private military contractor CIA fronts like MPRI, were also seen arriving at the offices. In the spring, a U.S. Special Operations Forces team arrived in Kathmandu on a secret exercise code-named Bailey Nightingale I. The cover for the exercise was said to be earthquake disaster training. But it now appears it had another disaster in mind. The military team was composed of U.S. psychological operations (PSYOPs) personnel adept at coming up with tales like the one about the Crown Prince murdering his family.”

Crown Prince Dipendra was reported to have shot his entire family in a pique of rage over a his choice of a bride. The BBC report of the incident exemplified the psyop used to spread the word about the Crown Prince killing his family: “The King and Queen of Nepal have been shot dead after the heir to the throne went on the rampage with a gun before turning it on himself. Eleven people died in the incident which started when Crown Prince Dipendra allegedly had a dispute with his mother over his choice of bride. King Birendra, Queen Aishwarya and Prince Niranjan were among the victims of the tragedy at the royal palace in Nepal’s capital, Kathmandu. The other victims included three of the King’s children, his two sisters and one more member of the family by marriage.” The report by the BBC, which increasingly acts as an echo chamber for British intelligence, was false.

However, a senior Nepali intelligence officer told WMR that Dipendra did not kill himself but was shot to death by a royal guard. There is reason to believe that Dipendra was the first person shot in the royal massacre.

The CIA’s involvement in Nepal’s covert operations is nothing new. From 1956 to 1962, the CIA ran a Tibetan exile Khampa guerrilla army that launched attacks within Tibet from bases in the small kingdom of Mustang, a principality in Nepal on the northern border with Tibet. After India lost its two wars with China in the early 1960s, the CIA reactivated its Tibetan guerrilla army to open a front against China, which was militarily supporting North Vietnam and the Vietcong, in Operation Shadow Circus.

In August 1974, the CIA ordered the liquidation of its last Tibetan guerrilla army leader Wangdu Gyatotsang and his men after Secretary of State Henry Kissinger began opening up to China and, in a Ribbentropian policy, began cutting loose U.S. allies in Southeast Asia and gave approval to India’s swallowing up of the Kingdom of Sikkim. According to intelligence sources, the CIA received the approval of the Dalai Lama in Dharamsala, India in using other Tibetan contractors to eliminate the last Tibetan guerrilla army. The CIA was more concerned about its secret operations in Mustang becoming public than in protecting its own guerrilla forces.

In 1987, the CIA’s station in Kathmandu oversaw the burglary of the German Democratic Republic’s embassy in Kathmandu. According to a Nepali intelligence official, among the items taken from the embassy were code books, encryption machines, and classified documents. The operation was carried out with the assistance of the First Secretary of the East German embassy and a Nepali police inspector. Both were spirited out of Nepal and given political asylum in the United States.

Documentarian Yoichi Shimatsu, in his film “Prayer Flags,” points out that the CIA continued to use Nepal as a base for its covert operations throughout the 1990s when it used the guise of installing seismographic and geological monitoring systems to place surveillance systems and sensors at high elevations in the Himalayas.

The new Maoist-led government of Nepal has told Mustang’s powerless and nominal king, Jigme Parwat Bista, that his small principality was being abolished, along with the other three small kingdoms of Salyan, Jajarkot, and Bajhang. However, Bista was not a supporter of the last king, Gyanendra, according to informed sources in Kathmandu. His kingdom’s past support for the CIA’s operations against China has resulted in “blowback” in his kingdom being abolished by Nepal’s Maoist government.

The CIA’s old Nepal proprietary airline, Fishtail Air, founded by a veteran of Camp Walker in Seoul, South Korea, still flies around Nepal.

Nepal also served as a terror nexus between individuals connected to the CIA in Kathmandu and the Dawood Ibrahim criminal syndicate that carried out the March 12, 1993 bombings of the Bombay Stock Exchange, Bombay hotels, cinemas, and shopping centers that killed over 300 people. The bombings were a reprisal for the destruction of the Babri Mosque at Ayodhya by Hindu extremists. Over two thousands Muslims, including women and children, were massacred by rampaging Hindus after the mosque’s destruction. Ibrahim is now believed to be hiding in Pakistan.

Currently, the U.S. embassy in Kathmandu continues to conduct covert operations against China, mostly through non-governmental organizations (NGOs) like the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and Trace Foundation, a Tibetan support group run by Andrea Soros Colombel, and funded by her father, George Soros. The recent outbreak of violence in Tibet by pro-independence Tibetans was an attempt at fomenting yet another “colored themed” revolution by Soros, a one-time Hungarian Jewish Nazi and not the first Nazi to have an interest in the Himalayan region where swastika religious symbol is ubiquitous.

The Trace Foundation is working with one of the Buddhist Tantric sects that has the aim of revealing the Kalachakra prophecy, which predicts a final global war between the forces of good versus a future Islamic Mahdi. A Buddha-type figure is foreseen as returning as a new Messiah. This construct is similar to the neocon “Clash of Civilizations” that sees a final showdown between the West and Islam. The Trace Foundation is trying to co-opt the old messianic Buddhist tradition to unify major world religions to install a global government, according to a specialist who has followed Soros’ activities in Tibet and Nepal

Previously published in the Wayne Madsen Report.

Copyright © 2008 WayneMadenReport.com

Wayne Madsen is a Washington, DC-based investigative journalist and nationally-distributed columnist. He is the editor and publisher of the Wayne Madsen Report (subscription required).

Copyright © 1998-2007 Online Journal

'Bush Responsible For Weakening Nuclear Rules'

19 Oct 2008, 0615 hrs IST, PTI
Courtessy Of The TimesOfIndia

WASHINGTON: Democratic Congressman Edward Markey, who opposed the Indo-US civil nuclear deal, held President Bush responsible for weakening of the
nuclear rules and ruining the vital arms control policy.

"By destroying the nuclear rules for India, President Bush has weakened the rules for everyone else. Pakistan and China will be the first, but almost certainly not the last, to take advantage of this weakened system," Markey said in a statement while reacting over the reports of Pakistan to build nuclear reactors with China's help.

The Democrat Congressman said that the Bush administration told the world that the US-India nuclear deal was unique, "but just as many experts warned all along, Pakistan and China clearly have a different idea."

He termed the President Bush's decision to push the deal, in the waning days of his administration as "unwise" and "undoing decades of vital arms control policy."

"Today's announcement of new nuclear reactors in Pakistan to be built with China's help will ensure that this failed administration will indeed leave behind a distinct legacy, though not the kind that arms control experts and historians will judge favourably," the Massachusetts Democrat said in the statement.

Markey, a senior member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee and the founder and co-chair of the House Bipartisan Task Force on Non-proliferation, during his opposition to the Indo-US had said "it (the deal) would not only lead to an arms race in South Asia but also push Pakistan to pursue a similar deal with China and which Beijing was most likely to assist."

The "Good Guys" Lost The Cold War

Exclusive!

By Eric Walberg
Oct 14, 2008, 11:43
Courtesy Of AxisOfLogic

Reflections From Tashkent Circa 2003

When the West was forced to drop its Cold War (CW) campaign (during WWII, and to some extent during the early 60s and mid-70s, due to the invigorated peace struggles of the time) there was a slight breathing space which gave hope to the possibility of detente, i.e., respect of each system for the other's right to exist. More precisely: respect by capitalism of the right to exist of a social system diametrically opposed to capitalism. As opposed to Thatcher's TINA (There Is No Alternative) -- There Was An Alternative (TWAA)! Fear of this ‘enemy’ quickly evaporated among intelligent mainstream people in the West. These brief respites were tactical retreats in the long-term fight by imperialism, biding its time. Imperialism was always ready to provoke a new CW crisis, and did so on many occasions. I was able to slip through the ideological door during the flowering of detente in the mid-70s.

Who was able to see through the bourgeois mist? I ‘saw the light’ while studying at Cambridge University. My studies were framed by the coup in Chile in September 1973 and the liberation of Saigon in the spring of 1975. The low point for US imperialism, the high point (the last, it turned out) for the SU. I studied with Marxists and suddenly saw the 20th c through new lenses. I immediately started to learn Russian. Upon my return to Toronto, I began to seek out fellow travelers. In desperation, I looked in the phone book under USSR, but there was not even a Soviet Consulate (though there was a Bulgarian, a Czech, even a Cuban one). I eventually stumbled across the Canada-USSR Friendship Society, a motley collection of primarily Slavic and east European immigrants, Jews, with a smattering of WASP peaceniks. A friendly if doctrinaire group, with no sign of any Philbies, Macleans and the like. In retrospect I see that the peacenik contingent was more conspicuous in their absence.

In the 1970s, I diligently studied Russian and finally managed to get to Moscow to study through the Friendship Society, a bizarre and highly memorable experience to say the least. I visited the SU several more times, both as a tourist, tour guide and delegate to the last World Youth Festival in 1985.

In the mid-80s, when the pretense of Soviet aggression could no longer be sustained, the Iron Curtain in Western progressives’ minds finally came down (see below) and it was actually possible to work with the more establishment peace movement to found Canadian-Soviet twin cities, in particular, to revive the WWII Toronto-Stalingrad twin cities, to promote conferences and exchanges...

Then I came to live in Moscow in 1989 during the crazy last few years of perestroika, and experienced many faces of Soviet reality. My sense of urgency in getting there ASAP was not ill-founded, as it turned out.

The brief respites were remarkable in retrospect. It is impossible to conceive of such an atmosphere today, when any attempt to challenge world capitalism’s total control of a country’s economy is directly sabotaged through IMF blackmail, currency runs, etc., and if that doesn’t work fast enough, direct political interference (as a random example, Jeb Bush’s full page ads in Nicaraguan papers during the presidential election there), even direct support of (often US-trained) elements in the military to engineer a coup (the most recent being in Venezuela), or, increasingly, direct invasion, as in Afghanistan and Iraq. Bush et al have vowed publicly never to let another country challenge the US militarily again. (How ironic, now that military superiority has lost all meaning in an age of dirty bombs and anthrax.)

Proust To The Rescue

But I leave the hardcore political arguments to my friend's essay, which inspired this long postscript. Here I want to reflect on my own luck in being able to see the forest despite the trees.

Whether due to my authoritarian family upbringing and my subsequent rebellion, or my love of culture and intellectual pursuits, or, most likely, a combination of the above, my Proustian life adventure – my madeleine, so to speak, has been Soviet reality, which even more than Proust’s childhood, has been lost to time, as petty dictators throughout the CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States) do their best to erase all nostalgia for a system that bravely, however pigheadedly, dared to challenge capitalism. Thank God for Proust, who articulates much of what saddens me, and for whom where life immures, the intelligence cuts a way out. - In Search of Lost Time (ISLT) Time Regained

Why do I hang around here? Proust to the rescue: my living here under both systems has allowed me to first experience and then to recreate the feelings of that time through associations (smells, sights). When Proust gives up Elstir for Albertine, he muses: the objective value of the arts counts for little compared to our feelings, our passions, that is to say the passions and feelings of all mankind. (ISLT VI) Unfashionable homemade blue jeans were more fashionable to me than some anonymous Levi’s. No-name porridge in a paper bag is tastier than Quaker Oats (as long as moths don’t flutter out when I open the bag). Bootlegged Soviet underground rock is sexier that The Who (going back to my 70s experiences at Moscow State University). You get the idea.

I remember cursing bad quality goods, buses billowing thick blue clouds of exhaust, rude clerks, the usual. Now, memories of things Soviet, these included, can conjure not only my youth, but life lived in defiance of the march of capitalism. They provide a wonderful respite from the Orwellian psychic landscape of 2003. Experience actually interferes with the imagination, since you need memory to imagine, and physical reality supplants memory:

"I experienced disappointment with reality because when my sense perceived it, my imagination (my only organ for enjoyment of beauty) could not apply itself to it, in virtue of that ineluctable law which ordains that we can only imagine what is absent." (ISTL VI p440)

I curse myself now for having egotistically cursing the inanities of the system then, without a clear perspective, impatient for the frills of the West, with its seductive smorgasbord of goods, sensual and intellectual.

The famous Madeliene quote from Swann’s Way:

"An exquisite pleasure had invaded my senses, something isolated, detached, with no suggestion of its origin. And at once the vicissitudes of life had become indifferent to me, its disasters innocuous, its brevity illusory – this new sensation having had the effect, which love has, of filling me with a precious essence; or rather this essence was not in me, it was me. I had ceased now to feel mediocre, contingent, mortal. Whence could it have come to me, this all-powerful joy?"

Now I drown here in Uzbekistan in a parody of Western society: monstrously incongruous ads with grossly lascivious sex symbols selling glossily-packaged, imported Nestles milk powder (one thing Uzbekistan does not lack is cows for fresh milk) or chewing gum which promises to get you laid; the ‘new Uzbeks/ Russians’ in their Mercedes, who formerly would either have been invisibly ensconced (with very modest privileges) in senior positions in the CPSU or at the other extreme, imprisoned as mafia, but who have, like vampire bats, used their fundamentally anti-social, aggressive egotism to muscle aside others and take control of the reins of the economy; self-declared ‘presidents’ with the trappings of bourgeois democracy, fomenting chauvinistic nationalism to buttress their thin claims to power, imprisoning, torturing, and killing far more innocents than in the worst days of Brezhnev’s stagnation.

The apparatchiks in former times trod much more lightly, as their meager luxuries could be taken away in a flash if they stepped out of line, since the privileges depended on their position in society, not on private property.

These altercations with ‘reality’ are painful, even nauseating, and obliterate the imagination. I see how bleak most people’s lives have become – their savings long ago wiped out, the desperate struggle to scrape together enough money to clothe and feed their children, let alone to ensure adequate medical attention. One night a year ago, the quiet, intelligent lady on the 3rd floor knocked on my door late at night. When I peered out, she broke into anguished tears, pleading for help to pay for an emergency operation to save her son, who had fallen on broken glass in the courtyard (few can afford summer camps as in Soviet times) and had a severe spinal injury. Such a scene would have been unthinkable in Soviet times.

A trip downtown is heart-rending at any time, passing dozens of destitute old people, begging or trying to salvage some self-respect by selling their pathetic possessions one by one. At the same time, I am constantly propositioned to teach business English or to lecture in business studies, as if as a Westerner, I possess some magical property, as if mere contact with me can transmit something that will help them achieve the lifestyle they have seen in so many trashy Hollywood films which have swamped them in recent times, the once thriving local film industry having collapsed with ‘independence.’

To escape this nightmare reality, I turn to old Soviet classic movies, especially from the 1950s to the 1980s (Stalin-era popular culture is rather boring in its political correctness, much like Hollywood today), which fortunately still play on Russian TV, curiously on Saturdays and Sundays during the daytime (the evenings are reserved for Hollywood and Western soap operas). Take "The First Trolleybus" (1964), a delightful film about first love, comradeship, and the generation gap, with a dash of social criticism and several beautiful songs, or "Sentimental Romance" (1977), a retro film set during NEP in the 1920s with an ascetic, idealistic hero falling in love with a ballerina. How accurate are they, you ask? That’s not the point.

"The returning memory causes us suddenly to breathe a new air, an air which is new [to the present] precisely because we have breathed it in the past, that purer air which the poets have vainly tried to situate in paradise and which could induce so profound a sensation of renewal only if it had been breathed before, since the true paradises are the paradises that we have lost… The past was made to encroach upon the present and I was made to doubt whether I was in the one or the other… extra-temporal impressions which appear only when, through an identification of the present with the past, they allow us to enjoy the essence of things in the only way possible: outside time. I gained the power to rediscover days that were long past, the Time that was Lost." (ISLT IV pp438-9)

Now we can look forward to long, excruciating years of violent, aggressive US imperialism, intimidating and destroying as the whim takes it. Are you old enough to remember the world maps showing the ‘creeping cancer of communism’? We are now beginning to realize this threat was a hoax. I can add it was a cover for the real cancer which has now metastasized around the world and needs no naming. Capitalism’s iron fist is revealed for all to see. And just as centuries of reaction followed the rise and collapse of the Roman empire, we can anticipate a similar apocalyptic future as the fury of an unfettered empire spends itself in wars too horrible to contemplate and environmental destruction which will leave the earth a devastated wasteland.

Yes, the SU produced its own environmental disasters, notably the death of the Aral Sea and the Chernobyl blow-out, but it matured to the point of admitting this and valiantly forged ahead with radical reforms, despite the US resolve to the end to drive a stake through its heart. The gulags and Stalinist repression, while awful, were grossly exaggerated to suit the needs of the West at the time. Colonialism and fascism killed far more innocent people, and both were aggressive, starting wars with other countries. The SU, like Franco Spain, was repressive towards its own people (and buffer zones after WWII and the renewal of the CW), but after a brief flirting with permanent revolution following WWI, it was not interested in expanding.

Yes, I must use my intelligence to cut a way out of this bleak Brave New World, for ...

"... if there exists no remedy for a love that is not shared, the awareness of a state of suffering is something from which we can extricate ourselves, if only by deducing the consequences which it entails. The intelligence knows nothing of those closed situations of life from which there is no escape." (ISTL IV p434)

I must keep plodding along as gadfly to the poisonous cancer spreading around the globe, looking for gentle, modest, ascetic like-minded critics. It’s just too bad that when we finally ‘inherit the earth’ it will probably be a smoking, radioactive dump.

Though Proust lived to witness the Russian revolution, he made only two brief mentions of it in ISLT. More real and immediate for Proust was the madness of WWI, which is the poisonous backdrop which inspired his brilliant final volume, unfinished at his death, Time Regained. It is there that I found the best explanation for my sympathy with the ‘Soviet experiment’ and Western society’s hatred of it, in the person of wildly eccentric, homosexual Baron de Charlus:

"Just as Charlus’s Germanophilia helped me free myself for a moment, if not from my Germanophobia, at least from my belief in the pure objectivity of this feeling, had helped to make me think that what applied to love applied also to hate, that France’s terrible judgment passed on Germany was an objectification of feelings as subjective as those which had caused Rachel and Albertine [former lovers] to appear so precious, the one to Saint-Loup and the other to me.

"Love, hate – it’s all subjective ultimately. And the objects of our love (our obsession with them) may look ridiculous or even treasonous to others. (How often I was ridiculed and denounced for supporting the SU in the peace movement!) We can find arguments to support or discard anything in our solipcistic world at will. We can only slightly overcome this lopsided subjectivism by ‘putting ourselves in the other’s shoes’, seeing ‘the mote in our eye’.

"Just as I as an individual have had successive loves and at the end of each one its object had appeared to me valueless, so I had already seen in my country successive hates which had, for example, at one time condemned as traitors those very Dreyfusards with whom today patriotic Frenchmen were collaborating against a race whose every member was of necessity a liar, a savage beast, a madman, excepting only those Germans who had embraced the French cause." (ISLT IV pp481-2)

Consider how the latest ‘war on terrorism’ is really just the new love/ hate object of the US. The SU is now discarded, dead and buried, but the void of hatred in the collective unconscious it left required filling. Voila, bin Laden, Saddam Hussein, whoever. And many ‘Dreyfusards’ (former critics or victims of US imperialism, not to mention most Jews themselves), are now collaborators with US imperialism, having been absorbed by it. Thank God I was able to see past the myth of the Soviet threat, that I have not been sucked into the latest Western love-hate scenario, though it’s a lonely place to be.

The Difference With This Political Madeleine

Proust describes how he outgrew his successive loves, which leads to the realization that he is in fact a series of difference Prousts. But my systemic Madeleine conjures an unsated love. How bittersweet, this Lost Time. It’s not just my LT, but the LT for tens of millions, for a whole social system. Just as Proust in retrospect feels a searing guilt for a cross remark to his grandmother not long before she died, I feel sadness for cursing so much about the SU that frustrated me at the time. The sadness that many Soviets feel for passively watching the system crumble or actively abetting it.

Proust’s epiphany in the library at the end of Time Regained,

"... neutralized, temporarily annulled the harsh law by which we can only imagine what is absent. This fusion of past and present had added to the dreams of the imagination the concept of “existence” which they usually lack, allowing me to experience a fragment of time in the pure state. The being reborn in me at that moment is nourished only by the essences of things. In the observation of the present (where the senses cannot feed it with this food) it languishes, as it does in the consideration of a past made arid by the intellect or in the anticipation of a future which the will constructs with fragments of a utilitarian present and the past." (p440)

Yes, the SU is my Madeleine, for better or worse. A sound or smell can liberate the habitually concealed essence of things, and my true self is awakened by this “celestial nourishment.” I feel it on a crowd trolley as a babushka breathes her fiery garlic breath at me, as I wait in line for a cheap meal in a sleazy canteen… Sure, my memories are subjective, colored by my nostalgia for days past, new impressions, adventures… and the rude tram conductor in the ‘utilitarian present’ is usually just that, eliciting no epiphany. But then the kind one who slows to let me on between stops reminds me that rules in that other system were often meant to be broken (within limits).

But was it nutritious, this latter-day Madeleine? What was its essence? How can we avoid having our ‘consideration of the past’ made ‘arid by the intellect’ or anticipating ‘a future which the will constructs with fragments of a utilitarian present and the past?’

For all its political flaws (gulags, the Baltics, east European fiat, excessive censorship, political rigidity), it showed the viability of a non-capitalist way of organizing technological urban society (flaws – inefficiency, sloppiness, low standards, ecological) vs pluses (simplicity of life – no employment problem, free public services, low material needs, road access to culture, security, less competitive more egalitarian lifestyle). And we are not entirely exempt (certainly as a society) from responsibility for those political horrors.

Yes, I can feel the loss via Proust. It hurts like the loss of a close relative. And it doesn’t fade over time, though I can find temporary relief in ‘drugs, sex and rock’n roll’. And reflection.

I am fascinated by the archive of movies from the 40s (cold, crude), 50s (full of relief, hope), 60s (critical, some brilliant, even avant-garde), 70s (many dreary, some truly worthy of the ‘muse of censorship’), 80s (troubled, searching), 90-91 (anarchic, surreal), eerie documentaries culled from previously closed archives.

Yes, this feeling is subjective, but I know it is true, because this same impression exists in millions of others here, unbeknownst to condescending Westerners, who measure value in plastic wrappers and fat profits. I know it from reading the news, the horrors of modern Orwellian fascism, the stink of which penetrates my life even here, far from the bright lights of New York and the starving masses in the 3rd world. (For all its faults, Uzbekistan has yet to totally dismantle the socialist legacy, though it’s trying hard to.)

However, warns Proust, it doesn’t really help to go back to the physical places.

"Lost Time was not to be found again on the piazza of St Mark’s. Travel merely dangled before me the illusion that these vanished impressions existed outside myself. Impressions vanish at the touch of a direct enjoyment intended to engender them. The only way to savor them more fully was to try to get to know them more completely in the medium in which they existed, that is to say within myself." (ISLT IV pp445)

The rude tram conductor is there in person as exactly that – a rude tram conductor! I can find true peace only through the intellect and imagination."

So the upshot for my life journey is to search for the truth within, as so many other writers and philosophers beside Proust have exhorted us to do.

"How much more worth living did life appear to me now, now that I seemed to see that this life that we live in half-darkness can be illumined, this life that at every moment we distort can be restored to its true pristine shape, that a life, in short, can be realized within the confines of a book!" (ISLT IV p620)

Proust asks us to live our lives with reflection, incorporating the past, understanding it, linking it with the present, to find a way forward which is richly sensual. That is how we don’t fear death, as we have died many times already, and felt emotions which could hardly be surpassed in intensity, even by physical death, so that we can feel the truth of our lives. How strange for me, that my life journey is linked so intimately with the great struggles of war and peace of our age. I am grateful for that, though it is a heavy burden to bear.

"Man is obliged – a task more and more enormous and in the end too great for his strength – to drag his years with him wherever he goes." (ISLT IV p602)

Notes: Quotes from ISLT are from the Everyman edition.

© Copyright 2008 by AxisofLogic.com

This material is available for republication as long as reprints include verbatim copy of the article its entirety, respecting its integrity. Reprints must cite the author and Axis of Logic as the original source including a "live link" to the article. Thank you!

*Eric Walberg lives in Canada and writes for Al-Ahram Weekly where you can read his many essays. He is also a regular contributor to Axis of Logic. You can reach him at www.geocities.com/walberg2002/.

ADDITIONAL ARTICLES BY ERIC WALBERG

Zionism, Militarism, and The Decline Of US Power

Review Of James Petras' Book

By Stephen Lendman
October 16, 2008
Courtesy Of GlobalResearch

James Petras is Binghamton University Professor Emeritus of Sociology. His credentials and achievements are long and impressive as a noted academic figure on the left. A well-respected Latin American expert, and a longtime chronicler of the region's popular struggles.

He's also a prolific author of hundreds of articles and dozens of books, including his latest titled "Zionism, Militarism, and the Decline of US Power" and subject of this review. It follows from his earlier 2006 book: "The Power of Israel in the United States" that documented the Israeli Lobby's enormous influence over US Middle East policy and its destructive effects.

Petras continues the story in his latest book. Asks is Israel good for America, and responds by exposing and critiquing American Zionism. Its powerfully destructive influence. Its stranglehold on US politics, academia, the media, clergy, and over all segments of society voicing dissent. He debunks the notion that the Israeli Lobby is like all others and provides convincing evidence of its influence and veto power over war and peace, trade and investment, multi-billion dollar arms sales, and all Middle East policy issues under Democrat and Republican administrations alike.

Every Petras book is important. So is this one at a time the most powerful Washington Lobby is assured that a new administration will continue and expand the current "Global Wars on Terrorism." Petras explains the dangers. The current disastrous foreign adventurism. America's economic decline as a result, and the calamitous global fallout overall. High-level officials won't read this book, but they should. To realize the dangers of their destructive policies. How they threaten the republic's survival and are heading the nation for insolvency and ruin.

Part I - Zionism and US Militarism

How Zionist Power Promotes US Middle East Wars

Pretexts for invading and occupying Iraq went from:

-- WMDs;

-- to removing a dangerous dictator;

-- to establishing democracy in the Arab world;

-- to preventing a civil war;

-- to needing a colonial military victory to retain our global superpower status;

-- to reassuring regional regimes they can rely on us for protection; and

-- to proving America can fight and defeat "terrorism."

However, the longer the conflict continues (as well as the Afghan one), the less credibility any argument holds. The more likely an occupied people will grow more restive and reassertive. A similar likelihood that popular resistance will grow throughout the Middle East, Eurasia and elsewhere. The greater the economic and political cost. The less able a depleted military will be able to sustain foreign wars, and less willing the US public will put up with them. Yet they continue, and explanations why crop up as follows:

(A) A War for Oil with arguments ranging from:

(1) Big Oil wanted it;

(2) the White House acted reflexively on its behalf; to

(3) the urgency to secure the region's oil that Saddam Hussein threatened.

Petras responds that these explanations "fail several empirical tests:"

(1) Big Oil opposed the war and wants peace and stability instead;

(2) the oil giants tried to establish economic ties with Iraq before the invasion; they want and are denied the same arrangement with Iran and all other oil producing countries;

(3) they prefer gaining new markets and business economically and by building good relationships with host countries; not a single Big Oil CEO favored war and occupation; and

(4) "windfall profits" haven't materialized as benefits accruing from occupation; lucrative contracts to develop Iraqi oil aren't arranged; and the country is too violent to warrant serious investments to do it, except in the Kurdish north.

Still, war was declared. The occupation continues. The political and economic costs are enormous. Big Oil has been a loser, not a winner, and the evidence shows that the powerful Israeli Lobby trumped any opposition the oil giants could pose to match it.

Petras refers to the Zionist Power Configuration (ZPT). Its influence over the administration and Congress. Its tentacles spanning the country at the grassroots. Its control of the media, academia, the clergy, and important professional elements in the population. Its "slavish obedience to official Israeli policy" even when US interests are harmed. Its threat to US democratic freedoms, and the fact that anyone daring to confront Israeli policy becomes a target to be intimidated, blackmailed, smeared, pressured, and removed from positions of authority.

(B) the National Security Argument that breaks down as easily as a war for Big Oil. At its height, Iraq was a modestly strong regional power, but never a match for America or a nuclear-powered Israel. Following the 1980s war with Iran; the 1991 Gulf war; 12 years of punishing sanctions; repeated bombings in the 1990s; the patrolled no-fly zone and protected Kurdish north; and the depleted state of Iraq's military, the nation was in no position for conflict with any of its neighbors let alone with the world's only superpower. "Saddam Hussein was clearly not a threat."

Neither is Iran the way Israel, its Lobby, the administration, and most members of Congress portray it in an effort to push America into another disastrous war that will only benefit Israel in the short term. Its interests were key in influencing the Iraq war. Economic sanctions and the Gulf war preceding it. For the purpose of removing a regional rival. Eliminating the Palestinians' major source of support, and solidifying the Jewish state as the Middle East's leading power. Iran remains the main obstacle. Followed by Syria, Hezbollah in South Lebanon and the Hamas government in Gaza.

Israel and its Lobby want sequential wars to enhance its power by eliminating them all. Thus far, Congress and the administration have gone along. Saddam's Ba'athist regime is no longer a threat, but Iraq remains embroiled in turmoil with no end of conflict in sight. Many hundreds of billions have been spent containing it with little to show for the effort and expense, yet Israeli supporters want war with Iran and ignore the unimaginable fallout if it comes.

Nonetheless, most of official Washington and plenty of media disinformation back one. Starting off with tighter sanctions. A possible partial or full blockade. The idea being to harm the Islamic Republic. Then attack it in a weakened state. That's the plan. Will it happen? Perhaps if ZPC power prevails. But not if high-level Pentagon and others in Washington win out. They know the risks of inflaming the entire Muslim world. The unlikely possibility of regime change by war. The immense disruption to the region through retaliation, blocked oil shipments and skyrocketing prices, and how these factors will affect a world economy already reeling from the strains of a financial crisis.

Nonetheless, ZPC influence is considerable and can't be underestimated. It's "exercised directly on political, academic, and cultural decision makers to make sure their policies back pro-Israel, pro-Zionist interests." High-level administration officials represent it. People like Eliot Abrams, special National Security Council Middle East/North Africa "Global Democracy Strategy" advisor and DHS director Michael Chertoff.

Indirect ZPC power is exerted by:

-- "parlaying influence over a small group of Congressmen into a large majority;" also winning over the leadership of both parties and having them publicly pledge allegiance to Israel;

-- enhancing power by focusing on single issues - like denouncing prominent Israeli critics and assuring their views won't prevail or even be heard; removing them from Congress and other posts; figures like Cynthia McKinney twice from the House and Norman Finkelstein from the DePaul University faculty;

-- publicizing the successful punishing of critics to deter others;

-- employing mutually re-enforcing public and private sphere multiple resources like large-scale electoral financing and influencing donors not to contribute to Israeli critics; and

-- using powerful, effective, one-sided propaganda to demonize Arabs, especially Palestinians and critics; instead portray Israel as a "democratic fortress surrounded by hostile authoritarian governments;" also having the media on board reinforcing these views.

What precisely is the ZPC or Israeli Lobby? It's unlike any other in power. The breadth of its base, and the only one with no opposition. Representing less than 1% of the population (elites only), it consists of "a multiplicity of highly organized, well-financed and centrally-directed structures throughout the US." It includes scores of political action committees. A dozen or more think tanks, and the "52 major American Jewish organizations grouped under the umbrella listing 'Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations (CPMAJO).' " AIPAC, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), and the American Jewish Committee (AJC) are among them at the "national Executive-Congressional lobbying levels."

As or more important are local Jewish community federations and organizations throughout the country. In them are activist professionals - doctors, lawyers, accountants, small business leaders, academics, the clergy and many others who promote Israeli interests, denounce critics, and work to assure their voices aren't heard or are dimmed. On-campus pro-Israeli student organizations are also enlisted to spy on professors. Smear critical ones, and work to pressure universities to fire them.

The ZPC "octopus" reaches everywhere - "far beyond the traditional centers of big city power and national politics....into remote towns and cultural spheres" across the country. With powerful mass media backing, its influence is enormous, and only the brave dare opposes it. Yet they do, and their numbers are growing in spite of the risks.

The Israeli Lobby "is at or near the peak of its political power" - at all levels of government and through the mass media. Yet it's vulnerable nonetheless - because of the extent of its crimes. The defrauding of the American public. For forcing the country into two disastrous wars against Iraq and Afghanistan. Their enormous cost in dollars, lost lives, vast destruction, and mass human misery, and their showing US (and Israeli) democracy to be sheer fantasy.

High Pentagon officials are also angered for being led into "an unprecedented state of disgrace and demoralization, with thousands of officers tendering their early retirement, thousands of troops going AWOL, and an increasing number of retired senior officers expressing outrage" and wanting an end to clearly failed policies.

Nonetheless, the task facing critics is daunting, and consider the public record documentation of the relentless campaign for war against Iraq. In its run-up, "leading pro-Israel Jewish organizations produced approximately 8800 pieces of pro-Iraq war propaganda and circulated them to all its member organizations, every Congressperson, and every leading member of the executive branch, with follow-ups by local activists and an army of Washington lobbyists (150 from AIPAC alone) plus several hundred full-time activists from local and regional offices."

A 2002 - 2007 Financial Times survey (the leading Anglo-American business publication) of 1872 op-eds, editorials and letters contained "not a single (item) by any spokesperson or representative of a major (or minor) oil company calling for the invasion and occupation of Iraq or the bombing of Iran."

In contrast, the one-sided Daily Alert digest of pro-Israeli and Middle East propaganda (from 2004 through September 2007) published 960 issues with on average six daily articles calling for an immediate or near-term preemptive US and/or Israeli attack on Iran. Tightened economic sanctions also plus divestment and boycotts of Iranian products.

During the same period, the Financial Times (in 1053 issues) published no Big Oil op-eds, commentaries or letters advocating war or harsh measures against Iran. Quite the opposite. Large and smaller oil companies want peace and stability everywhere and the right to negotiate deals with all oil-producing states, including Iran. They also fear conflict will disrupt business. Damage or destroy their installations, and undermine transport routes and shipping lanes from wellheads to market destinations.

Yet conflict continues. More may be ahead under the current or next administration, and nothing is being done to address the core Middle East issue - resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict equitably. Short of that, no regional peace is possible nor can Israeli survive even nominally democratic. Yet Israeli Lobby influence thwarts every peace initiative, and consider three recent ones:

-- the bipartisan dismissal of a statement sent George Bush and Secretary Rice from former top political officials calling for Israel to abide by UN Resolutions 242, 338 and other conflict-resolving initiatives;

-- Tony Blair's "Quartet Peace-Making Mission" has been a total flop due to Israeli intransigence; and

-- the November Annapolis, MD peace conference proved just as fruitless because Israel wants conflict, not resolution.

Key for Israeli officials is total Palestinian subjugation. Weakening, isolating and destroying Iran. Emerging as the region's unchallengeable power, and tolerating no opposition to its aims. They represent "a clear and present danger to" America's freedoms, already seriously eroded and heading south unless reversed.

Yet there's hope in the form of "rising anger and hostility in America against the ZPC, against its arrogant authoritarian communal attacks on our democratic values, to say nothing about our national interests" - grievously harmed by supporting Israel's. An eventual backlash is coming because things that can't go on forever, won't.

The political and economic costs are enormous and ahead will come down to Chalmers Johnson's conclusion in his two most recent books. That America is plagued with the same dynamic that doomed past empires unwilling to change: "isolation, overstretch, the uniting of local and global forces opposed to imperialism, and in the end bankruptcy" combined with authoritarian rule and the loss of personal freedom. Supporting a tiny Middle East state with interests harming our own is hastening that outcome. It's high time this stops, but so far it's just wishful thinking.

War On Iran - The American Military v. the Israel Firsters

Israeli interests and its supportive Lobby have pitted Congress and administration officials against some top Pentagon commanders - irate over Iraq and opposed to more conflict against Iran. Which side will prevail isn't sure, but civilian militarists neutralized their critics. Marginalized, silenced or removed mid and high-ranking officers. Men like Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman General Peter Pace. Army Chief of Staff General Eric Shinseki. CENTCOM commander Admiral William Fallon. General John Abizaid for opposing the Bush administration's "surge." General Ricardo Sanchez for calling Iraq "a nightmare with no end in sight," and many others throughout an officer corp racked by half their numbers not re-enlisting. Career officers fed up, wanting out and leaving. Further depleting an already weakened military.

Nonetheless, the Lobby remains dominant even after losing key pro-Israel administration officials through forced or voluntary departures. Like Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Douglas Feith, Larry Franklin, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Abram Shulsky, David Wurmser, many lesser or unknown figures, and even Colin Powell who in February 2001 said: Saddam "has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbors" and thus poses no threat.

On February 5, 2003, he then disgraced himself before the UN Security Council by lying about Iraqi WMDs and "involvement in terrorism" and having CIA chief George Tenet and UN Ambassador (at the time) John Negroponte as visible props behind him for credibility. An episode he'll never live down nor should anyone let him.

Setbacks notwithstanding and the Bush administration's tenure nearly over, the Lobby remains supremely confident and empowered. It steamrolls opposition and neutralized the peace movement as well. Now diffused, misdirected, and supporting pro-war Democrats instead of taking to the streets, demanding an end to the Iraq occupation, no confrontation with Iran, and a dramatic change in course in Washington they want but won't fight for.

Even connecting with anti-war Pentagon officials would help as well as key fundamental issues between them and the Lobby:

-- the extent of the Iranian threat: none according to the IAEA; and evidence shows Iran is complying with NPT provisions unlike Israel that's a nuclear outlaw;

-- Iran's uranium enrichment program: it's lawful and poses no "existential threat" as Israel claims; intelligence and US military estimates are that at the earliest Iran might be able to produce a low-yield weapon by 2010 - 2015 if it wishes to; hardly a threat to Israel's nuclear arsenal and sophisticated delivery systems able to devastate any country in the region; none pose a threat to Israel or will in the foreseeable future;

-- Iran supplying arms to the Iraqi resistance: the Pentagon and CENTCOM repeatedly deny it; nonetheless, Israel and its Lobby claim it and the dominant media go along; and

-- consequences of attacking Iran: retaliation is certain; Israel will be harmed; so will US Iraqi forces; the Strait of Hormuz may be blocked through which up to one-third of Middle East oil passes and 20% of world production of 88 million barrels; and Iranian "sleeper cells" may be activated around the world for "big impact" terror missions.

None of this deters Israel, its Lobby and their policy of "no dialog, no diplomacy, and a blockade, weakened economy, ripe for Anglo-French-American bombing." They ignore a frequent criticism about having no "exit strategy" because they want the US to invade, occupy, colonize, build permanent bases, and wage unending "Global Wars on Terrorism" for total victory and dominance - of the region and beyond. So far, the Pentagon is their only effective opposition along with scattered former Washington officials like Zbigniew Brzezinski, Jimmy Carter, Henry Kissinger, Jim Baker and the president's father. Figures rarely given air time or op-ed space to voice these views. Short of that and mass grassroots activism, the possibility of an unthinkable Iran attack can't be discounted.

Burying The National Intelligence Estimate

In December 2007, the US National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) reported that Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003 (with no evidence one ever existed) and has none of these weapons in its arsenal. The Bush administration, Israel, and its Lobby dismissed the report calling it an Iranian ploy to buy time. The White House knew its findings months in advance. No doubt shared them with Israel, and effectively diffused them to remove an obstacle to new aggression. AIPAC, in fact, twisted NIE's findings by arguing they bolster the case for confrontation because the absence of a nuclearized Iran should support the case for greater pressure on the country.

With plenty of media support, the Lobby effectively buried the NIE report and refocused attention on "Iran's nuclear program still (being) a threat," and who can counteract it when no opposition voices get air time or op-ed space in key mainstream broadsheets. Nonetheless, the inteligence report has credibility and "made liars of the White House and Congressional Democrats and the Presidents of the Major American Jewish Organizations who 'knew' Iran had a nuclear weapons program" no one can find a trace of.

It shows that the nuclear issue is a ruse. Israel wants unchallengeable regional dominance, and Iran is its major rival. Remove it and lesser ones remain with no worry about the Islamic Republic intervening against further Palestinian oppression, displacement and isolation, and Israel's other imperial aims. With billions from Washington, worldwide backing or indifference, and the power of their Lobby to win support and intimidate opposition.

The drumbeat for war continues. Yet it's quieted somewhat following the August Caucasus crisis with Russia now a reinvented evil empire opponent in a new Cold War and Great Game confrontation for control of Eurasia's vast resources, including those in the Middle East.

Iran, however, hasn't gone away, and with General David Petraeus now CENTCOM chief, the Bush administration, Israel, and the Lobby have their man in charge of going in whatever direction they send him. Obediently and willingly to further his own political ambitions that got him this far despite his less than stellar record. More on the general below.

Provocations As Pretexts For Imperial Wars - From Pearl Harbor To 9/11

Despots need no pretexts for war. Imperialist democracies have to invent them to convince the public to go along. In 1916, Woodrow Wilson was reelected on a promise that "He Kept Us Out of War." WW I, that is, that began in 1914.

Unknown to the public, Wilson had imperialist designs. He needed the war to advance them, and established the Committee on Public Information under George Creel. A government propaganda initiative that in six months turned a pacifist nation into raving German haters and got Congress (overwhelmingly) to declare war on Germany on April 17.

The effort also showed corporations how effective propaganda can be. It launched the public relations industry. All the mind manipulating methods that followed, and it taught business how to market their products, denigrate unions, and today keep people glued to TV screens, influenced by hyper-commercialism and bread and circuses to want all the things they don't need and think less about essentials like clean air and water, safe food, and government providing everyone with vital services like health care and education.

Wilson's war led to America's unchallengeable ascendency after WW II. The war Roosevelt wanted and got as did his successors to the present time and to be continued under the next administration. Petras explains that "US presidents have routinely created circumstances, fabricated incidents and acted in complicity with their enemies" to convince the public to be "receptive to war."

WW I and the major imperial wars to the present needed "a provocation, a pretext, and systematic, high-intensity mass media propaganda to mobilize the masses for war." Manipulated to accept it by "an army of academics, journalists, mass media pundits and experts." Well rewarded for their complicity.

Japan's rulers didn't want war with America. FDR goaded them into attacking through multi-step harassment and embargo provocations. Acts of war leading up to December 7, 1941. An effort to foment an attack by selling arms to Tokyo's enemies. Denying Japan strategic resources and port access, and imposing a damaging embargo on the country.

It worked. Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. US cable documentation showed Washington knew it was coming. They tracked the fleet across the Pacific, but officials gave no warning to Admiral HE Kimmel in charge of Pearl Harbor's defense. Crucial intelligence reports were withheld to let the attack proceed unimpeded to mobilize public anger and give FDR his war. Think of the similarity between then and 2001.

At its conclusion, America was triumphant, but its conquest of Asia incomplete. Truman's dilemma - "how to consolidate US imperial supremacy in the Pacific at a time of growing nationalist and communist upheavals" in spite of a war-weary public wanting peace, demobilization, and normalcy.

Again, a provocation worked. Mass propaganda followed. The great "red" menace was fabricated. Hawkish collaborators took over unions and civic organizations. McCarthyism emerged. Peace and anti-war organizations were targeted. Many thousands lost jobs. Hundreds jailed, and hundreds more blacklisted. All under Harry Truman now reinvented as one of our great past presidents. Point of fact - he was a war criminal.

He chose the Korean peninsula. Lawlessly intervened in the country's civil war because the wrong side was winning, and that outcome couldn't be tolerated. The war destroyed the North. Killed millions of Koreans. Shattered millions of more lives on both sides. Left the country divided, and gave Washington a permanent foothold in the South with bases it retains to this day. The empire was on a roll. It was just the beginning.

Vietnam was next, and things began early in 1954. Bare months after the July 27, 1953 Korean armistice. Washington backed their corrupt puppet in the South. Ngo Dinh Diem, imported from New Jersey for the job. Most Vietnamese supported Ho Chi Minh in Hanoi and his national liberation and anti-imperialist government. An intolerable situation for Washington that had to be stopped.

War was for two strategic reasons:

-- to establish client regimes and military bases in East and South Asia to encircle China - in Japan, Korea, Indochina, the Philippines, and elsewhere; and

-- to destroy opposition Southeast Asian governments and movements - in N. Vietnam, all Indochina, Indonesia, and elsewhere if they arose.

In all, to solidify America's hold in East Asia. Install or consolidate client regimes. Build more military bases. Establish opportunities for US business. Privatize raw material sectors, and as much else as possible.

Doing it meant removing opposition regimes. Ho in Hanoi. Sukarno in Indonesia, and hundreds of thousands of anti-imperialist movements, trade unionists, communists, peasants and others seen as threats to US ambitions. Covert attacks against N. Vietnam began in 1961. Then the fabricated Gulf of Tonkin Incident led to full-scale war. The country decimated. Millions of deaths in the region for a war America lost, but Southeast Asians and 58,000 US service men and their families paid for.

Ronald Reagan pursued proxy wars in Central America and elsewhere until GHW Bush attacked Panama. Deposed Manuel Noriega. Tricked Saddam into invading Kuwait. Won a quick victory and declared: "By God, we've licked the Vietnam Syndrome" - meaning: restraints are removed and America is free to invent pretexts to attack anyone.

September 11, 2001 gave Bush administration militarists their opportunity to pursue new Middle East/Central Asian conquests. In spite of no credible threat in either region. Solution - invent one. "...some catastrophic and catalyzing event, like a new Pearl Harbor" the way Project for a New American Century planners envisioned it their 2000 Rebuilding America's Defenses document.

Afghanistan was first in October 2001. It was planned many months in advance. Long before 9/11. Iraq followed in March 2003. Also planned well in advance and awaiting a pretext to launch - 9/11, non-existant WMDs, and a made-to-order despot like Saddam made it easy. Especially because Israel wanted war. Pushed hard for it, and Bush administration hard-liners obliged.

When the opportunity arose, Israel and its Lobby mobilized a phalanx of ideologues, academics, Christian Right clergy and spokespeople, writers, journalists, pundits, and the entire mass media for one common purpose. Round-the-clock propaganda to convince the public about a dangerous enemy. Scare them enough to want him removed. Turn them into "irrational, chauvinist militarists," and get them to sacrifice their freedoms for a "Global War on Terrorism" that, according to Dick Cheney, "won't end in our lifetime." The nation has been at war ever since. No end is in sight. The next president promises no change. Perhaps new wars on new fronts. And the country and public continue to pay dearly for their leaders' crimes and deceit.

Israel's and its Lobby's as well. A small group of extremists. Behind closed doors. Deceiving the public. Creating a cauldron and scorched earth in Iraq and Afghanistan. Erasing two countries. Giving Israel free reign to attack South Lebanon. Syria on the pretext of a non-existant nuclear site. The endless oppression, occupation, displacement, and isolation of Palestinians while the world looks on dismissively. Plus the stoking of tensions for more wars so Israel and America can solidify their positions as unchallengeable imperial powers. Israel in the Middle East. America everywhere.

Part II - Embracing The Israeli Modus Operandi Of Endless War

The Palestinian Sewage Disaster: The Political Ecology of the US/Israeli Responsibility in Microcosm

In the broader scheme of things, what happened on March 26, 2007 in Northern Gaza was one incident. Barely noticed outside the region, among so many others attracting more attention. It was when a river of raw sewage and debris escaped from a collapsed earthen embankment. Flooded a refugee camp. Drove 3000 Palestinians from their homes. Killed five, injured 25 and destroyed scores of houses.

Israeli propagandists blamed Palestinians for what Israel caused. Years of neglect. A policy of undermining public maintenance projects, including sewage treatment plants and cesspools. Massively bombing Gaza in summer 2006. Destroying roads, bridges, sewage treatment facilities, water purification ones, and the Territory's only electrical power plant.

Israel bombs, kills, marauds, invades, occupies, destroys, and Palestinians are blamed. Rogues are rewarded. Victims demonized. A raw sewage flood one day. Aerial bombardment the next. Mass arrests, incarcerations, torture as official policy, and an agenda of conflict over peace to assure Israel is the dominant regional state. No challengers exist, and world support lets this policy go on unimpeded.

General Petraeus - From Surge To Purge To Dirge

Last April, Defense Secretary Robert Gates nominated General David Petraeus to replace Admiral William Fallon as CENTCOM commander. The reason - Fallon disagreed sharply with the administration's Middle East policy. Why Petraeus? He's fully on board to further his own military and political ambitions. On September 16, he took over putting him in charge of US military operations in 27 Eurasian countries (up to Russian/Chinese borders), including the Middle East, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and vital waterways like the Persian Gulf and Indian Ocean.

Why Petraeus? A man Admiral Fallon openly criticized for shamelessly supporting Israel in northern Iraq and the Bush "Know Nothings" in charge of Iraq and engaging Iran. Fallon went further as well about a man he clearly dislikes whose main skill is "brown-nosing." As for his theory and strategy in defeating the Iraqi resistance, he was "a disastrous failure," but that was predictable given his "phony success in Northern (Kurdish) Iraq."

The region's relative stability "has nothing to do with (his) counterinsurgency theories" and more because of Kurdish "independence" and "separatism." He bought off local militias and accomplished there what can't be duplicated in the rest of the country. The "surge" was a ruse and achieved nothing but headlines about its effectiveness. Phony and untrue. The reduction in violence is mainly because some elements were bought off and that Muqtada al Sadr agreed to a ceasefire that may prove only temporary.

Then there's the matter of a competent Iraqi army in a country where most volunteers want a pay check but have little appetite to fight. With rampant unemployment, hunger, deprivation, and the country destroyed, what choice do they have. Nonetheless, many desert after enlisting. Refuse to attack fellow Iraqis, and in some cases join them against a brutal occupation promising no end.

The "Petraeus Manual" prioritizes "security and task sharing as a means of empowering civilians and prompting national reconciliation." Neither is achievable with thousands of Iraqis still dying. Attacks against US troops continuing, and all that can be said for Petraeus' Multi-National Force - Iraq tenure is that "empowered people (the locals) have protected and supported insurgents and oppose the US occupation and its puppet regime." His goal of "national reconciliation" was a total failure and won't change until the occupation ends.

He also followed the same failed Vietnamese strategy producing widespread civilian casualties. Bombing densely populated areas. Mass-arresting suspected local leaders. Targeted assassinations. Wncircling entire neighborhoods. Punishing suffering Iraqis and engendering deep hostility, and destroying the country to save it the way it was tried in Vietnam and failed.

Even Petraeus understands that and said "There is no military solution to a problem like that in Iraq, to the insurgency." So prioritizing military victory is only explainable by his desire to please the administration and further his own military and political ambitions.

He's a master of "double speak" and last April lied to Congress and the public in fabricating accounts of progress. He claimed the war was being won. Progress being made. Iraq being stabilized. Peace around the corner, and then on to more war against Iran. He was the first general to claim Iranian weapons were blowing up US armored carriers and Iranian agents training the Iraqi resistance.

He clearly played up to Bush administration neocons and the Israel Lobby in supporting an attack against Iran. They "found their stooge" in the general, and he took full advantage at the same time the puppet Iraqi government was praising Tehran for helping to stabilize the country and invited President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to Baghdad to sign trade agreements. Petraeus now commands all of Eurasia at a time Russia may now be targeted, and if so, the stakes are far greater and so are the risks.

Part III - Militarism and The Decline of US Power

Military-Driven Over Market-Driven Empire Building (1950 - 2008)

From the middle of the 19th century to especially post-WW II, Petras distinguishes between two forms of empire building: by military conquests or through "large-scale, long-term economic penetration via a combination of investments, loans, credits and trade in which market power and superiority (greater productivity) in the means of production led to....a virtual empire."

European militarism declined after WW II. America's was just beginning as it followed a military-based empire building approach over the alternative. Based on foreign wars, proxy ones, encircling the world with bases, and establishing a military-industrial complex to advance it. Today exceeding $1 trillion annually with all spending categories included. Plus multi-billions more in secret off-the-books budgets. Overall, a reckless agenda for shorter term gains at the expense of long-term decline, bankruptcy, despotism and ruin.

As the US expanded its war-making capacity, Western Europe, Japan, and more recently China and Russia chose to develop their economic potential both at the public and private levels. The results were predictable. America prospered through the 1960s before competitors grew more formidable. Since then, "European and Japanese (and now Chinese and Russian) market-based empire building moved with greater dynamism from domestic to export-led growth and began to challenge US predominance in a multiplicity of productive sectors." The trend continues with EU and BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China) emerging as formidable competitors as US supremacy declines.

Why so? The off-shoring of US manufacturing. Growing a predominantly service economy. Substituting low wages for higher ones. Reducing social benefits. Becoming heavily dependent on speculative finance. Financialization or Frankenstein finance. Letting Wall Street and big banks decide what's best for the country and failing badly. Diverting wealth to the rich and super-rich at the expense of 80% or more of the public. Destroying unions and high-paying jobs. Running up massive trade and current account deficits. Unrepayable national debt as well, and now reeling under a financial crisis. Not getting a grasp on it, and not knowing when or how it will end or what condition the country will be in when it does. Or if it will.

Readying the nation for martial law if things get bad enough and a popular revolt erupts. Practicing for it in real time in Denver, St. Paul and New Orleans. Readying for more foreign wars under a new administration and even one or more before the current one ends. Trying to disprove the notion that things that can't go on forever, won't. Having to learn the hard way that they're dead wrong after eight failed years under George Bush taught both parties nothing. Hoping the public will decide that change must percolate up. Never does it flow the other way.

Petras reviews market v. military empire building approaches post-WW II. Its early years. Then in the 1980s under Reagan. The 1990s Clinton years, and after 2000 under George Bush. The 2002 - 2008 40% decline of the dollar alone provides strong evidence of America's competitive decline that may accelerate under the current economic crisis or in its wake. In contrast, China, India, Russia, European, Asian and Latin American states are developing their economies. Expanding business relationships around the world at the expense of America. Likely this trend will continue as the US grows more militaristic and declines under the weight of maintaining it.

Partnering with Israel makes it worse. Advancing the Jewish state's agenda at the expense of our own. Allowing pro-Israeli extremists to run foreign policy. Seeing no difference under Democrats or Republicans. Promising more of the same in 2009. Advancing or prolonging current conflicts in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Somalia. Planning new ones in Eurasia. Proxy ones in Latin America or wherever US and Israeli interests are at stake.

Ignoring the historical record that "imperial wars destroy the productive forces and social networks of targeted countries." Eat the homeland's seed corn as well. Let market-driven empires gain advantage through productive alliances. Advantage them to grow strategic industries. Arrange favorable trade and monetary agreements. Plus policies of building productive forces, not destroying them or their nations' social fabric. That lesson is lost on US militarists or the broader defense establishment that profits hugely at the expense of the remaining economy and the public.

Petras goes even further saying that "Militarist imperialism has weakened the entire economic fabric of the US empire without any compensatory gains on the military side." Since WW II, GHW Bush waged the only two successful conflicts. Both against weak opponents, and they were quick and cheap. In contrast, Korea and Vietnam were quagmires. So are Iraq and Afghanistan today. Hopeless and lost, yet doomed to continue for years with unconscionable further loss of lives. Continued destruction, and hundreds more wasted billions so badly needed at home for productive investment and desperately needed social services being cut not increased.

The result, especially under George Bush: Militarism writ large. Costly military adventurism. "Catastrophic economic costs." Pushing the nation toward insolvency. Declining economically as competitors advance. Having no one around with enough foresight so see the folly. So addicted to wars it doesn't matter if some do. Like a junkie too far gone to change. Knowing a bad ending awaits, yet heading full steam toward it. Leaving Petras to foresee two possible outcomes - "a new rabidly nationalist authoritarian regime, or the re-birth of a republic based on the reconstruction of a productive economy centered on the domestic market and social priorities...." Based on the current state and bipartisan campaign rhetoric, there's faint hope for the latter.

US Militarism and The Expanding Israeli Agenda

With key allies in high places in both parties, the Israeli Lobby consistently "steamroll(s) domestic opposition in securing unconditional US backing for Israel's position in the Middle East." Exhibit A - Iraq.

Nonetheless, some signs of critical public scrutiny have emerged, and one example is from the Council of Gulf Cooperation. It's conservative, pro-US and composed of Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Its members also produce 40% of world oil. Have strong business ties to the US (and elsewhere) and are large purchasers of American military hardware.

In late March 2007, the Council called for diplomatic dialogue with Iran, not confrontation or sanctions. Big Oil shares this view. So do many European states and Turkey. Others outside the region as well. Russia, China and Venezuela prominently. Israel is opposed and vetoed any chance for a changed policy. It highlights the divergent interests of Israel and America compared to moderate Arab states and most other countries. Stability over Washington and Tel Aviv's "radical militarist destabilizing policies." Both countries are structurally incapable of pursuing peace over conflict. It assures "disastrous military adventures" ahead and the terrible toll from their fallout.

Yet what harms America helps Israel, at least in the short run. Iraq has been a great success. Saddam was overthrown. A key Palestinian backer removed. Iraq destroyed. Israel's regional dominance increased. It's unimpeded in colonizing and devastating Palestine. It can now pursue its next key objective to eliminate Iran as a regional rival. Regime change if possible or at least a weakened state so it doesn't matter. Then on to Syria and consolidating control over Lebanon, especially in the water-rich South.

Petras states: "....Democratic and Republican candidates (and all key members of Congress have) pledged to unconditionally support Israeli interests, specific pledges to the ZPC-AIPAC included." Not a brave soul in sight to challenge their reckless agenda or acknowledge European polls that show large majorities call Israel the most threatening and negative country in the world. Over Iran, North Korea and Syria. All the more so because of its stranglehold over US foreign policy. And in the face of disastrous regional wars. Yet more may be planned and America may willingly go along. Against Iran, Syria, Hezbollah in Lebanon and/or Hamas in Gaza.

Outside the region as well, especially against opposition forces in Pakistan and an accelerated effort in Somalia. Perhaps in Latin America also against Venezuela and Bolivia even though countries that far removed are outside of Israel's sphere of influence. But it doesn't deter the Jewish state from aiding America as it did in arming and training Georgians to attack South Ossetia and using its agents around the world for similar nefarious activities. It's also the world's fourth largest arms supplier, ahead of the UK, and has the world's fourth most powerful military.

Petras sees a "Judeo-centric view of the world" as deadly. Believing "what's good for the Jews (means) providing unconditional support to an aggressive colonial state (Israel)...." Proving that to be "a formula for global disaster." Also what just a small minority of Jews believe in. Most of them have no ideological ties to Israel nor do they support its imperial wars or America funding them. No matter. They're marginalized and ignored. "Where will it take us? When will it end?"

Part IV - Challenging The Lobby

American Jews On War and Peace - What the Polls Do and Don't Tell Us

Independent polls and a recent American Jewish Committee (AJC) one show most Jewish Americans have different views on the Iraq war and attacking Iran than do leaders of major American Jewish organizations. Yet this has no impact on the administration, Congress or the dominant media. Why so?

One explanation is that most American Jews are pro-Israel and (mistakenly) "believe Democrats will make the right decisions on the war in Iraq" in spite of clear evidence they won't. Further, 82% of them think that "the goal of the Arabs is not the return of occupied territories but rather the destruction of Israel, (and a majority say) Israel and its Arab neighbors (won't) settle their differences and live in peace." Conclusion - right or wrong, most Jews identify with Israel, support the Jewish state, and retain ingrained anti-Arab prejudices.

Israeli public opinion also undermines progressive American Jewish anti-war views as evidenced in a recent Haaretz report. It cites a civil rights poll showing that "Israel has reached new heights of racism...." Findings in it cite:

-- a 26% rise in anti-Arab incidents;

-- double the number of Israeli Jews expressing hatred of Arabs;

-- half of them opposing equal rights for them; and

-- three-fourths of young Jews believing Arabs are "unclean," according to a Haifa University study.

These and other factors along with identifying with Israel help explain why Jewish Americans (in spite of their views) won't criticize leaders of reactionary Jewish organizations, making it all the easier for them to influence favorable congressional and administration policies toward Israel.

Why Condemning Israel and The Zionist Lobby Is So Important

First some misguided beliefs:

-- that the ZPC is just another lobby;

-- that other nations and their leaders commit equally violent crimes and abuses;

-- that criticizing Israel is anti-Semitic;

-- that Israel is a democracy and the only one in the region;

-- the uniqueness of Jewish suffering and the Holocaust as exclusively affecting Jews; and

-- that Israel/Palestine discussion should be balanced - in complete denial of a powerful oppressive state v. a near-defenseless and persecuted people - on their own and with virtually no outside help.

Now some facts:

-- the Israeli Lobby is far and away the most powerful in America;

-- criticizing Israel more than other abusive states is important because of its inordinate ability to influence US policy;

-- accusation of anti-Semitism is a canard, a non-starter, a way to shift attention from real issues;

-- Israel defiles democracy by granting it only to Jews and not even all of them; it disdains the less privileged much the way they're treated in America;

-- exploiting the Holocaust as an exclusive Jewish issue defiles the outrage of so many others, including much greater ones; and

-- the imbalance between pro-Israeli representation v. hostile or indifferent views about Arabs is pronounced.

Confronting the Israeli Lobby is vital because it plays such "a decisive role (and) world-historic impact on the present and future of world peace and social justice." Ignore it and consider the peril of America hurtling from wars to greater ones with no end in sight and solidifying tyranny at home.

Consider also some "big questions facing Americans as a result of the power of Israel in the United States:"

-- the ZPC wants was; "has played a major role" in influencing them in the past eight years; and is very capable of pushing America into new conflicts regardless of which party in Washington is dominant;

-- the big issue is "World Peace or War" and the horror of the latter;

-- Israel and its Lobby harm US democracy by stifling "the right to debate, to elect (and) legislate free from coercion;" also to select political candidates strongly opposed to Israeli policies and against providing financial and military support;

-- Israeli interests harm our own; further, "never in the history of the US republic or empire has a powerful but tiny minority been able to wield so much influence" over our foreign policy for the benefit of another nation;

-- by doing it, the ramifications are staggering: permanent wars; massive deaths; unimaginable human misery and destruction; outrageous and ill-directed amounts of spending; a staggering amount of unrepayable debt; the alienation of the entire Muslim world; growing world indignation overall; and the demise of democracy in America - partly because of sacrificing homeland interests to serve those of a tiny foreign power.

Petras asks: "What happened to the peace movement? Mass indignation and outrage as well because of harmful policies to everyone and getting worse. America is the only nation where this movement isn't willing to condemn an agenda promoting Middle East wars and the fraudulent "Global War on Terrorism." Its leaders won't denounce the pro-Israeli Lobby's stranglehold over US policy and the overwhelming harm it causes.

It refuses to confront the Democrat party that's no less militant than Republicans. Both are totally subservient to Israeli interests. Their destructive imperial wars. The likelihood of more ahead for a state "whose Supreme Court legalizes political assassinations across national boundaries, torture (as official policy), systematic violations of international law including collective punishment, and a regime which repudiates United Nations resolutions and unilaterally invades and bombs its neighbors and practices military colonist expansionism." America is a "look-alike" state writ large that practices these and similar policies worldwide and justifies the most outrageous acts in the name of "national security."

"Where (and how) will it end," asks Petras. In the depths of tyranny unless good people confront oppressive power and put a stop to "uncontainable humanitarian calamities whose ramifications impact the entire world." Whose fallout may contaminate it beyond repair if we don't.

Stephen Lendman is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization. He lives in Chicago and can be reached at:

http://us.mc537.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

Also visit his blog site at http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/ and listen to The Global Research News Hour on http://republicbroadcasting.org/ Mondays from 11AM to 1PM US Central time for cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on world and national topics. All programs are archived for easy listening.

Stephen Lendman is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Global Research Articles by Stephen Lendman

Media Propaganda Pushed Through Failed BailOut

News Media Propaganda Helped Push Through Failed Bailout

The news media played a pivotal role in stampeding the country into a bailout that was unwise and unjust.

By Norman Solomon,
Posted October 14, 2008.
Courtesy Of AlterNet

It's mid-October, and the Wall Street bailout that was supposed to save the economy from collapse is a flop.

Only two weeks ago, the media hype behind the $700 billion bailout was so intense that it sometimes verged on hysteria. More recent events should not be allowed to obscure the reality that the news media played a pivotal role in stampeding the country into a bailout that was unwise and unjust.

Exceptions in the news coverage underscore the fact that other perspectives were readily available when the Bush administration began pushing its bailout proposal in late September. "Many of the nation's brightest economic minds are warning that if the Wall Street bailout passes, it would be a dangerous rush job," McClatchy Newspapers reported on Sept. 26. For instance, economist James K. Galbraith called the warnings of economic disaster in the absence of a swift bailout "more hype than real risk." He added: "A nasty recession is possible, but the bailout will not cure that."

When the House of Representatives rejected the bailout on Sept. 29, all media hell broke loose. During the next few days, journalists and selected sources took turns decrying the failure of House naysayers to recognize the urgency of the moment. The nation's economy was at stake, and craven ideologues on Capitol Hill were dithering around!

Countless editorials and pundits castigated the House members who had voted no. The condemners spanned the mainline media spectrum; liberals, moderates and conservatives excoriated the House and called for a swift reversal.

Senate passage came on Thursday, Oct. 2, and the next day a chastened House approved a revised version. That Friday afternoon, President Bush signed the $700 billion Wall Street bailout into law.

Despite all the media hype about how the bailout measure would quickly steady the stock market, it fell and kept falling. Over the next week, ending Oct. 10, the Dow made history as stocks plunged by 18 percent in five trading days.

And what about the ostensible main reason for the humongous bailout in the first place -- unfreezing the credit markets? Well, in spite of the enormous media outcry for the bailout to get credit flowing, it didn't. And the key economic factor in the recession -- housing -- remained just as stuck as before.

At the Center for Economic and Policy Research, on Oct. 1 -- two days before the House caved -- economist Dean Baker addressed a pivotal flaw in the spin. "It would be foolish to issue a mortgage loan without a very substantial down payment, since the expected decline in house prices will quickly destroy much or all of the equity held by the homeowner," he wrote. "In other words, it is the drop in house prices that is causing banks to demand 20 percent down payments in many markets, not their lack of capital. This situation will only be changed by a government house-price support program. Improving the financial conditions of banks will make little difference."

But the media storyline required -- in fact, demanded -- that committing many billions of dollars to the "rescue" was the essential step to be taken from Capitol Hill.

After the House initially balked at approving the Wall Street bailout on Sept. 29, the range of New York Times op-ed columnists took turns with the denunciation chores. None was more bitterly caustic than David Brooks. On Sept. 30, under the headline "Revolt of the Nihilists," he denounced the noncompliant House members for failing to heed "the collected expertise of the Treasury and Fed."

A week later, on Oct. 7, when Brooks wrote a follow-up column, the bailout had been law for several days. But the stock market was plunging faster than ever, and the credit crunch was unabated. "At these moments, central bankers and Treasury officials leap in to try to make the traders feel better," Brooks wrote. "Officials pretend they're coming up with policy responses, but much of what they do is political theater."

Now he tells us.

Before the bailout gained approval on Capitol Hill, the media narrative was dangling the prospects of immediate results. But afterwards, there were none.

"Global markets have so far given thumbs down to the giant $700 billion bailout plan," former Labor Secretary Robert Reich said in an Oct. 8 public-radio commentary, five days after the bailout had become law. "The easy answer to why the bailout hasn't worked is it hasn't been implemented yet. But its purpose was largely psychological -- to boost confidence that the government is doing something big to clear out bad debts that have been clogging the system. That psychological boost should have happened as soon as the bailout was enacted. Yet no one seems to believe that $700 billion will make much difference."

On Oct. 12, the lead story on the New York Times front page wondered aloud "whether the administration squandered valuable time in trying to sell Congress on a plan that officials had failed to think through in advance."

The Times now tells us that the much-hyped bailout plans to "buy distressed assets" will be diminished in favor of a "capital infusion program for banks." But what hasn't changed with the $700 billion planning is a basic approach for trickle-down instead of trickle-up.

As the Institute for Policy Studies pointed out on Oct. 1, "A real 'bailout' would target the troubled households of working American families. A $200 billion 'Main Street Stimulus Package' could bolster the real economy and those left vulnerable by the subprime mortgage meltdown."

Components of such a stimulus package could include "a $130 billion annual investment in renewable energy to stimulate good jobs anchored in local economies and reduce our dependency on oil" -- and "a $50 billion outlay to help keep people in foreclosed homes through refinancing and creating new homeownership and housing opportunities" -- and "a $20 billion aid package to states to address the squeeze on state and local government services that declining tax revenues are now forcing." But that kind of discourse for grassroots economic stimulus hasn't gotten into the media storyline this fall.

It's now being revised with quite a bit of backspin. But the media storyline for justifying the Wall Street bailout was great while it lasted. And it lasted long enough to stampede Congress into approving a massive jolt of taxpayer money to redistribute wealth upwards in the United States.

Norman Solomon's latest book Made Love, Got War: Close Encounters with America's Warfare State (PoliPointPress) is available now. For more information go to http://www.madelovegotwar.com/.

See more stories tagged with: news, economy, bailout, financial crisis

Military Contractors Writing Pentagon Propaganda

Private Military Contractors Writing the News? The Pentagon's Propaganda At Its Worst

Months after the Pentagon pundits flap, the Department of Defense continues to hand down contracts for propaganda in Iraq and beyond.

By Liliana Segura,
Posted October 17, 2008.
Courtesy Of AlterNet

Less than a week after the Washington Post reported that the Department of Defense will pay private contractors $300 million over the next three years to "produce news stories, entertainment programs and public service advertisements for the Iraqi media in an effort to 'engage and inspire' the local population to support U.S. objectives and the Iraqi government," Virginia Sen. Jim Webb wrote a strongly worded letter to Defense Secretary Robert Gates. "I have serious reservations about the need for this expenditure in today's political and economic environment," he wrote. "Consequently, I am asking that you put these contracts on hold until the Armed Services Committee and the next administration can review the entire issue of U.S. propaganda efforts inside Iraq."

Such a review, if it were to happen, would be a formidable undertaking, one that would have to start with the declaration of the "War on Terror" itself. It's a project the Bush administration has always approached as a PR campaign as much as a military one. Who can forget former White House Chief of Staff Andy Card's explanation for the need to introduce the Iraq War to Americans in September: "From a marketing point of view, you don't introduce new products in August." And remember the short-lived attempt by administration officials to re-brand the "War on Terror" by renaming it the "Global Struggle Against Violent Extremism"? (Reports at the time were that administration officials worried that the original phrase "may have outlived its usefulness," due to its sole focus on military might.)

Regardless of what you call it, the so-called "War on Terror" has cost American taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars in propaganda costs alone. As with so much of modern war-making, most of this work is carried out by private military contractors. With the word "Halliburton" now shorthand for waste, fraud and abuse for many Americans, taxpayers' tolerance for war profiteering has reached new lows -- especially when private military companies operating with no oversight undermine the very "hearts and minds" that mission propaganda is supposedly meant to advance.

Selling The War To Americans

Perhaps one of the Bush administration's most egregious PR undertakings in the war on Iraq was revealed this spring, when the New York Times blew the lid off the Pentagon's military analyst program, in which more than 75 retired military officials were recruited to spout pro-war rhetoric on major networks in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq. These "message force multipliers," as they were branded, were provided with thousands of talking points by the Department of Defense starting in 2002. In one memo, dated Dec. 9, 2002 and titled "Department of Defense Themes and Talking Points on Iraq," a quote from Paul Wolfowitz -- "We cannot allow one of the world's most murderous dictators to provide terrorists a sanctuary in Iraq" -- was followed with a bullet point: "Saddam Hussein: A Global Threat."

The investigative piece by the Times said the project "continues to this day," seeking to "exploit ideological and military allegiances, and also a powerful financial dynamic: Most of the analysts have ties to military contractors vested in the very war policies they are asked to assess on air."
"Records and interviews show how the Bush administration has used its control over access and information in an effort to transform the analysts into a kind of media Trojan horse -- an instrument intended to shape terrorism coverage from inside the major TV and radio networks."

It would be hard to overstate the implications of such a program, particularly for a country that claims to be a beacon of democracy.

Although the Pentagon was said to have suspended its PR briefings of retired military officials shortly after the Times story broke, since claiming that its inspector general is conducting an investigation, in reality there has been precious little fallout. However, in one promising move, earlier this month, the Federal Communications Commission sent five letters of inquiry to TV military analysts in an apparent probing of the program. According to one report, "at issue is that some of them were also linked to Pentagon contracts, raising the issue of conflict of interest.

In its letter signed by the chief of the investigations and hearings division enforcement bureau, the FCC suggests that TV stations and networks may have violated two sections of the Communications Act of 1934 by not identifying the ties to the Pentagon that their military analysts had." Diane Farsetta at PR Watch, who has written extensively on the Pentagon's pundits, particularly their work on behalf of defense contractors, says, "the good news is that that's (a first) step toward conducting an investigation."

Profiting Off The "War Of Ideas"

Beyond the Pentagon's pundit "scandal," the fact that propaganda contracts continue to be awarded to the very companies that have previously been implicated in ethical breaches for disseminating unattributed U.S. propaganda abroad is reason enough to renew alarm. More than the dollar amount, what is outrageous to Farsetta about the most recent propaganda contract is that it is "blatantly illegal." "If you look at this most recent contract," she explains, "one of the 'strategic audiences' is U.S. audiences." According to federal law going back to World War II, she says "no taxpayer money can go to propagandize U.S. audiences."

The Washington Post story describes the contract as the latest in a series of cutting-edge PR initiatives undertaken since 2003 that represent a revolution in what it calls "the military's role in the war of ideas." "Iraq, where hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent on such contracts, has been the proving ground for the transformation."

"The tools they're using, the means, the robustness of this activity has just skyrocketed since 2003. In the past, a lot of this stuff was just some guy's dreams,'" said a senior U.S. military official, one of several who discussed the sensitive defense program on the condition of anonymity.

The Pentagon still sometimes feels it is playing catch-up in a propaganda market dominated by al Qaeda, whose media operations include sophisticated Web sites and professionally produced videos and audios featuring Osama bin Laden and his lieutenants. "We're being out-communicated by a guy in a cave," Secretary Robert M. Gates often remarks.

The new contract was awarded to four companies, most of whom Farsetta refers to as "the usual suspects," including Lincoln Group, the Pennsylvania Avenue company that in 2005 was found to have planted articles written by U.S. military officials in Iraqi newspapers without attribution. (Although the group was cleared of any illegalities, even then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld recognized the potential breach, remarking, "Gee, that's not what we ought to be doing."

Selling The War To Iraqis

The main target audience for the $300 million contract is Iraqis. But, different from earlier propaganda efforts, the content is not simply meant to convince them of the noble intentions of their American occupiers. "Originally, the major focus was all about the U.S.," says Farsetta. "The message then was, 'Hey, you're free now,' but over time it has shifted to more 'make sure you support your own government, your own police.'"

Indeed, the Washington Post quoted an unnamed official who described one component of the program:

"There's a video piece produced by a contractor showing a family being attacked by a group of bad guys, and their daughter being taken off. The message is: You've got to stand up against the enemy." The professionally produced vignette, he said, "is offered for airing on various (television) stations in Iraq. They don't know that the originator of the content is the U.S. government. If they did, they would never run anything.

"If you asked most Iraqis," he said, "they would say, 'It came from the government, our own government.'"

A pretty blunt admission, to be sure, and one that lays bare the dubious ethical nature of the program (not to mention the extent that the military recognizes Iraqis' antipathy for the U.S. government). But it's not the first time the U.S. government has sought to play hand puppet with Iraqi media. Last spring, the NSA obtained and made public a document, along with a PowerPoint presentation, that revealed the Pentagon's plans in the run-up to the war to create a "Rapid Reaction Media Team." Jim Lobe, D.C. bureau chief of InterPress Services, covered the revelation in May 2007; as he wrote, the proposal was for a "six-month, $51 million budget for the RRMT operation, apparently the first phase in a one- to two-year 'strategic information campaign'":

Among other items, the budget called for the hiring of two U.S. ''media consultants'' who were to be paid $140,000 each for six months' work. A further $800,000 were to be paid for six Iraqi "media consultants" over the same period.

Both the paper and the slide presentation were prepared by two Pentagon offices -- Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict, which, among other things, specialize in psychological warfare, and the Office of Special Plans under then undersecretary of defense for policy, Douglas Feith -- in mid-January, 2003, two months before the invasion, according to NSA analyst Joyce Battle.

''The RRMT concept focuses on USG-UK pre- and post-hostilities efforts to develop programming, train talent, and rapidly deploy a team of U.S./UK media experts with a team of 'hand selected' Iraqi media experts to communicate immediately with the Iraqi public opinion upon liberation of Iraq,'' according to the paper.

The ''hand-picked'' Iraqi experts, according to the paper, would provide planning and program guidance for the U.S. experts and help ''select and train the Iraqi broadcasters and publishers ('the face') for the USG/coalition sponsored information effort.'' USG is an abbreviation for U.S. government.

In a rather extraordinary quote, the document boasted, ''It will be as if, after another day of deadly agit-prop, the North Korean people turned off their TVs at night, and turned them on in the morning to find the rich fare of South Korean TV spread before them as their very own."

Circumventing Congress

In the United States, few lawmakers have had a chance to scrutinize this latest deployment of public funds for propaganda. (Like so many other contracts awarded to private defense corporations, this one was awarded with no Congressional approval.) But Webb's letter to Defense Secretary Robert Gates suggests that it could become an issue.

At a time when this country is facing such a grave economic crisis, and at a time when the government of Iraq now shows at least a $79 billion surplus from recent oil revenues, in my view it makes little sense for the U.S. Department of Defense to be spending hundreds of millions of dollars to propagandize the Iraqi people. There is now an elected government in Iraq, which is recognized to have the power and authority to negotiate a long-term security agreement with the government of the United States. Clearly that government is capable, both politically and financially, of communicating with its own people in the manner now contemplated by these DOD contracts -- and without being accused by adversaries of being a foreign government that is fulminating internal conditions through propaganda.

Laudable as his efforts to reign in contractors may be -- much of Webb's letter was devoted to military contractors more generally, and Blackwater specifically -- his letter made no mention of the myriad ethical questions raised by the propaganda contract. To name a few, says Farsetta, "the fact that the media produced is overwhelmingly not attributed to the U.S. government;" "the fact that one of the 'strategic audiences' listed in the contract is 'U.S. audiences,' in apparent violation of U.S. law;" and "the difficulties in holding private contractors operating in war zones accountable to any standard (ethical, performance or otherwise)."

Webb, who first learned about this contract as did most Americans, from the Washington Post, has called for a thorough review of the Pentagon's "strategic communications" initiatives, including Congressional hearings." Were this to happen, says Farsetta, "I would love for those hearings to include representatives from foreign governments and civil society groups where the U.S. has major propaganda operations, including Iraq and Afghanistan. The heads of firms like the Lincoln Group, L-3 and Rendon should also testify, under oath."

But, she says, "What really bothers me is that Webb's using the "we've given Iraq so much and now it's time for them to step up" argument. That argument never fails to amaze and anger me.

We bombed them in 1991, then for more than a decade placed them under such devastating sanctions that hundreds of thousands of children died, then bombed them more ferociously over a longer period of time. Yet some politicians have the gall to complain that the Iraqis aren't doing enough now? That's not to mention that the argument assumes that Iraqi leaders have the same priorities as U.S. officials. Personally, I say we need to get our propaganda and troops out of Iraq and pay them reparations."

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Suicide Terrorism and Sri Lankan Women

Suicide Terrorism: Why Are Sri Lanka's Women Blowing Themselves Up?

Why do women in Sri Lanka feel they need to choose death over life to assert their power?

By Shenali Waduge,
Source: The Wip.
Posted October 14, 2008.
Courtesy Of AlterNet

"While nothing is easier than to denounce the evildoer, nothing is more difficult than to understand him" -- Mikhailovich Dostovsky

The tiny island nation of Sri Lanka has been plagued by terrorism for the past 25 years. Citing irreparable differences with the majority ethnic group, the armed militant group the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelaam (LTTE) is demanding 35 percent of the country's landmass and over 75 percent of its surrounding sea for a separate Tamil state. Constituting only 6.5 percent of the country's population, over half of the country's Tamils currently live amongst th majority Sinhalese.

It was the LTTE that reshaped conventional warfare by introducing suicide bombers -- in particular, the female suicide cadre. The LTTE arguably still remains the global leader in suicide terrorism, carrying out two-thirds of the world's suicide attacks. The real "men of steel" for the LTTE have been its female suicide bombers, who account for 40 percent of its suicide activities. It's difficult to understand how a woman would choose to become a human bomb.

Suicide bombings have become a convenient way to secure political objectives for many groups worldwide. Suicide terrorism was non-existent in global politics before emerging in the mid-1980s. Since then, it has spread across the globe, growing ever more gruesome. Today, suicide missions are being carried out in Iraq, in Palestine against the Israelis, in Lebanon, India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen, Turkey, Russia and Uzbekistan.

It was on July 5th, 1987 that the LTTE carried out its first suicide bombing. The attack on the Nelliyady Army Camp claimed the lives of 40 Sri Lankan troops. To date, LTTE suicide missions number over 100, resulting in over 1,400 deaths, including two world leaders. In 1991, Idian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated by a female LTTE suicide cadre on Indian soil. After placing a garland around Rajiv's neck, she blew herself up, killing them both instantly along with many others. Sri Lankan President Premadasa was killed at a May Day rally in 1993 by an aid who was working at his presidential home -- a man whom he trusted but who was in actuality a LTTE suicide cadre, planted for the task. A host of Tami leaders have also been targeted, negating the LTTE's argument that it represents the rights and needs of the Tamil people.

Why Suicide Terrorism?

Much study has been dedicated towards identifying and evaluating the psychological and sociological motives for suicide terrorism. The suicide unit of the LTTE calls itself the Black Tigers -- of this, one-third are women who are venerated for their acts in LTTE cemeteries. With no body to bury, their granite tombstones watch over an empty grave. Before embarking on their mission, suicide cadres are given a special meal of their choice with the LTTE leader, Velupillai Prabakaran and a handsome monetary benefit is given to the family of those who are successful in their suicide missions. And each year on July 5th, the Black Tigers who have given their lives to the cause are celebrated by the LTTE, with Prabakaran lighting a lantern for each.

In her book, Women Fighters of Liberation Tigers (1989), the Australian wife of LTTE theoretician, Adel Balasingham describes the decision of Tamil women who join: "they are not satisfied with the social status quo; it means they are young women capable of defying authority; it means they are women with independent thoughts; young women prepared to lift up their heads."

But this still does not explain why a woman would need to choose death over life to assert her power.

All suicide missions are generally successful -- there have only been a few cases where vigilant military and even the public have been able to identify suicide bombers before an attack. A female suicide cadre sent to assassinate the current Prime Minister of Sri Lanka was apprehended on January 5, 2000 by the police before she could carry out her mission. Having been sent from the rebel-held territory in Sri Lanka's jungles, it was only natural that she not be aware of the fashion trends in Colombo. So after watching her for a few days, the police apprehended her and removed the suicide kit strapped to her bra, stopping her from biting the cyanide capsule that all LTTE members are compelled to wear in an amulet. She is still in prison.

Recently the Norwegian government funded the movie My Daughter the Terrorist, which explores the paths of two female Black Tigers. The film raises an important question for me - how can a government, especially one that has been acting as a peace facilitator in Sri Lanka, agree to fund a movie when suicide and suicide bombing are deplored the world over? Though there have been different interpretations of the film, the Sri Lankan embassies have objected saying it sends the wrong signals to youngsters by glorifying suicide bombers on film.

But it also makes an important point about how politicized the world has become. Though many become cadres believing that the militant outfit is giving its all for "the cause," it's more likely that these men and women have been brainwashed and even drugged. Throughout the world, militant groups often sedate their cadres, sometimes in their food, to ensure loyalty and obedience. This partially explains how young men and women could choose to remain in the most challenging of conditions -- often in the jungles, exposed to the elements, enduring the mosquitoes, without proper nutrition or even clean sheets or towels.

Though no official statistics exists, some reports claim that there are as many as 5,000 child recruits in the LTTE, accounting for 30 percent of the group's brigade. Young boys, forcefully taken by the LTTE from their mothers' arms, grow up knowing nothing more than hero worship for their militant leader. Childhood pranks are soon replaced by shooting at government armed forces in cold blood. Young girls are also taken against their wills, forced to strip and change into tiger attire - their dreams of home replaced by rigorous, early morning training sessions, LTTE indoctrination, tasteless meals and ultimately, a suicide mission.

Is this what these women suicide cadres want from life? Is this what they really want to be remembered as? Have they simply buried their old identities, giving up the desire to have or career or a family? Or is there something more to this gruesome exploitation of women? Even the LTTE leader's only daughter did not become a member of the elite Black Tigers, showing the obvious hypocrisy of the LTTE's philosophy -- she was sent overseas to study and has never experienced what any of these LTTE women have had to endure.

I think the LTTE is turning to women for its suicide missions because they are less conspicuous and can easily blend into a crowd. Men are prone to greater scrutiny and their movements watched. Similarly, the LTTE targets children as they are able to move quickly in the country's thick jungles and easily escape detection.

The LTTE would have us believe that these women are prepared for their "cause," but we really do not know what goes on in their minds -- none of the journalists I know have ever been able to question these women before their deaths. But a lot can be gleaned from the suicide cadre who was apprehended before carrying out her mission. Today she begs for clemency, begs to be given a new lease on life and asks to be pardoned. She is cooperating with the authorities, helping them obtain vital information about LTTE hideouts and operations. She is also undergoing psychiatric treatment in the course of her rehabilitation and hopefully someday, will lead a peaceful life.

Though we may never really understand what makes these terrorists tick, we do know that the leaders of these groups have brainwashed their followers into carrying out tragedies that serve only their personal desire to achieve power outside of the democratic framework that is accepted by the rest of us. Politicized and polarized, they are hidden in Sri Lanka's jungles, waiting to use their bodies as human shields and bombs for a leader who will stop at nothing to secure a separate state.

Shenali Waduge is a working mother of two from Sri Lanka. She received her Bachelors and Masters degrees from the University of Delhi in India. Shenali regularly contributes to the Asian Tribune and Lankaweb.

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A Caspian Energy Superpower Is Born

Energy Superpower Emerges In The Caspian

By M K Bhadrakumar
October 27, 2008
Asia Times Online

Turkmenistan knows better than any other country that predators will go to any extent to take away its valuable possessions. Five successive empires - Scythian, Parthian, Ywati, Hun and Turkmen - invaded the area to locate the "Akhal" oasis nestled in the foothills of the Kopet Dag mountains in southern Turkmenistan, and laid waste everything that came across their way until they could take away the treasured Akhal-Teke horses as spoils of war.

The ancient race of Akhal-Teke horses, dating to 2,400 BC, were much fancied for their elegance, strength, stamina and beauty. Alexander the Great apparently took away with him hundreds of these horses as prized trophies during his campaign in Central Asia.

So Turkmenistan's collective memory will be stirred by the announcement on Monday that the country may have in the Yoloten-Osman deposits one of the world's four or five largest gas fields.

British consultancy firm Gaffney, Cline & Associates (GCA), making the announcement in Ashgabat regarding the first results of its audit of Turkmen gas reserves, said its low estimate under the established international and classification system is that the fields may have a minimum 4 trillion cubic meters of gas and as much as a staggering 14 trillion cubic meters.

This catapults Yoloten-Osman, in the southeast of the country, to the status of Turkmenistan's No 1 gas field, overtaking even the fabulous Dowalatabad, whose reserves it will exceed by at least five times. It should be kept in mind that many other of Turkmenistan's many gas fields have yet to be fully explored, and the GCA has just made its initial findings known.

Without doubt, Turkmenistan is closing its gap with Russia and Iran, hitherto listed as having the world's largest and second-largest gas reserves at 48 trillion cubic meters and 26 billion cubic meters, respectively. If the GCA results are confirmed, Turkmenistan will have reserves just 20% lower than that of Russia and outstrip Iran by far.

It seems the late Turkmenistan president Saparmurat Niyazov stands vindicated. Just before he died in December 2006, Niyazov remarked that Turkmenistan held reserves that were adequate to export 150 billion cubic meters (BCM) of gas for the next 250 years. The world, including the then visiting German foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, didn't take Niyazov's statement seriously.

In March, Niayov's successor, Gurbanguly Berdimukhamedov, ordered the GCA audit to clear doubts about Turkmenbashi's controversial claim. In a British understatement, GCA manager Jim Gillet said in Ashgabat, "Given the huge gas reserves, it is now clear that whatever the results of any final clarification, I can confirm that there is more than sufficient gas to fulfill Turkmenistan's existing contract commitments." Turkmenistan has contracts to supply Russia with around 50 bcm annually, China with 40 bcm and with Iran 8 bcm.

Without doubt, the maths of energy security is being reset. October 13 will stand out as a watershed in the race for Caspian energy. Like the shy Akhal-Teke, Turkmenistan comes from behind and surges ahead on the race tracks, captivating the world audience, especially the main wagerers - Russian, European, Chinese and the ubiquitous Americans. For these seasoned hands betting on the race track, this will also be pari-mutuel wagering, as the French would say, meaning "among ourselves", with betting against each other and not against the race track.

Turkmenistan is undoubtedly a vital partner for Russia in gas supplies. The two countries have an agreement regarding gas prices and the volume of gas supplies for 2007-2009. Ashgabat has been extracting higher and higher prices from Russia for its gas supplies. The price was raised to $100 per 1,000 cubic meters last year from the level of $65. Then it was further raised to $130 for January-June 2008 and to $150 in the second half of 2008.

Ashgabat has been playing on the nerves of Russian energy giant Gazprom and its desperate need for Turkmen gas to meet its export obligations in the European market, which accounts for 70% of the Russian company's total revenue at the moment. Gazprom sells close to two-thirds of Russia's 550 bcm annual gas production in the rapidly growing domestic market, which compels it to secure Turkmen supplies to meet the contracted European commitments.

Russian newspaper Kommersant made an innocuous-sounding reference on Wednesday, quoting a source in Gazprom to the effect that the Russian monopoly's famous July 25 agreement with Turkmengaz does not involve Yoloten-Osman. It seems, in other words, that Russia held in its hands a chimera when it fancied that the July 25 agreement put Gazprom in complete charge of all of Turkmenistan's exports. Surely, that is proving to be a misconception of Himalayan proportions.

For Russia, arguably, the game now starts all over again. First and foremost, it is no longer the superpower in the world of natural gas as was widely regarded until last weekend. Turkmenistan is, unquestionably, also a gas superpower of comparable muscle power to Russia.

Again, Russia will need to come terms with a "multipolar" world of gas-producing countries. It needs to revisit its entire strategy toward consolidating a world gas market. The prospect of a gas cartel - a gas OPEC - materializing any time soon now recedes into the far background. There will be disappointment in Tehran that the idea will have to be thrown out of the window, but a collective sigh of relief can be heard in European capitals.

More important, Russia will have to rework its bonding with its Central Asian partners. Turkmenistan was a vital link in the Moscow-led energy chain of Central Asia's leading gas-producing countries - the others being Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. Last year, Russia worked out plans - involving Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan - for a gas pipeline along the Caspian Sea's eastern coast for handling Turkmenistan's anticipated exports. In September, during Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's visit to Tashkent, Uzbekistan agreed to the Russian plan for an expansion of the Central Asian gas pipeline system for handling anticipated Turkmen gas exports.

These initiatives were predicated on the assumption that Russia must gear up to handle all of Turkmen gas exports. During last year, Russia gained rights over the gas exports of Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan on the basis of its offer to make purchases at "European prices". The entire economics and logistics behind these complicated webs of Russian gas diplomacy in Central Asia now require updating - and rapid updating since, unlike previously, Russia's competitors by now know its tactics and work ethics and there is consequently now no more surprise element.

The immediate Russian concern will be regarding the Nabucco gas pipeline proposal mooted by the European Union and backed by the United States as an energy project that would somewhat reduce Europe's dependence on Russian gas supplies. Nabucco envisages the dispatch of Caspian gas to the European market via an energy hub in Turkey bypassing Russian territory. Nabucco's viability depends on access to Turkmen (or Iranian) gas supplies.

With GCA's announcement on Monday, the doubts have been dispelled at least in one direction - Turkmenistan indeed does have the capacity to feed Nabucco with all the gas it needs. This comes at an awkward time for Moscow when its rival project, South Stream, which aims at further tying up the European market with Russian gas supplies, is struggling to take off.

Nabucco will give South Stream a run for its money. If it materializes, it could also be a setback for the broader thrust of Russian diplomacy, which in the past two years has aimed at cultivating the countries in the southern tier of the European market - Austria, Italy, Greece and the Balkan and Central European countries. There is already immense pressure from the US on the South Stream's transit countries to back off from far-reaching energy collaboration with Russia.

Geopolitics is just one step behind. Russia hoped to temper the eastward expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's expansion and the US designs to roll back the Russian presence in the Black Sea region by working out a system of energy dependence with the US's allies in the region. Moscow recently offered a $4 billion loan to Ukraine for establishing two nuclear power plants in its western region. This is despite the pro-US stance of Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko.

Moscow's strategy was working well. In a telling remark on Tuesday, at a joint press conference with Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, president of the European Commission Jose Manuel Barroso virtually acknowledged the effectiveness of the Russian diplomacy in Europe. He said that if the EU is moving toward resuming negotiations with Russia on a new partnership deal even in the aftermath of the Caucasus conflict, that was not a "gift" for Russia but because it was in the interests of Europe. He said EU had economic, financial and investment interests to safeguard and needed to work out cooperation with Moscow in maintaining energy security.

"I think it is in the interest of the EU to keep the dialogue with Russia to promote stability in Europe," Barroso underlined in a virtual snub to the US doctrine of isolating Russia over the Caucasus crisis.

It is not only with the European countries but also with its partners in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) that Russian diplomacy has effectively used energy as a calculus for generating political and strategic influence. At the very least, with the emergence of Turkmenistan as an energy superpower, the "co-relation of forces" within the CIS undergoes a change. This is not only for Russia but also for the other countries which consider themselves as leading players in Central Asia and the Caspian - Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Azerbaijan (all of them have uneasy "partnerships" historically with post-Soviet Turkmenistan).

But Russia also has factors of advantage. It has a surplus of hard cash at a time when the Western banking system is collapsing. Gazprom can use this clout of financial liquidity as a bargaining chip to outsmart Western oil companies cultivating favor in Ashgabat. A Russian business daily reported on Tuesday that
Putin is forthwith providing $9 billion to Russia's four largest oil and gas companies to "refinance" their foreign debt in the context of the meltdown of the Western banking system.

The government had earlier announced $5.5 billion in tax breaks for the Russian energy companies. The four Russian oil majors had addressed a letter to Putin last month asking for a total of $80 billion to pay off their foreign debts and finance strategic projects. Putin responded on Friday by saying the government would disburse up to $50 billion.

Now, how many Western governments can match Russia providing such backing out of sovereign wealth funds to its oil majors at the present time of global credit crunch? The decision-makers in Ashgabat are bound to factor in these hard realities when they weigh the relative merits of competing offers from Gazprom and Western oil and gas companies.

There is also a huge psychological factor. In the idiom of wagering, it is always the case that when you are essentially betting against all else, your chances of winning depend on making a more informed decision. Simply put, Moscow has multiple lines open to Ashgabat dating to the Soviet era.

All the same, the latest development provides the US with a window of opportunity to play itself back into the race for Caspian energy after Russia repeatedly outsmarted it in recent years. Clearly, there is now no dearth of a resource base if Washington is to push trans-Caspian gas pipeline projects.

The Turkmen government announced last week that it intended to increase its gas exports to 125 bcm annually by 2015. From the US perspective, that target seems reasonable enough to make a robust pitch for Nabucco in the short term even though Yoloten's gas will take time to be extracted for exports.

The US will make a pitch on behalf of Western companies as regards providing expertise. The deck has already been cleared. Washington no more harps on Turkmenistan's human-rights record, nor is it appealing to Western governments to pressure Ashgabat into making fundamental democratic reforms. As an American commentator put it, "It has become clear this year that the need for energy supplies has pushed rights concerns to the background in discussions with the Turkmen government".

Such pragmatism is nothing new to US diplomacy and Ashgabat can be expected to take note. Surely, the graph of US expectations is curving upward sharply. Washington would have had prior knowledge of the GCA's audit. A US expert on the Caspian wrote, "The implications of the [GCA] audit results are momentous for European and trans-Atlantic energy security ... Brussels and Washington can encourage Western companies to become involved in developing South Yoloten-Osman, Yaslar and other Turkmen gas fields with westbound pipeline outlets via Azerbaijan to Europe. This could significantly counterbalance Russian Gazprom's dominance in European markets."

Even so, he also acknowledged, "Conversely, the Kremlin will undoubtedly seek privileged access for Gazprom to the newly ascertained Turkmen resources, acting preemptively against the West. By combining those new resources (on top of the already committed Turkmen inputs) with its own volumes, Gazprom would boost its dominance in Europe to impregnable levels for a long time to come."

There is also much hyperbole in these expectations. The heart of the matter is that the US experts do not spot a dark horse. It is far too presumptuous to choreograph the battle scene in such straightforward terms of Russia versus the West. There is yet another serious player watching the fabulous Turkmen gas fields from the east - China.

US experts and cold warriors are obsessed with battling resurgent Russia on the beaches of the Caspian Sea, the mountains of the Caucasus and the steppes of Central Asia. But they are underestimating China's potential as a market for Turkmen gas and as a competitor to European countries.

Ashgabat is already committed to delivering up to 40 bcm gas annually to China through a $2.6 billion Central Asia-China gas pipeline that Beijing is financing. PetroChina (a subsidiary of China National Petroleum Corporation) and China National Oil and Gas Exploration and Development Company (CNOGEDC) have a 50-50 sharing of the project's costs and have formed the Trans-Asia Gas Pipeline Company Ltd as a wholly owned subsidiary for this purpose.

Interestingly, China is collaborating with local companies in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan for the construction, which is an altogether new and interesting experience for the Central Asian countries.

China is a latecomer in Turkmenistan but it has already overtaken the West and is second only to Russia in that country. At the time of the signing of the July 2007 Sino-Turkmen agreement on supply of Turkmen gas, US analysts pooh-poohed the agreement as a typical ploy by Ashgabat to drive a hard bargain vis-a-vis Russian and Western companies bidding for contracts. They overlooked that China was dead serious.

CNOGEDC is far from a novice; its expertise in oil and gas exploration work is well known in diverse markets, not only in the Caspian (Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan) but also in Indonesia, Algeria, Oman, Niger, Chad, Ecuador, Peru, Venezuela and Canada.

China holds many trump cards. First, it is a "virgin" market with a strong urge to expand. Beijing plans to raise its ratio of natural gas consumption to total energy use by 2.5 percentage points to 5.3% by 2010. This is still far below the global average of 25% and is indicative of China's potential as a market. Two, China carries no imperial baggage - unlike the US or Russia. It is not prescriptive. It is not peddling "color revolution". China doesn't hector on free market or human rights. The Central Asian countries find such an attitude extremely comfortable.

Three, China has a game plan. It will not appear avaricious, like Western companies. Energy cooperation will invariably form part a broad Chinese thrust in the direction of mutually beneficial economic cooperation. Thus, China will not hesitate to offer substantive assistance to Turkmenistan. Four, China will not overtly compete. Instead, China will most likely work with Russia on development packages to increase Turkmen gas production.

In contrast, the cold warriors in the US visualize the Western companies as lone rangers on the Central Asian steppe. In fact, the entire European energy diplomacy in the Caspian suffers almost fatally from the spirit of rivalry with Russia that Washington injects into it. Wherever German, Italian and French oil companies have shaken off the US tutelage and begun working with Russia, they have done far better. China's energy diplomacy in Central Asia and the Caspian offers a model for the European oil majors.

Of course, it will be fascinating to see how China learns from its own history. In 101 BC, Han emperor Wu-Ti was absolutely captivated by Akhal-Teke, which he called "heavenly blood-sweating horses". He wanted to buy a stallion as a model for making a horse statue made of gold in his palace. But the Turkmen for some obscure reason, rejected the Han request. Wu-Ti retaliated by dispatching an army of 80,000 to the inhospitable Turkmen deserts where the Akhal-Teke roams in abandon. The Chinese simply got hold of 30 purebred horses and some 3,000 partbreds and made their way back to Wu-Ti.

True, China has been absolutely mesmerized by the Akhal-Teke. Tu Fu, an 8th century Chinese poet wrote

The Ferghana horse is famed among nomad breeds.
Lean in build, like the point of a lance;
Two ears sharp as bamboo spikes;
Four hoofs light as though born of the wind.
Heading away across the endless spaces,
Truly, you may entrust him with your life.

All the same, today's China is unlikely to do what came naturally to Wu-Ti. Even if Ashgabat were to tell China that it cannot have the entire output of the Yoloten-Osman gas fields, Beijing will unlikely remonstrate. It will gladly settle for sharing the output with its friends in Russia or the West if that's indeed what Ashgabat wants.

Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar was a career diplomat in the Indian Foreign Service. His assignments included the Soviet Union, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Germany, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Kuwait and Turkey.

(Copyright 2008 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved.)

How To Manage An Imperial Decline

By Aziz Huq
October 18, 2008
Courtesy Of Asia Times Online

Do empires end with a bang, a whimper, or the sibilant hiss of financial deflation?

We may be about to find out. Right now, in the midst of the financial whirlwind, it's been hard in the United States to see much past the moment. Yet the ongoing economic meltdown has raised a range of non-financial issues of great importance for our future. Uncertainty and anxiety about the prospects for global financial markets - given the present liquidity crunch - have left little space for serious consideration of issues of American global power and influence.

So let's start with the economic meltdown at hand - but not end there - and try to offer a modest initial assessment of how the crumbling US economy might change America's global stance.

From its inception, the financial panic stemmed from, and also exposed, a form of imperial overstretch - that of Wall Street's giant financial firms. For them, it took the form of highly leveraged positions grounded on fragile, poorly assessed collateralized debt. As John Grey recently observed in the British Guardian, however, the panic also uncovered another kind of imperial overstretch - that of American geostrategic power, raising questions about how the gap between stressed political and military assets and Washington's global ambitions will be resolved.
It's important to clarify what's currently at stake globally. Otherwise, depending on one's druthers, this is a subject that tends to be either overblown or underplayed. Few in the mainstream media even countenance the possibility of catastrophic changes in the US position in the world. On the other hand, some in that world are already ascribing seismic significance to what's happening before the dust has even settled. As historian Andrew Bacevich cautions, the future has yet to be written and so neither outcome is - as yet - a foregone conclusion.
Nonetheless, it's worth trying to grasp just how today's financial crisis is converging with two other trends - the weakening of American hard and soft power - to transform the geopolitical landscape.

Melting Down

Start with the financial crisis, which emerged from an industry-wide mismanagement of credit and risk. Sophisticated instruments such as credit-default swaps were intended to cushion institutions from default risk on speculative housing assets by breaking those assets into small bits and spreading them widely among financial institutions. Like any kind of insurance, this was a way of spreading risk around to minimize the consequences of catastrophe.

Instead, of course, those "instruments" seem to have cushioned investors only from a frank assessment of risk. Worse, the very splintering of risk, originally designed to insulate financial merchants from too-hard blows, meant that it would prove exceedingly difficult to assess the soundness of all sorts of other institutions.

Paradoxically, what were fashioned as tools to eliminate risk became tools for risk contagion. As a consequence, it is still unclear whether the tumbling of world markets was a consequence of a confidence-based liquidity crunch, or of a more fundamental problem of worthless assets.

For all but a hardline core of Republicans in the House of Representatives, the tenpin-style collapse or near-collapse of Lehman Brothers, AIG, WaMu, Wachovia and other outfits signaled the failure of a decades-old deregulatory approach to finance. (The credit-default swap market, in large measure the font of today's crisis, has never been regulated thanks in important part to former US Federal Reserve chief Alan Greenspan's confidence in them.) The distinctively modern American model of deregulatory fervor reached its pinnacle during the US President George W Bush years, and has now broken.

The crisis of finance, however, was also a crisis of national governance, highlighting structural weaknesses in the national political system that can render a president a lame-duck months before his term in office ends. The crisis has also highlighted the striking difficulty Congress has in sustaining meaningful legislative inquiry and action on complex issues. Since the panic began, its leaders have proven incapable of imagining alternatives to a deeply regressive and barely re-regulatory response. Not only is the nation's financial framework unsustainable, its political architecture seems seriously flawed.

All of this has an immediate, practical aspect, which has not exactly gone unnoticed in the rest of a panic-stricken world. For decades, the United States has run consistent and growing current-account deficits - basically a measure of how indebted over time a country is in relation to its foreign trading partners - to the tune of $6.7 trillion since 1982. That was then, though. This is now, and the sustainability of a political economy, no less a global geopolitical strategy that hinges on international credit markets, is today in question.

Even before the mid-September unraveling began, international creditor goodwill toward the "sole superpower" and its fiscal overreach seemed to be evaporating fast. Asian investors, for instance, were quick to evince "unprecedented" skepticism about US assets in the opening moments of the crisis. Earlier this year, vast Middle Eastern and Asian sovereign wealth funds, many bloated by petrodollars, were still willing to furnish crucial injections of capital to US banks, probably staving off the current liquidity crunch. (Paradoxically, their help may only have pushed the onrushing crisis back to a point where it became even more politically toxic to the still-ruling Republican Party.)

Since September, however, the same sovereign wealth funds have proved skittish indeed about helping US financial outfits, eliminating another possible resource for responding to credit shortfalls.

American Power On The Wane

At some point, tighter global credit conditions are sure to significantly constrain America's freedom of action internationally. After all, Chinese and East Asian investors, to offer but one example, are now quite capable of reining in, and even undermining, the federal government (if they choose to), rather than vice versa.

Though it may not yet have penetrated American consciousness, a national fiscal crisis is also bound to be a crisis of national security. In the coming years, a new president will have to deal with a growing disparity between the historically hegemonic role of this country on the world stage and its diminishing capacity. Simply put, the US will have to do more with less, even to maintain a semblance of its current strategic profile. What effect this has on geopolitical stability, on the number of small and big wars that occur globally, and on collective problems ranging from climate change to human rights, remains to be seen.

This might not matter so much if it hadn't been for the Bush administration's myopic focus on the Middle East as the sum of all evils and the bind it has put future policymakers in by shredding US capacity elsewhere. The recent Russian invasion of Georgia offered a graphic illustration of just how hobbled American power had become even before the present financial crisis hit. Apart from a spasm of vice-presidential denunciations, American has not taken and cannot take action in response to Russian moves in Georgia. Indeed, the White House has found itself in a situation uncomfortably like that of our erstwhile European allies, who have been confined to plaintive whining.

Worse, the Bush administration may have been fully complicit in Georgia's strategic error that precipitated the crisis. As military analyst George Friedman has noted, the US had 130 military "observers" in Georgia, who knew of its military deployments and also had the satellite capacity to view Russia's buildup in North Ossetia. Despite this knowledge, the US failed to restrain its ally from launching its forces against that breakaway region. Indeed, it may have been American training and support for the Georgian army (given in exchange for its contributions to "the coalition of the willing" in Iraq) that emboldened President Mikheil Saakashvili to invade. In which case, the administration succeeded only in enticing an important ally to throw egg in our face.

Nor is the US position in the Middle East any more impressive. However successful the "surge" has been in the American partisan political theater, it has not resolved the fundamental sectarian instabilities in Iraq, nor has it altered a growing regional imbalance as Iran gains unprecedented influence.

The mountainous Pashtun border areas in Afghanistan's east and Pakistan's west, by contrast, are in a state of open revolt against US regional desires, while the Pakistani regime favored by the Bush administration has collapsed. Obituaries are now being written for Afghanistan's Hamid Karzai regime (for those who didn't notice that it was moribund on arrival six-plus years ago).

Diminishing US economic and military influence only underscores a third trend: the wilting of America's "soft power." At the UN in September, for instance, Bush faced a tsunami of whispered complaints about America's flawed stewardship of the global economy. Manifest failure in an area in which Americans took such pride saps Washington's ability to persuade and build alliances in areas like resisting slaughter in Darfur, fighting piracy in the Gulf of Aden, or stemming Russian designs on what it calls its "near abroad".

What, in retrospect, must be termed the Dick Cheney White House, has reduced America's reputation as a moral beacon to junk-bond level. As Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama and Republican presidential candidate John McCain have both recognized, any claim to human rights leadership the United States may have once possessed has run aground on the shoals of its torture and "extraordinary rendition" policies, all approved at the highest government levels.

In addition, the insular parochialism of the country's increasingly conservative judiciary has sliced away at the nation's reputation as a font of constitutionalism. It remains to be seen whether similar judicial parochialism will help undermine the country's attractiveness as an entrepot for financial deal-making.

Managing Imperial Decline

The United States today stands in a position somewhat reminiscent of imperial Great Britain after World War II: its currency is no longer the pillar of global financial stability, its armies and navies are no longer capable of enforcing its policy desires, and its reputation has been battered by formally successful but functionally catastrophic military conflicts.

Britain's World War II-eviscerated economy and infrastructure cannot, of course, be compared to its present-day American equivalents, even glutted with the detritus of two successive boom-and-bust cycles. Nonetheless, the analogy may be suggestive for Washington when it comes to possible shifts in geopolitical and economic tectonics.

As was true in the Britain of those years, so it is today, that even as the US position in the world undergoes a radical diminishment, the extent to which this is being grasped by a policymaking establishment in Washington unused to dealing with such uncertainty remains unclear.

In foreign policy terms, the overextended nature of British imperial power only struck home in 1956, nine years after the world war ended. That was the moment when British prime minister Anthony Eden fundamentally miscalculated British power in response to Egyptian president Abdul Nasser's nationalization of the Suez Canal Company. With the French and Israelis at his back, Eden reckoned that Nasser was overreaching and saw an opportunity to undermine the Egyptian regime in an area where British power had long been dominant.

Eden reckoned, however, without a newly dominant United States. American president Dwight D Eisenhower, angry at being cut out of Middle Eastern affairs, threatened Eden. He would, he indicated, "pull the plug" on the British pound by withdrawing American fiscal support for the recovering British economy. The country's monetary weakness led directly to its military collapse in the crisis. The Suez fiasco not only destroyed Eden's prime ministership, it also marked the end of British imperial ambitions.

How, then, will the United States deal with the uncertainty attendant on its present declining fortunes? A "virtual" history of parallel events featuring a new American president is not hard to imagine, with the weak dollar playing a similar starring role to that of the vulnerable pound back in 1956. Suez was, of course, disastrous for the British exactly because Eden so dramatically misjudged the gap between British assets and his version of its national ambitions. The question today is whether a new American president might do the same.

The most obvious temptation remains an attack on Iran, which would almost certainly fail, even as it exposed US operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere to blowback of a magnitude hard for many American politicians to conceptualize at the moment. It would just as surely mark an unpredictable reordering of political relations in the Middle East and possibly, like Suez, the end of American global imperial pretensions.

Iran is but one possible place for a new Suez. Others, from Pakistan to the Taiwan Strait, abound. Such dramatic miscalculations are easy to imagine, especially if the nationalistic pressures of inside-the-Beltway politics drive international commitments. In addition, other global actors recognizing American weakness in ways Americans may not could add to the mayhem.

In a fast-transforming economic climate, a new president will be faced with a difficult balancing act: exercising flexibility while coming to terms with weakness, compensating for strengths lost during the past eight years while giving up ground in pragmatic ways. If that doesn't happen, then hard questions will linger, even after the last credit-default swaps have been unwound, about America's capacity to project influence in the world.

Aziz Huq, author of Unchecked and Unbalanced: Presidential Power in a Time of Terror (The New Press, 2007), directs the liberty and national security project of the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University. He is counsel in several cases involving post-9/11 detentions, including Omar vs Geren, Munaf vs Geren and al Marri vs Puciarrelli.

(Copyright 2008 Aziz Huq.)

(Published with permission of TomDisptach.com)

Pakistan Does Some US Dirty Work

By Syed Saleem Shahzad
October 18, 2008
Courtesy Of Asia Times Online

KARACHI - Pakistan's seven-year association with the United States' "war on terror" has moved to a new and dangerous level: the US has given it a contract to build 1,000 Humvees for use by troops in Afghanistan against the Taliban-led insurgency.

The fact that Pakistan is now providing the hardware for the "war on terror" is a highly sensitive issue, given the already inflammatory situation that exists in the country over Islamabad siding with Washington in this fight against terrorism.

Asia Times Online has learned that Pakistan's Heavy Industries Taxila (HIT) has been given the order for an undisclosed sum for the Humvees - high mobility multipurpose wheeled vehicles. HIT, located 35 kilometers to the west of the capital Islamabad, is the leading engineering and manufacturing center for the armed forces in Pakistan, with a workforce of over 6,000.

Work on the Humvees has already begun, although the task is being undertaken in secret. HIT has the capabilities to build main battle tanks, armored recovery vehicles, armored personnel carriers and other military equipment. Humvees are currently produced by AM General, an American heavy vehicle manufacturer based in South Bend, Indiana.

According to contacts at the plant who spoke to ATol, the Humvees are just the first of many orders to come for the manufacture of armaments for use in Afghanistan.

ATol contacted the Ministry of Defense Production, under which HIT operates, and was directed by a Major Raza Hasan to the director general of Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), Major General Athar Abbas, as the minister was not available. Abbas said he had no knowledge of the matter of the Humvees and would call back after speaking with HIT. At time of publication, he had not done so.

A Widening War

The winter season has begun, but the heat of fighting is not getting any cooler in the South Asian war theater, indeed, it is becoming cauldron-hot.

The Taliban have shown unprecedented resilience and the scope of the battlefield has broadened from the border provinces with Pakistan to the main urban centers of Afghanistan. Whether it is newly formed American bases in Nuristan and Khost provinces, or the British base in Lashkar Gah, they have either been overrun or placed under constant siege by the Taliban.

Now, the strategic backyard of the "war on terror", Pakistan, is feeling the heat. Just as Kabul is under siege by the Taliban and communication links leading to Kabul have been disrupted by the Taliban, Islamabad is under siege by the Taliban and militants in the tribal areas on the border with Afghanistan.

Increasingly frequent raids by US special forces into Pakistan from Afghanistan and the use of Predator drones to target militants has angered many in Pakistan, and even caused dissent within the ranks of the armed forces.

That Pakistan is now producing hardware that could conceivably be used inside Pakistan against its people will rankle even more.

Further, as reported by ATol, the US is establishing a large base inside Pakistan at Tarbella, 20 km from Islamabad, officially said to be used to train Pakistani troops and to take part in operations in the tribal areas. (See Pakistan, US await militant showdown Asia Times Online, October 7, 2008.)

However, it is suspected the base will be used for US operations inside Pakistan and Afghanistan. American trainers are working out an arrangement for joint ventures with a selective group of Pakistani Frontier Corps.

The US already plans a military surge in Afghanistan with an additional brigade (4,000 to 5,000 troops) in January and possibly two or three more brigades later in the year. These will be reinforcements, not replacements. This will further "Americanize" the North Atlantic Treaty Organization mission in Afghanistan. Already, 26,000 of the 63,000 total international forces in the country are American. At the same time, the Afghan National Army is being expanded to 122,000 personnel and a rudimentary air force is being created.

It is against this backdrop that the US has turned to Pakistan for the manufacture of armaments to supply these new demands both within Pakistan and in Afghanistan.

Syed Saleem Shahzad is Asia Times Online's Pakistan Bureau Chief. He can be reached at saleem_shahzad2002@yahoo.com

(Copyright 2008 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved.)

India's Role In Sri Lanka's Civil War

Source: Reuters North American News Service
Oct 17, 2008 03:07 EST
Courtesy Of WireDispatch

Oct. 17 (Reuters) - India this week criticised Sri Lanka's escalation of its war with the Tamil Tigers, after nearly 40 legislators told Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh they would quit parliament if he didn't stop the conflict in two weeks.

Analysts say India's prior involvement in the 25-year-old Sri Lankan war rules out such an intervention, and will leave Sri Lanka free to prosecute a war it is confident of winning.

Here are some facts about India's role in Sri Lanka:

* Ethnic ties have bound southern India and Sri Lanka for more than two millennia. India is now home to more than 60 million of the world's 77 million Tamils, while about 4 million live in Sri Lanka. The Palk Strait, about 40 km (25 miles) wide at its narrowest point, is all that separates the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu and northern Sri Lanka, traditionally the main Tamil area of the Indian Ocean island.

* When war between Sri Lankan Tamils and the Sinhalese majority -- about three-fourth of Sri Lanka's 21 million people -- erupted in 1983, India under Prime Minister Indira Gandhi took an active role. It hosted militant Tamil training camps in Tamil Nadu, from which the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) emerged as the most lethal group. India had both its national security and concerns about Pakistani, Chinese and United States influence in Sri Lanka in mind.

* Historians say those concerns, plus India's growing desire to establish itself as a regional power, were behind a June 4, 1987, airdrop of relief supplies to the Tamil Tiger-held Jaffna Peninsula while it was under siege by the Sri Lankan army. Faced with the prospect of a direct Indian intervention, Sri Lankan President J.R. Jayewardene held talks with India that produced the July 29, 1987, Indo-Sri Lanka Accord. The LTTE, however, was excluded.

* The deal, signed by Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and Jayawardene, led to the deployment the following day of the Indian Peacekeeping Force (IPKF) to enforce a ceasefire. It eventually grew to almost 100,000 troops-strong.

* But by October, relations between the Tigers and India fell apart, after Jayawardene threatened to redeploy the Sri Lankan army unless the IPKF took action against the LTTE. India agreed, and fighting with the LTTE erupted in full force. In January 1989, President Ranasinghe Premadasa -- elected on a platform to get the Indians out -- took power and in April gave the Indians three months to leave. He authorised a secret deal to supply the LTTE with weapons to fight the IPKF, according to a Presidential Commission report published after his death at the hands of an LTTE suicide bomber on May 1, 1993.

* India withdrew in 1990, after Rajiv Gandhi's successor, V.P. Singh, deemed the plan a total failure that had alienated the Tamil constituency in India. More than 1,200 IPKF soldiers were killed and thousands were wounded in the mission.

* A suicide bomber killed Gandhi on May 21, 1991, when he was campaigning for re-election in Tamil Nadu. An Indian Supreme Court ruling upheld the convictions of 26 people, including LTTE leader Vellupillai Prabhakaran, in the assassination. The Tigers have always denied it was them.

* India since then has maintained a dual policy that urges Sri Lanka to reach a political deal to address Tamil grievances, while formally proscribing the LTTE as a terrorist group. Though few in Sri Lanka will talk about it, India does provide non-lethal military assistance to the government and has helped the Sri Lankan Navy intercept and destroy Tiger smuggling ships. Security experts say the Tigers continue to finance Tamil Nadu politicians and that the Tigers' gun and drug smuggling and other operations in and around Indian territory are viewed as a national security threat. (Writing by Bryson Hull in Colombo; Editing by Alex Richardson)

Abu Nidal Was "A US Spy"

Abu Nidal, Notorious Palestinian Mercenary, 'Was A US Spy'

Secret Papers Claim The Feared Assassin Was Hired To Find Links Between Saddam and Al-Qa'ida.

By Robert Fisk reports
Saturday, 25 October 2008
Courtesy Of The Independent

Iraqi secret police believed that the notorious Palestinian assassin Abu Nidal was working for the Americans as well as Egypt and Kuwait when they interrogated him in Baghdad only months before the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq. Hitherto secret documents which are now in the hands of The Independent – written by Saddam Hussein's brutal security services for Saddam's eyes only – state that he had been "colluding" with the Americans and, with the help of the Egyptians and Kuwaitis, was trying to find evidence linking Saddam and al-Qa'ida.

President George Bush was to use claims of a relationship with al-Qa'ida as one of the reasons for his 2003 invasion, along with Iraq's possession of weapons of mass destruction. Western reports were to dismiss Iraq's claim that Abu Nidal committed suicide in August 2002, suggesting that Saddam's own security services murdered him when his presence became an embarrassment for them. The secret papers from Iraq suggest that he did indeed kill himself after confessing to the "treacherous crime of spying against this righteous country".

The final hours of Abu Nidal, the mercenary whose assassinations and murderous attacks in 20 countries over more than a quarter of a century killed or wounded more than 900 civilians, are revealed in the set of intelligence reports drawn up for Saddam's "presidency intelligence office" in September of 2002. The documents state that Egyptian and Kuwaiti intelligence officers had asked Abu Nidal, whose real name was Khalil al-Banna, to spy for them "with the knowledge of their American counterparts". Five days after his death, Iraq's head of intelligence, Taher Jalil Habbush, told a press conference in Baghdad that Abu Nidal had committed suicide after Iraqi agents arrived at the apartment where he was hiding in the city, but the secret reports make it clear that the notorious Palestinian had undergone a long series of interrogations prior to his violent demise. The records of these sessions were never intended to be made public and were written by Iraqi "Special Intelligence Unit M4" for Saddam. While Abu Nidal may have lied to his interrogators – torture is not mentioned in the reports – the documents appear to be a frank internal account of what the Iraqis believed his mission in Iraq to be. The papers name a Kuwaiti major, a member of the ruling Kuwaiti al-Sabbah family, as his "handler" and state that he was also tasked to "perform terrorist acts inside and outside Iraq". His presence in the country "would provide the Americans with the pretext that Iraq was harbouring terrorist organisations," the reports say.

"Coded messages indicate that the Kuwaitis asked him indirectly to find out whether al-Qa'ida elements were present in Iraq. Our conclusions were confirmed when he [Abu Nidal] started to mitigate his actions with irrational answers when asked about the data against him. He attempted to sidetrack his answers by not being specific and referring to historical matters. It was noted by the investigators that he went from short, ambiguous and unclear replies to generalities ... he seemed perturbed ... But once he became convinced of the weight of the evidence against him concerning his collusion with both the American and Kuwaiti intelligence apparatuses in co-ordination with Egyptian intelligence, he realised that his treacherous crime of spying against this righteous country had been exposed ..."

Abu Nidal was no stranger to Iraq. He had operated from Baghdad, Damascus and the Libyan capital of Tripoli when the regimes wanted to use him as a "gun for hire". It was Iraq which paid him to organise the attack on the Israeli ambassador to London, Shlomo Argov, in 1982, an attempted assassination which prompted Israel to accuse Yasser Arafat of responsibility and to begin its disastrous invasion of Lebanon, and Colonel Muammur Gaddafi later established a close relationship with Abu Nidal. In 1985, his crazed gunmen attacked Israeli-bound passengers at Rome and Vienna airports, killing a total of 18 people. His biographer Patrick Seale, who suggests that for some time Abu Nidal even worked for Israel's Mossad intelligence agency, has written of how, when he feared treachery in his own ranks, a suspected spy would be buried alive, fed through a tube for days and then – if Abu Nidal's "court" deemed death appropriate – a bullet would be fired down the tube.

His own interrogation at the hands of Saddam's secret police, will therefore appear equally appropriate punishment for so cruel a man. Among the other crimes of which he was accused in the Iraqi intelligence report was the preparation of 14 booby-trapped suitcase bombs to be used on foreigners – Swiss and Austrian, according to the intelligence file – in the northern Kurdish area of Iraq, at the time a US-supported "safe haven", and an attempt to recruit new members for his so-called Fatah Revolutionary Council among Palestinians wounded by the Israelis in the West Bank and Gaza who were recovering in Baghdad hospitals.

There are some oddities in the report and some unanswered questions. It says, for example, that Abu Nidal originally infiltrated Iraq from Iran on a false Yemeni passport years earlier, but that this was facilitated by his own representative in Kuwait, named as Nabil Uthman. Abu Nidal was said to have communicated to Kuwait via coded messages sent through Lebanon and Dubai. The papers give his date of birth as 1939 – he is believed to have been born in Jaffa in what was then Palestine in 1937 – and state that he resided in Libya in 1984 but "had no links with the Libyan authorities". He is also stated to have been imprisoned by the Egyptian security services for two months. The man who is said to have provided Abu Nidal with a "safe house" in Baghdad was interrogated in 2002 alongside the Palestinian and is named as Abdulkareem Mohammed Mustapha.

Could Abu Nidal really have entered Iraq from Iran, whose own intelligence services, would surely have questioned him? Could Abu Nidal have lived in secret in the Baathist state of Iraq without Saddam's own mukhabarat finding him? And for how long was he interrogated? The documents give us no answers to these questions.

His end is, however, recorded bleakly. "Upon being asked to accompany those charged with guarding him to a more secure location to continue the interrogation procedures, he requested that he be allowed to change his clothes. On entering his bedroom, he committed suicide. Unsuccessful attempts were made to resuscitate him ..." Nothing is known of the fate of Abdulkareem Mustapha, only that he was "submitted to court". But we do know where Abu Nidal now lies.

"The corpse of Sabri al-Banna", the final report concludes, "was buried on 29/8/2002 in al-Karakh's Islamic cemetery [in Baghdad]. Until a final resting place is found, a marker designates the place of burial and it was documented on video as well as on still photographs as 'M7'." No "final resting place" for this savage man appears ever to have been found.

Years Of Terror: A Man As Feared As Bin Laden

Abu Nidal, was once as feared as Osama bin Laden. His most notorious attacks included:

*1978 His "Black June" movement blamed for murdering PLO members in London, Paris, Madrid, Brussels, Kuwait and Rome.

*1982 Israeli ambassador to Britain, Shlomo Argov, shot in Mayfair, leaving him permanently paralysed.

*1984 Jordanian airliner attacked by rocket on take-off from Athens. Assassinations included the British cultural attaché in Athens and the British deputy high commissioner in Mumbai.

*1985 Egyptian airliner hijacked – six passengers murdered and 60 killed when the plane is stormed by Egyptian commandos

*1985 Gunmen massacre 18 and wound 120 in attacks on El Al ticket desks at Vienna and Romeairports, bottom left.

*1986 Machine-gun attack kills 22 in a synagogue inIstanbul; at least 20 passengers and crew are killed when Pan Am jet hijacked in Karachi, bottom right.

*1988 Nine killed and 98 wounded when gunmenattack the Greek cruise ship the City of Poros.

America's National Strategy Of Global Intervention

Courtesy Of WilliamPfaff
October 18, 2008

Paris, October 15, 2008 – Last June the U.S. Department of Defense unexpectedly issued a new version of its National Defense Strategy. It was unexpected because there will be a new administration in Washington in January which might be expected to issue a statement of its own ideas about military strategy.

Some in Washington speculated that Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, only recently named to that office, a man who gets along with Democrats as well as Republications, might be bidding to keep his job under a new administration.

The new statement lacks the Bush administration’s unilateralism and triumphalism (as if there were anything left to be triumphal about), but it foresees a “Long War” of “promoting freedom, justice and human dignity by working to end tyranny, promote effective democracies and extend prosperity; and confronting the challenges of our time by leading a growing community of democracies.”

All that is straight Bush doctrine, drawn from his second inaugural address and Condoleezza Rice’s policy statement last summer predicting decades of a “new American realism” of “nation-building” to conquer “extremism.” By now the “Long War,” realistic or not, will have become orthodoxy for most of the Washington defense and strategic studies community.

The noteworthy thing about this National Defense Strategy statement is that it says nothing directly about American national defense. It is a strategy for intervening in other countries, and preventing others from blocking or resisting American interventions.



It states the responsibilities of America’s armed forces (summarizing the document’s introduction) as follows:

§ Conduct a global struggle against a violent extremist ideology that seeks to overturn the international system.

§ Deal with the threats of rogue-nation quests for nuclear weapons.

§ Confront the rising military power of other states.

These duties “[will require] the orchestration of national and international power over years or decades to come” to accomplish the following:

§ Long-term innovative approaches to counter al-Qaeda’s rejection of state sovereignty, violation of borders, and attempts to deny self-determination and human dignity.

§ Deal “with the inability of many states to police themselves effectively or work with their neighbors to ensure regional security.” Armed sub-national groups must be dealt with, “including but not limited to those inspired by violent extremism” which if left unchecked will threaten the stability and legitimacy of key states, and allow instability to spread “and threaten regions of interest to the United States, its allies and friends.”

§ Form local partnerships and creative approaches to deny extremists the opportunity to gain footholds in “ungoverned, under-governed, misgoverned, and contested areas” affecting local stability and regional stability.

§ Counter Iran’s pursuit of nuclear technology and enrichment capabilities, and deal with the ability of rogue states such as Iran and North Korea to threaten international order, sponsor terrorism, and disrupt fledgling democracies in Iraq and Afghanistan.

§ Meet possible challenges from (a) “more powerful states [that] might actively seek to counter the United States in some or all domains of traditional warfare or to gain an advantage in developing capabilities that offset our own,” as well as (b) nations that might “choose niche areas of military capability and competition in which they believe they can develop a strategic or operational advantage [even though] some of these potential competitors [may also be partners of the U.S. in] diplomatic, commercial or security efforts...”

§ For the foreseeable future, “hedge against China’s growing military modernization and the impact of its strategic choices on international security....The objective of this effort is to mitigate near-term challenges while preserving and enhancing U.S. national advantages over time.”

§ Recognize that Russia’s [pre-Georgian crisis] “retreat from openness and democracy,” “bullying of its neighbors,” and “more active military stance... and signaled increase in reliance on nuclear weapons as a foundation for its security ...[are warnings of] a Russia exploring renewed influence” and a greater international role.

§ Prevent prospective adversaries, especially non-state actors and their state sponsors, from adopting “anti-access technology and weaponry [that can] restrict our future freedom of action,” and also from “making adversary use of traditional means of influence” such as by “manipulating global opinion using mass communications venues and exploiting international commitments and legal avenues.”

§ The global “commons [space, international waters, aerospace and cyberspace] must be secured and with them access to world markets and resources,” using military capabilities and alliances and coalitions, participating in international security and economic institutions, and employing “diplomacy and soft power to shape the behavior of individual states and the international system, using force when necessary.”

The principal preoccupation of the document is to protect American forces operating in foreign countries: to block measures by foreign states to “deny” American efforts to intervene in their countries, or to develop measures and technology to resist American intervention (or to send Americans to international criminal courts).

As for the United States itself, the document quotes the constitutional obligation of the government “to provide for the common defense,” but says that today, after more than 230 years, the U.S. “shoulders additional responsibilities on behalf of the world,...a beacon of light for those in dark places.” Yet the fear of those dark places that permeates the document compels the recommendation that American troops remain at home, where they will be safe from enemies and untrustworthy allies, and defend their own country.

© Copyright 2008 by Tribune Media Services International. All Rights Reserved.

Civilian Dead: A Trade-Off In NATO's Barbarity

Civilian Dead Are A Trade-Off In Nato's War Of Barbarity

The Killing Of Innocent Afghans By US Bombs Is The Result Of A Calculation, Not Just A Mistake. And It Is Fuelling Resistance

By Seumas Milne
Thursday October 16 2008
Courtesy Of The Guardian

While the eyes of the western world have been fixed on the global financial crisis, the military campaign that launched the war on terror has been spinning out of control. Seven years after the US and Britain began their onslaught on Afghanistan to oust the Taliban and capture Osama bin Laden, the Taliban surround the capital, al-Qaida is flourishing in Pakistan and the war's sponsors have publicly fallen out about whether it has already been lost.

As the US joint chiefs of staff chairman Admiral Mike Mullen concedes that the country is locked into a "downward spiral" of corruption, lawlessness and insurgency, Britain's ambassador in Kabul, Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles, is quoted in a leaked briefing as declaring that "American strategy is destined to fail". The same diplomat who told us last year that British forces would be in Afghanistan for decades now believes foreign troops are "part of the problem, not the solution".

The British commander Brigadier Mark Carleton-Smith was last week even blunter. "We're not going to win this war," he said, adding that if the Taliban were prepared to "talk about a political settlement", that was "precisely the sort of progress that concludes insurgencies like this". The double-barrelled duo were duly slapped down by US defence secretary Robert Gates for defeatism. But even Gates now publicly backs talks with the Taliban, which are in fact already taking place under Saudi sponsorship.

This is the conflict western politicians and media continue to urge their reluctant populations to support as a war for civilisation. In reality, it is a war of barbarity, whose contempt for the value of Afghan life has fuelled the very resistance that western military and political leaders are now unable to contain.

In this year alone, for every occupation soldier killed, at least three Afghan civilians have died at the hands of occupation forces. They include the 95 people, 60 of them children, killed by a US air assault in Azizabad in August; the 47 wedding guests dismembered by US bombardment in Nangarhar in July - US forces have a particular habit of attacking weddings; and the four women and children killed in a British rocket barrage six weeks ago in Sangin.

By far the most comprehensive research into Afghan casualties over the past seven years has been carried out by Marc Herold, a US professor at the University of New Hampshire. In his latest findings, Herold estimates that the number of civilians directly killed by the US and other Nato forces since 2006, up to 3,273, is already higher than the toll exacted by the devastating three-month bombardment that ousted the Taliban regime in 2001. And over the past year civilian deaths at the hands of Nato forces have tripled, despite changes in rules of engagement.

But most telling is the political and military calculation that underlies the Afghan civilian bloodletting. "Close air support" bomb attacks called in by ground forces - which rose from 176 in 2005 to 2,926 in 2007 and are now the US tactic of choice - are between four and 10 times as deadly for Afghan civilians as ground attacks, the figures show, and air strikes now account for 80% of those killed by the occupation forces.

But while 242 US and Nato ground troops have died in the war with the Taliban this year, not a single pilot has been killed in action. The trade-off could not be clearer. With troops thin on the ground and the US military up to their necks in Iraq and elsewhere, US and Nato reliance on air attacks minimises their own casualties while guaranteeing that Afghan civilians will die in far larger numbers.

It is that equation that makes a nonsense of US and British claims that their civilian victims are accidental "collateral damage", while the Taliban's use of roadside bombs, suicide attacks and classic guerrilla operations from civilian areas are a sign of their moral depravity. In real life, the escalating civilian death toll is not a mistake, but the result of a clear decision to put the lives of occupation troops before civilians; westerners before Afghans.

Dependence on air power is also a reflection of US imperial overstretch and the reluctance of Nato states to put more boots on the ground. But however much the nominal Afghan president Hamid Karzai rails against Nato's recklessness with Afghan blood, the indiscriminate air war carries on regardless. Given that the US government spent 10 times more on every sea otter affected by the Exxon Valdez oil spill than it does in "condolence payments" to Afghans for the killing of a family member, perhaps that shouldn't come as a surprise.

But nor should it be that the occupation's cruelty is a recruiting sergeant for the Taliban. As Aga Lalai, who lost both grandparents, his wife, father, three brothers and four sisters in a US bombing in Helmand last summer, put it: "So long as there is just one 40-day-old boy remaining alive, Afghans will fight against the people who do this to us."

That doesn't just go for Afghanistan. Gordon Brown recently told British troops in Helmand: "What you are doing here prevents terrorism coming to the streets of Britain." The opposite is the case. The occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq - and the atrocities carried out against their people - are a crucial motivation for those planning terror attacks in Britain, as case after case has shown. Now the US is launching attacks inside Pakistan, the risks of further terror and destabilisation can only grow.

Senior Pakistani officials are convinced Nato is preparing to throw in the towel in Afghanistan. Both Bush and the two US presidential candidates are committed to an Iraq-style surge, though the number of troops being talked about cannot possibly make a decisive difference to the conflict - and in Barack Obama's case may be as much about providing political cover for his plans for Iraq. But the strategic importance of Afghanistan doesn't suggest any early US withdrawal: more likely an attempt to co-opt sections of the Taliban as part of a messy and protracted attempt to rearrange the occupation.

It will fail. The US and its allies cannot pacify Afghanistan nor seal the border with the Taliban's Pakistani sanctuary. Eventually there is bound to be some sort of negotiated withdrawal as part of a wider regional and domestic settlement. But many thousands of Afghans - as well as occupying troops - look certain to be sacrificed in the meantime.

s.milne@guardian.co.uk

Centers Of Gravity and Military Force

Baffle Them With Warfare

By Jeff Huber
October 15, 2008
Courtesy Of Military.com

John McCain…knows how to win a war.

--Sarah Palin

My matriculation at the United States Naval War College left me with an indelible regard for the wisdom of Ernie Pyle's admonition that in war "nobody really knows what he's doing." As a scholarly discipline, war doesn’t even have a coherent vocabulary. Almost everyone agrees that "center of gravity" is a vital concept, and that it must always be the object of our efforts, but almost nobody agrees on what a center of gravity is.

If you ask 20 war college professors to what a center of gravity is, you'll get 20 different answers. A Marine Corps warfare expert will say there can only be one center of gravity, but that's only because Marines can't remember more than one. If you ask a naval aviator, he'll say the center of gravity is always an aircraft carrier, even in land warfare. An Air Force general will tell you that a center of gravity is anything he can bomb, which is just about everything, so you better buy him a whole lot of expensive bombers so he can bomb all the centers of gravity and a whole lot of expensive fighters to keep the expensive bombers from getting shot down. If you ask any Army general who's been involved in running the Iraq war what a center of gravity is, he'll start breathing through his mouth, and if you ask John McCain he'll tell you the story about the prison guard who drew a crucifix in the dirt with his toe.

If you ask me*, I'll tell you that centers or gravity are related to warfare's objectives, and that grasping the center of gravity concept is essential to understanding why military force cannot achieve the goals of the kind of war we're supposedly fighting right now.

Center Stage

Centers of gravity may vary across the different levels of war, which are commonly labeled the tactical, operational and strategic levels. Simple Simon would tell you that the tactical level is where combat takes place, that the strategic level is where military actions achieve (or don't achieve) the political aims of war (as per Clausewitz), and that the operational level is where the commander and his staff coordinate tactical actions in order to achieve the strategic requirements. Centers of gravity may also change over space and time, but those dynamics are a bit too esoteric for Simon to explain, so we'll skip over them for now.

Whatever the place, time or level, your center of gravity is that part of your assets and resources that will accomplish your objective(s), and the enemy's center of gravity is that part of his assets that can thwart your aims. At the tactical and operational levels, centers of gravity are always some unit or collection of military force. If Simon is skipper of the U-29 and wants to sink an allied supply convoy, the center of gravity he must defeat is the convoy's destroyer escort.

At the strategic level, in my very strong opinion, the center of gravity is always political leadership. Some will argue that strategic centers of gravity include things like economy and public opinion, but those things are more accurately described as critical factors: strengths, weaknesses and critical vulnerabilities. Failed economies and lack of public support may influence the political leadership's behavior, but it may not. It's often asserted that totalitarian leaders are less vulnerable to failed economies and loss of popular backing than leaders of democratic societies, but look at our young Mr. Bush; a shipwrecked economy and record low poll numbers haven't deterred him from pursuing a tyrannical agenda. At the end of the day, your strategic objective is to coerce your enemy into a political behavior of some sort, and only the enemy's political leadership can effect that.

That, in large part, is why going to war with the goal of regime change is so foolish: once you lop off the political coherence of your adversary, you're left with an angry mob on your hands, and as we've seen so clearly in the last five years and change, an angry mob is an ugly thing.

Herding Cats

Centers of gravity can be concentrated (massed) or dispersed; most lie somewhere on the spectrum in between. Before he died and was still in charge of Iraq, Saddam Hussein was a stellar example of a concentrated strategic center of gravity. The guy was a tsar class autocrat, and when he wanted to make something happen in his country, he didn't wait for anybody to tell him "Simon says." At the opposite end of the spectrum is what we've had for an Iraqi government since our Army staged the toppling of Hussein's statue. The body politic is a field of factions tangled like a goat rope, tied in a Gordian knot and wrapped in a Mobius strip, and that's just the official central government. The real power still lies with mullahs and tribal leaders.

Neocons will argue that what we have now is better that dealing with Hussein, but they're daft; Hussein had already complied with our stated political aim for the invasion—he'd abandoned his weapons of mass destruction program—before we even invaded him. Now that our true aim of establishing a permanent robust military footprint in Iraq has become apparent, the closest thing Iraq has to a head of state—Nuri al Maliki—is telling us to pack our caissons and hit the dusty trail, and it doesn't sound like he's just saying that to impress some girl he met last month on MySpace.

As for operational and strategic centers of gravity, we scattered them far and wide when we told the Iraqi army to go home. Now the "enemy's" combat power is so dispersed that it no longer presents a center of gravity that can be decisively beaten. Our forces are trapped in a cat rodeo; they'll never get the adversaries back in the corral because they multiply faster than our cowboys can rope them or run them over with lawn mowers.

Lack of an operational center of gravity to attack is the defining characteristic of counterinsurgency, counterterrorism, low intensity conflict, etc. Superpowers who fight these kinds of adversaries never come out smelling floral. As co-creator of the Fourth Generation Warfare concept William Lind wrote recently, "invaders and occupiers have almost never won against a guerrilla-style war of national liberation. Not even the best counterinsurgency techniques make much difference."

How Terrorist Groups End, a recent Rand Corporation report authored by Seth G. Jones and Martin C. Libicki, studied 648 groups that existed between 1968 and 2006 and analyzed how their terror activities terminated. Only seven percent desisted because of military force applied against them. 83 percent of the success against terror organizations came from policing and political actions. "Against most terror groups," the report states, "military force is usually too blunt an instrument." It notes that "even precision weapons have been of limited use against terrorist groups," and that the "use of substantial U.S. military power against terrorist groups also runs a significant risk of turning the local population against the government by killing civilians." Regarding use of American troops overseas to combat al Qaeda, the report says the best approach is "a light U.S. military footprint or none at all."

"Our analysis suggests that there is no battlefield solution to terrorism," Jones and Libicki write. They also admonish that "Military force usually has the opposite effect from what is intended: It is often over-used, alienates the local population by its heavy-handed...

nature, and provides a window of opportunity for terrorist-group recruitment."

Many of us had arrived at these conclusions long before the Rand report hit the streets; but backed by the aegis of Rand analysis, these determinations should have grabbed the attention of top level decision makers like, say for example, the ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee who aspires to be commander in chief and who consistently reminds us how smart and experienced he is on foreign policy matters. But no, John McCain blithely continues to tout military force as the key to conquering al Qaeda and its evildoing cohorts.

A popular adage says that generals always plan for the last war. American generals and their supporting warmongery always plan for the last world war; we've been training and equipping our military to defeat Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan since we defeated Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, nations who had the kind of political structures and war making machinery that conventional military forces were designed to defeat. If there's a war John McCain knows how to win, it's World War II, and that doesn’t do us any good just now.

Plus, John McCain was five years old when World War II started and he'd only just turned nine when it ended, so he may not even remember how he won it.

* Most of my warfare theories are based on the work of Professor Milan Vego of the U.S. Naval War College.

America’s Coup D’État In The Making

Deception and Self-Deception

By Claes G. Ryn
October 16, 2008
Courtesy Of Lew Rockwell

Following Plato, many moralists have associated political virtue with a reluctance to pursue and exercise power. To want to rule others is to be morally disqualified from doing so. The strong tendency in traditional Western political thought to disparage a desire for power has been unfortunate. Without some people governing others, basic social order could not exist, to say nothing of effecting desirable change. The prejudice against power-seeking has left politics too much to people with the wrong kind of ambition, who want to rule as an end in itself.

The reason for observing that the pursuit of power need not be immoral but can be a means to good is that this article will challenge a particular manifestation of the will to power – one that finds expression in increasingly influential arguments for boosting the prerogatives of the American president and the federal government. The criticism that will be directed here against that hankering for domination must not be misunderstood as stemming from opposition to any and all efforts to acquire power. What will be rejected is an inordinate and blatantly partisan, and therefore perverse, craving to rule – a dream not just about taking over the U.S. government but about dominating the world. The people who have this desire attempt to conceal its real nature by pretending that it comports well with the thinking of the framers of the U.S. Constitution. It is in fact alien to that thinking. Would that power of a different quality could prevail against it!

A merely self-serving desire for power cannot present itself as such. It must portray itself as a wish to assist others. How best to argue for giving you or your group great power? If you are able to persuade others that the present world is grossly oppressive and destructive of human happiness but that you can make it much better, those others may support mobilizing massive power and placing it in your hands or the hands of people like you. The more ambitious your scheme for benevolent change, the greater the need for power.

Since the French Revolution, ideologies have been exceptionally conducive to power-seeking. Jacobinism, Communism, and National Socialism are alike in promising glorious change and assuming the desirability of giving vast power to those who claim to know what needs to be done. A few years ago, David Frum and Richard Perle provided an all-purpose justification for unlimited power: putting "an end to evil" – the title of their co-authored book. Now there is a noble and ambitious goal! Power beyond the dreams of avarice would be needed to realize it. That rooting out evil might be an endless task only increases its appeal to a ravenous will to power. We are, of course, supposed to believe that the connection between advocating sweeping change and needing great power is purely coincidental.

Jacobinism and Marxism were openly revolutionary. They were the ideologies of out-groups challenging existing elites. What this writer has called neo-Jacobinism is the ideology of people on the inside, members of America’s elites, who wish to make the military and other might of the United States a more pliant and powerful tool and who are attempting a creeping coup d’état from within. According to their ideology, America is called by history to create a better world based on universal principles. Virtuous American power must be unleashed. Their main excuse at present for exercising extra-constitutional power is to combat "Terrorism," but any threat to their great cause is a potential justification for setting the Constitution aside.

The rise of the huge, centralized Federal government and the corresponding decline of limited, decentralized government resulted from changes deep in the American mind and imagination. The new Jacobins take advantage of the fading of the old ethos and hasten its disappearance by advocating notions incompatible with it.

The old American idea of government was indistinguishable from the commandment to "love thy neighbor." That morality stressed the importance of the person trying to control his own evil and weakness. Strength of will – character – had to be built up so that the person would become capable of more loving familial and local relationships and more responsible citizenship. This morality made for strong communities and self-reliance and minimized the need for government. Alexis de Tocqueville pointed to the great reluctance among Americans in the early 19th century to give up power over their own lives to any distant authority.

The Constitution rested on an unwritten constitution, which was America’s religious, moral, intellectual, cultural, and social habits and beliefs. Traditional America encouraged a strong attachment to life lived up-close. It fostered self-restraint, modesty, respect for law, and a willingness to compromise. It was this heritage that brought into being the constitutional personality. Just as people were in the habit of imposing internal checks on desire, so were they predisposed to accept and respect external constitutional and other legal constraints. Without such people, the Constitution could not work as intended.

But the self-understanding of Americans slowly changed. Throughout the Western world a very different moral ethos was spreading that shifted attention away from intimate associations and local community. It rejected the old notion of original sin and of personal responsibility for people up close. It found morality not in acts of character toward particular individuals – neighbors – but in "idealistic," sentimental caring for unfortunate collectives and mankind at large. The older personality, which the Constitution both assumed and required, began to wither. Americans started to abdicate authority to benevolent-sounding politicians far away.

Increasingly, doing good became perceived as the responsibility of government, which alone could take on the large projects now said to be demanded by morality. Governmental, collective action gradually replaced individual, private and communal responsibility. The moral momentum behind the old decentralized society weakened. Today strong, centralized Federal power seems to more and more Americans not merely acceptable but desirable. This is so because they are absorbing the anti-traditional moral sensibility now dominant not only in the universities, the arts, the news media, and the entertainment and publishing industries but in many churches. Hence Americans say increasingly to government: "Act for us!"

Much of the intellectual opposition to this trend has been confused and self-defeating. A prime example is the way many conservatives, thinking that they were shoring up traditional beliefs, attached themselves to the ideas of Leo Strauss (1899–1973), whose disciples became a major force in American academia and national politics. A refugee from Nazi Germany, Strauss taught for many years at the University of Chicago. Because he appeared to defend a classical, ancient notion of universal moral right, many did not notice that he was actually discrediting respect for tradition. Strauss and his disciples advocated an anti-historical, un-conservative notion of moral universality.

According to Strauss, no real philosopher gives any credence to "the conventional" or "the ancestral," to use his terms. To respect them represents the greatest of all intellectual sins, "historicism." Inherited ways are, he insisted, mere accidents of history. Respect is owed solely to "the simply right," which is ahistorical and rational. Strauss sharply criticized Edmund Burke, who saw the possibility of moral universality acquiring historical form. Strauss’s abstract notion of natural right ruled out the idea that a particular tradition might, despite inevitable flaws, embody the quest for moral universality and be, for that reason, worthy of allegiance.

Strauss’s ideas were blithely absorbed by many Christians, not least philosophically unsophisticated and naïve Roman Catholics, who perceived him as a defender of moral right. They did not realize that his conception of universality was markedly different from that of Christianity and related philosophical currents. They did not understand or care that in rejecting tradition as a proper source of guidance Strauss was attacking one of the pillars of their faith. They did not comprehend that by sharply separating the universal from the particular Strauss ruled out universality becoming selectively incarnate in history and was striking at the very core of their professed beliefs. Specifically, he was denying the possibility of the Incarnation, of the Word becoming flesh.

Straussian political philosophy has sought to detach Americans from their historically existing tradition of constitutionalism with its deep and distinctive roots in history and to make them loyal instead to abstract principles of Straussian design that have been attributed to the founders. Straussians are not all alike – in a few, the anti-historical prejudice is diluted to some extent by respect for America’s actual past – but prominent disciples of Strauss such as Allan Bloom, Harry Jaffa, and Walter Berns, who differ in some ways, all agree that what is admirable about America is not its concrete, historical self but the abstract principles of the founders. In the last few decades, Straussian conceptions of Americanism, patriotism and virtue have been widely advocated in academia, including America’s military academies. That terms like these can be given a distinctly anti-traditional meaning has been little noticed.

By propagating a rationalistic, anti-historical notion of moral right Strauss and his disciples have created a deep prejudice against cherishing America’s distinctive, historically evolved Christian and British past. But this was the cultural heritage that nurtured the inner and outer restraints of American constitutionalism. Because Straussian anti-traditionalism has confused and weakened so many who wanted to defend that heritage, it has been in some ways more destructive of it than standard liberal anti-traditionalism.

Despite plentiful ceremonial praise for the Constitution and virtual orgies of constitutional legalism, we are living through the progressive dismantling of America’s proudest political achievement. One sign of the precarious condition of the Constitution is that many imagine that it could be restored by electing more politicians sympathetic to its tenets and by having more "strict constructionists" appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

But the old American constitutionalism is inseparable from the moral-spiritual and other culture that gave it birth. Limited government and liberty were made possible by people who, because of who they were, put checks on their appetites, ran their own lives and communities, and behaved more generally in ways conducive to freedom under law. Restoring American constitutionalism would presuppose some kind of resurgence of that old culture. Americans would have to begin viewing life rather differently from how they are viewing it now. They would have to rearrange their priorities and start acting differently, placing more emphasis on family, private groups and local communities. They would have to want to take back much of the power ceded to politicians. Is that likely to happen? If not, the Constitution may not be salvageable.

The time has certainly come to consider what might take the place of American constitutionalism. That so many admirers of the old Constitution are prone to nostalgic dreaming and elaborate defenses of what is long gone is a sign of moral and intellectual paralysis.

But there are people who have thought for a rather long time about what should replace the Constitution of 1789. They include leading Straussians and neoconservatives who have masked their agenda by pretending to defend what is being lost. It is only fair to add that the strategic designs of secretive and obfuscating leaders are not always obvious to the rank and file.

Straussians and neoconservatives have warned against the consequences of abandoning America’s "founding principles," but they are not referring to the ways and beliefs of the founders but to abstractions of their own devising that they falsely attribute to revered historical figures. Those principles are more reminiscent of the French Jacobins than of the founders.

Straussians and neoconservatives have also warned of the consequences of the "closing of the American mind" – the title of Allan Bloom’s 1987 best-selling book – but the mind that they want kept open is not the old American mind but what they would have preferred it to be, their own version of the Enlightenment mind.

The same people have warned of American cultural decline, as measured some years back by William Bennett’s "cultural indicators," but what they want is not the old American virtues of neighborliness, localism, self-control, compromise, and the rule of law, but the purported virtue of vigorously asserting universal principles in the world. The new Jacobins disdain moral hesitation and ambiguity, demanding what they call "moral clarity." You are either on the side of good, spreading "democracy" or "freedom," as they understand them, or you are siding with the enemy.

The new Jacobins have a double message. On the one hand, they tell Americans that their society is in great danger: It is threatened domestically by fragmentation caused by lack of virtue and patriotism, by moral nihilism, historicism, and multiculturalism. It is threatened from abroad by Terrorism and "Islamofascism." But, on the other hand, the new Jacobins want to be reassuring: Be not afraid! We, the patriotic champions of American principles, are here to protect you! We promise you order and security and an America committed to right in the world.

Their notion of America reveals its alien origins even in strange-sounding language, as in the name "Department of Homeland Security." They are popularizing un-American ideas of governance, notably the so-called "unitary" executive – the notion of the preeminence of the president, who is to be as little constrained as possible by checks and balances and the rule of law. Their goal is wholly at odds with the constitutionalism of the framers.

Lest too many worry about the expansion and centralization of federal power, the neo-Jacobins do not let Americans forget even for a day the great and acute danger of Terrorism. A country that spends almost as much on its military and national security as the rest of the world put together has to tremble continuously before possible threats. People who resist the progressive erosion of American liberties are portrayed as unpatriotic and a threat to national security.

Those who would protect us are advancing the coup from within by teaching us to associate American security and virtue with the leadership of a strong man. Here, as in other ways, Straussian and neoconservative ideas have blended with and hardened standard liberal thinking. In the mid-20th century it was academics like James MacGregor Burns who inspired a cult of the presidency. Burns, who eventually became president of the American Political Science Association, was the quintessential modern American liberal. He advocated popular rule through strong presidential leadership in the Roosevelt-New Deal mode. He knew well that this notion flatly contradicted the framers. They opposed "democracy" and assumed that if any branch of the U.S. government were preeminent, it would be the Congress. Now it is Straussians and neoconservatives who most extol strong executive leadership and more generally muscular federal government. They see the powers of the executive as trumping the powers of the other branches, especially at a time of national emergency. Then the president must embody and express the will of the nation as he sees fit.

Harvard’s Harvey Mansfield is the intellectual figurehead of those attempting to justify the creeping coup from within. In The Wall Street Journal (May 2, 2007) he has stressed that, now more than ever, America needs a "strong executive." Basing his argument on a strained and transparently unhistorical interpretation of the framers, he contends that the rule of law has drawbacks, "each of which suggests the need for one-man-rule." For one thing, the law can produce only what is mediocre, "an average solution even in the best case." For another, the law lacks "energy." In a crisis, government must put forth "energy," and "the best source of energy" is "one man." What America needs today, Mansfield declares, is "a wise man on the spot" with freedom to act for the whole. To "subordinate" the president to law and the legislature is "dangerous." Then "he could not do his job." Not only is a strong executive needed to deal with emergencies, Mansfield contends. It must also be able to overpower domestic opposition, "oppose a majority faction produced by temporary delusions in the people." Americans admire strong presidents not just in politics but also in corporations, he argues.

If it is suggested that there is a connection between a strong executive and imperialism, Mansfield regards it as better to err on the side of imperialism than isolationism. The difficulties of the war in Iraq arose, he writes, "from having wished to leave too much to the Iraqis, thus from a sense of inhibition rather than imperial ambition." It seems apposite that Mansfield, the advocate of muscular executive power capable of enforcing its will at home and abroad, should also be a champion of what he calls "manliness," the topic of his recent book.

The many proponents of the theory of the "unitary" executive include John Yoo, now a professor of law at the University of California, Berkeley. As a Justice Department lawyer in the Bush administration, Yoo, formerly at the American Enterprise Institute, famously defended broadly discretionary presidential power and the use of torture in the war against terrorism. Michael Goldfarb, previously at the Weekly Standard and now deputy communications director for the McCain for president campaign, has asserted that the framers "sought an energetic executive with near dictatorial power in pursuing foreign policy and war."

Voices calling for unleashing allegedly virtuous American power have long been heard in the electronic media, the major newspapers – Washington Post and New York Times prominent among them – the big news magazines, and the leading opinion periodicals. Long before 9/11 Charles Krauthammer wrote in the Washington Post that America must take advantage of being the only superpower to create a world to its liking. How should it accomplish this goal? "By unapologetic and implacable demonstrations of will" (March 5, 2001). Why should virtuous America not be "implacable"? Robert Kagan wrote in the same newspaper that "America . . . can sometimes seem like a bully on the world stage." "But really, the 1,200-pound gorilla is an underachiever in the bullying business" (November 3, 2002).

The handwriting is all over the wall. It is becoming clearer with each passing day that neo-Jacobinism and related currents, which may have seemed innocuous and "merely academic" to some, have provided ideological cover for an ever more grasping and ruthless pursuit of power. People of great ambition who want to exercise the power being abdicated by Americans are trying to make us accept and even welcome the final disappearance of American constitutionalism and its culture of modesty and self-restraint.

As already mentioned, some earlier assaults on traditional Western civilization were launched by openly radical agitators who saw themselves as on the outside of their societies. Their justifications for seizing power were revolutionary doctrines like those of Marx and Trotsky. Today’s rolling, gradual coup is engineered by already powerful people who want to consolidate and expand their power. Wishing not to antagonize too much those who still identify with an older America and still wield some power, they try not to appear too radical and so often present themselves as "neoconservatives" or even "conservatives." As should be clear from their own words, that does not make them friends of traditional America.

Needless to say, neo-Jacobin ideology, though long a potent force, is not the only way of justifying the coup from within. Those working to centralize power are strongly entrenched in both major parties and in other influential American institutions, and they employ different ideas and symbols to woo and co-opt different constituencies.

Given the growing problems of the United States, why not welcome these efforts to rethink the ways of traditional America? Because they are inspired by highly dubious motives that color the proposals for change. Though those trying to impose a new power structure often speak in the name of America and their rhetoric is sometimes faintly conservative, they are not inspired by a desire to protect and reconstitute the best of the Western tradition. By changing the meaning of words, they are rather trying to reconcile us to the demise of that heritage and its replacement with their own enlightened and virtuous regime. Their response to the crisis is aggravating the crumbling of the American constitutional order. Their prescriptions contain the outlines of tyranny and must fill the friends of traditional American and Western civilization with trepidation.

What is ominous about these, our purported saviors, to repeat, is not that they want power. It is that they represent a conceited and self-absorbed special interest and have an obsessive desire to rule others – a desire that cannot be concealed by feigned benevolence toward Americans and all mankind. It is necessary to expose their false solutions to what are real problems and to explore by what measures the best of our civilization might, despite daunting odds, be given a new lease on life.

Claes G. Ryn [send him mail], professor of politics at the Catholic University of America, is chairman of the National Humanities Institute and editor of Humanitas. He also is president of the Academy of Philosophy and Letters. He is the author of America the Virtuous.

Copyright © 2008 Claes G. Ryn

Israel's High-Tech Industry A Branch Of Mossad

Is Israel's Booming High-Tech Industry A Branch Of The Mossad?

By Yossi Melman
Last update - 08:51 16/10/2008
Courtesy Of Haaretz Newspaper

In 2006 the Check Point Software Technologies company, which specializes in protecting computer systems from hackers and data theft, wanted to acquire an American company called Sourcefire, which works in the same field. The great advantage of Sourcefire was that its clients include the American Defense Department and the National Security Agency. The U.S. administration, however, by means of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, did not approve the acquisition.

The committee made its decision based on an opinion by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and NSA security officers. The two organizations were afraid that Check Point, which was founded by Gil Shwed and fellow graduates of Unit 8200, the Israel Defense Forces' high-tech intelligence unit, would have access to top-secret information, which it could pass on to Israel's intelligence community.

The fear and suspicion currently is directed not only toward Check Point, but also other Israeli high-tech companies like Verint, Comverse, NICE Systems and PerSay Voice Biometrics, some of which work in data mining and engage in software development for tapping telephones, fax machines, e-mail and computer communications.

The above accusations come from journalist and writer James Bamford, whose new book, "The Shadow Factory: The Ultra-Secret NSA from 9/11 to the Eavesdropping on America" (Doubleday), came out this week in the United States.

Bamford, a former producer for the ABC television network, has spent the last 30 years writing about the NSA - one of the most important and least-known intelligence agencies in the United States, but usually in the shadow of the Central Intelligence Agency. The NSA is responsible for eavesdropping on telephones, fax machines and computers; intercepting communications and electromagnetic signals from radar equipment, aircraft, missiles, ships and submarines; and decoding transmissions and cracking codes. It has contributed immeasurably to U.S. intelligence and national security.

In this respect, the United States resembles Israel: Successes attributed to the Mossad should often be credited to other intelligence units - first and foremost Unit 8200, the Israeli equivalent of the NSA.

This is Bamford's third book, and it affords a look into the mazes of the NSA. In 1982 the Justice department threatened to prosecute him for revealing agency secrets in his first book, "The Puzzle Palace: Inside the National Security Agency, America's Most Secret Intelligence Organization." In his second book, "Body of Secrets: Anatomy of the Ultra-Secret National Security Agency," he described the NSA with a great deal of enthusiasm, which made him the organization's hero of the day. The NSA even organized a party in his honor at headquarters in Fort Meade, Maryland. His new book, which is critical of the NSA, has sent him back to his starting point.

Bamford's main thesis is that before September 11, 2001, the agency failed along with other intelligence agencies in understanding the Al-Qaida threat, even though it had intercepted members' phone calls and e-mails. This stemmed in part from excessive caution for upholding laws and respecting citizens' privacy. In April 2000, then-NSA director general Michael Hayden (currently the director of the CIA), vividly described to a Congressional committee how, if at that very moment Osama bin Laden were to step onto the Peace Bridge at Niagara Falls and cross into the United States, "my people must respect his rights."

After the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the organization swung over to the other extreme. According to Bamford, since September 11 the NSA has had no compunctions about violating the Constitution and has been eavesdropping on American citizens.
One of the outstanding examples in the book, which has been well-covered in the American media, is the fact that the NSA has listened in on bedroom conversations of journalists, military officers and officials serving in Iraq. The NSA may eavesdrop on and intercept transmissions outside the United States, but cannot do so to American citizens without a court order.

Another of Bamford's important assertions, which also concerns Israel, is that the largest telephony and communications companies in the United States - in fact all of them except QWEST - have cooperated with the NSA, allowing it to tap their lines and optic fibers.

The above-mentioned Israeli companies and others are important software and technology suppliers for not only the American telephony companies, but for the NSA itself. Bamford claims that 80 percent of all American telephone transmissions are conducted by means of the Israeli companies' technology, know-how and accessibility. Thus, Bamford believes, the American intelligence community is exposing itself to the risk that the Israeli companies will access its most secret and sensitive digital information.

Bamford does not provide any backing for this thesis; he only points to a circumstantial relationship. The Israeli companies were largely established by graduates of 8200, and therefore he says they are connected by their umbilical cords to Israeli intelligence, and their CEOs and boards of directors include senior Shin Bet officials like Arik Nir or former Mossad chief Ephraim Halevy (Nir is the CEO of Athlone Global Security, a hedge fund that has invested inter alia in PerSay Voice Biometrics, and Ephraim Halevy is a member of the Athlone Advisory Board).

To put it mildly, Bamford has no love lost for Israel. In his articles, he publishes claims by American Navy officials who believe Israel maliciously attacked the American spy ship Liberty during the 1967 Six-Day War. He holds that the September 11 attack did not stem from radical Islam's basic hatred of America, but rather from its anger at the United States' support for Israel. He calls the nineteen September 11 terrorists "soldiers" and describes them with a great deal of sympathy - Davids who "only" demolished four airplanes of the American Goliath.

In this context, and apparently because of his deep hostility, Bamford asserts that in light of the problematic record of Israel, which did not hesitate to spy against America on American soil, Israeli companies should not have been given the keys to the kingdom of America's secrets. His attitude toward Israel apparently pushes him over the psychological brink, as his book hardly mentions the close cooperation between the two countries' intelligence communities, mainly in the war against international jihad terror or in monitoring Iran.

U.S. Policies Contributed To Iran Revolution

U.S. Policies May Have Contributed To Iran Revolution, Study Says

By Borzou Daragahi,
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
October 17, 2008
Courtesy Of The Los Angeles Times

BEIRUT -- A new report based on previously classified documents suggests that the Nixon and Ford administrations created conditions that helped destabilize Iran in the late 1970s and contributed to the country's Islamic Revolution.

A trove of transcripts, memos and other correspondence show sharp differences over rising oil prices developing between the Republican administrations and Mohammed Reza Shah Pahlavi in the mid-1970s, says a report to be published today in the fall issue of Middle East Journal, an academic journal published by the Washington-based Middle East Institute, a think tank.

The report, after two years of research by scholar Andrew Scott Cooper, zeros in on the role of White House policymakers -- including Donald H. Rumsfeld, then a top aide to President Ford -- hoping to roll back oil prices and curb the shah's ambitions, despite warnings by then-Secretary of State Henry Kissinger that such a move might precipitate the rise of a "radical regime" in Iran.

"The shah is a tough, mean guy. But he is our real friend," Kissinger warned Ford, who was considering options to press the monarch into lowering oil prices, in an August 1974 conversation cited by the report. "We can't tackle him without breaking him."

Analysts and historians often contend that President Carter, a Democrat, fumbled Iran, allowing the country to eventually become one of the chief U.S. opponents in the region. But the report suggests that his Republican predecessors not only contributed to the shah's fall but also were inching toward a realignment with Saudi Arabia as the key U.S. ally in the Persian Gulf.

The examination of pre- revolutionary Iran has special relevance today. Cooper said Iran's economic situation just before the revolution resembled its current state, this time with big-spending President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad banking on high oil prices to sustain his power.

"Ahmadinejad's fiscal recklessness is eerily reminiscent of the shah's, with Iran's inflation rate running at approximately 30% and Iran's current deficit approximately $12 billion -- not to mention widespread underemployment and unemployment," Cooper said in an e-mail.

The report, based mostly on documents stored at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library in Ann Arbor, Mich., opens a window on an unruly period more than 30 years ago that precipitated Iran's 1979 Islamic Revolution, which established a template for religiously inspired Muslim movements throughout the Middle East.

As high oil prices in the early 1970s began strangling the U.S. economy, Washington began to sour on Iran, the documents suggest. After an oil embargo over American support of Israel ended in March 1974, U.S. officials considered the shah the principal culprit in keeping oil prices from falling and wanted him to put on the brakes. At one point, Rumsfeld, who later served as the current President Bush's Defense secretary, warned Iran's chief arms procurement official that Tehran was losing friends in Washington.

"Don't try to get around me," he reportedly told Gen. Hassan Toufanian, in an encounter described by the Washington Post three decades ago and cited in the report. "Remember, Kissinger and I have to approve all [arms] exports."

Chief among those advocating pressure on Iran was William Simon, who served as Treasury secretary and energy czar under the Nixon and Ford administrations. He blamed the shah for high oil prices and wanted the U.S. to use weapons sales to Tehran as leverage.

"He is the ringleader on oil prices, together with Venezuela," Simon told President Nixon in July 1974, referring to the Iranian ruler. "Is it possible to put pressure on the shah?"

Over the years, Kissinger advocated a friendlier line on Iran and the shah, who had been brought back to power by a U.S.-engineered coup in 1953. The report suggests that Kissinger had special insights into the country's instability. At the time, university campuses in Iran were in turmoil, and guerrillas were attacking U.S. facilities and assassinating key officials. Even in 1974, a CIA analysis sounded the alarm, saying the shah's ambitious buildup of the country was causing economic polarization and cultural clashes that were roiling Iran.

By late 1976 the shah was in deep financial trouble, facing a huge cash crunch. He wanted the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries oil cartel, or OPEC, to raise oil prices by 25%, a move the U.S. opposed.

"There is unanimity among my advisors that the world economy health is not good," Ford told Iranian Ambassador Ardeshir Zahedi in December 1976, according to the archives. "Any increase in the price of oil would have a serious impact on the world financial structure."

But U.S. officials, especially Simon, had been working with Saudi officials behind the shah's back to seek help on oil prices in exchange for political and military support for the Arab kingdom. The Saudis stunned OPEC by announcing at a December summit in Doha, Qatar, that they would boost production to 11.6 million barrels a day from 8.6 million barrels, driving down prices.

"We should get credit for what happened at OPEC," Kissinger told Ford. "I have said all along the Saudis were the key. . . . Our great diplomacy is what did it."

But it would prove to be a Pyrrhic victory in terms of one American ally. Iran was cash-strapped, having spent much of its reserves on American weapons and the shah's Great Civilization programs, which spurred inflation by flooding the country with money.

The shah was broke. Declining oil revenue amid continued inflation forced him to abandon ambitious plans to modernize his country.

"The collapse of the Doha summit, and the Saudi decision to undercut the price of crude and boost its output to try to flood the market, rushed the Iranian economy to the precipice," Cooper writes in his report.

The shah's government, shaken by the loss of oil revenue, imposed a harsh austerity budget that threw thousands out of work, collapsed investor confidence and panicked middle-class Iranians. Economic chaos and unemployment quickly spread.

Within a year of the Doha summit, the first mass demonstrations that grew into revolution broke out on the streets of the Iranian capital.

daragahi@latimes.com

U.S. Journalists and War-Crime Guilt

October 16 is an anniversary that should hold considerable interest for American journalists who have written in support of ”Operation Iraqi Freedom” – the invasion and occupation of Iraq.

By Peter Dyer
October 15, 2008
Courtesy Of ConsortiumNews

Editor’s Note: This year, the U.S. news media cheered the opening of the $450 million Newseum in Washington, a self-congratulatory celebration of American journalism.

However, rather than giving themselves that expensive pat on the back, the major U.S. media organizations might have done something to show remorse for their complicity in the Bush administration’s propaganda that justified the invasion of Iraq.

As freelance journalist Peter Dyer notes, prosecutors at the Nuremberg Tribunals deemed such journalistic support for war crimes to be a capital offense:

Sixty-two years ago, on Oct. 16, 1946, Julius Streicher was hanged.

Streicher was one of a group of 10 Germans executed that day following the judgment of the first Nuremberg Trial – a 40-week trial of 22 of the most prominent Nazis.

Each was tried for two or more of the four crimes defined in the Nuremberg Charter: crimes against peace (aggression), war crimes, crimes against humanity, and conspiracy.

All who were sentenced to death were major German government officials or military leaders. Except for Streicher.

Julius Streicher was a journalist.

Editor of the vehemently anti-Semitic newspaper Der Stürmer, Streicher was convicted of, in the words of the judgment, “incitement to murder and extermination at the time when Jews in the East were being killed under the most horrible conditions clearly constitut(ing) … a crime against humanity.”

Presenting the case against Streicher, British prosecutor Lieutenant Colonel M.C. Griffith-Jones said: “My Lord, it may be that this defendant is less directly involved in the physical commission of the crimes against Jews. ... The submission of the Prosecution is that his crime is no less the worse … that he made these things possible – made these crimes possible which could never have happened had it not been for him and for those like him. He led the propaganda and the education of the German people in those ways.”

The critical role of propaganda was affirmed at Nuremberg not only by the prosecution and in the judgment but also in the testimony of the most prominent Nazi defendant, Reichsmarshall Hermann Goering:

“Modern and total war develops, as I see it, along three lines: the war of weapons on land, at sea and in the air; economic war, which has become an integral part of every modern war; and, third, propaganda war, which is also an essential part of this warfare.”

Two months after the Nuremberg hangings, the United Nations General Assembly passed Resolution 59(I), declaring:

“Freedom of information requires as an indispensable element the willingness and capacity to employ its privileges without abuse. It requires as a basic discipline the moral obligation to seek the facts without prejudice and to spread knowledge without malicious intent.”

The next year another General Assembly Resolution was adopted: Res. 110 which “condemns all forms of propaganda, in whatsoever country conducted, which is either designed or likely to provoke or encourage any threat to the peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression.”

Although UN General Assembly Resolutions are not legally binding, Resolutions 59 and 110 carry considerable moral weight. This is because, like the United Nations itself, they are an expression of the catastrophic brutality and suffering of two world wars and the universal desire to avoid future slaughter.

Propaganda Crimes

Most jurisdictions have yet to recognize propaganda for war as a crime. However several journalists have recently been convicted of incitement to genocide by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda.

Because there is stiff resistance, especially from the United States, the effort to criminalize war propaganda faces an uphill battle.

However in legal terms it seems relatively straightforward: if incitement to genocide is a crime, then incitement to aggression, another Nuremberg crime, could and should be as well.

After all, aggression – starting an unprovoked war – is “the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole,” in the words of the judgment at Nuremberg.

Criminal or not, much of the world now sees incitement to war as morally indefensible.

In this light and in light of Goering’s three-part recipe for war (weapons, economic war and propaganda) it is instructive to look at the role which American journalists and war propagandists have recently played in bringing about and sustaining war.

The Bush administration began to sell the invasion of Iraq to the American public soon after 9/11.

In order to coordinate this effort President Bush’s chief of staff, Andrew Card, established the White House Iraq Group (WHIG) in the summer of 2002 expressly for the purpose of marketing the invasion of Iraq.

Among the members of WHIG were media figures/propagandists Karen Hughes and Mary Matalin.

WHIG was remarkable not only for its recklessness with the truth but for the candor with which it acknowledged it was running an advertising campaign. A Sept. 7, 2002, New York Times article entitled TRACES OF TERROR: THE STRATEGY; Bush Aides Set Strategy to Sell Policy on Iraq reported:

“White House officials said today that the administration was following a meticulously planned strategy to persuade the public, the Congress and the allies of the need to confront the threat from Saddam Hussein….

'' ‘From a marketing point of view,’ said Andrew H. Card Jr., the White House chief of staff who is coordinating the effort, ‘you don't introduce new products in August.’ ''

It was as if the “product” – the unprovoked invasion of a sovereign state – was a consumer good, like a car or a TV show. The sales pitch was the manufactured “imminent threat” of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.

In other words, the business of WHIG was incitement to aggressive war primarily through the propaganda of fear.

Along those lines WHIG’s most prominent member, National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, invoked the specter of an Iraqi-generated nuclear holocaust in a Sept. 8, 2002, CNN interview with Wolf Blitzer:

“We do know that there have been shipments going into Iran, for instance – into Iraq, for instance, of aluminum tubes that really are only suited to – high-quality aluminum tools that are only really suited for nuclear weapons programs, centrifuge programs. ... The problem here is that there will always be some uncertainty about how quickly he can acquire nuclear weapons. But we don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud.”

The smoking gun/mushroom cloud images were among the most memorable of all the White House war propaganda. They were generated just a few days earlier in a WHIG meeting by speechwriter Michael Gerson.

The existence of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction was central to the Bush administration’s campaign for war. Other important elements were Saddam Hussein’s ties with Al Qaeda and the strongly implied association of Iraq with the tragedies of 9/11.

All were false. In propaganda, though, selling the product trumps truth.

Unquestioning Submission

The role played by American mainstream media during the run-up to the invasion of Iraq was marked by widespread unquestioning submission to the Bush administration and abandonment of the most fundamental journalistic responsibility to the public.

This responsibility is embodied not only in Resolution 59 but in the Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics as well, which states: “Journalists should test the accuracy of information from all sources and exercise care to avoid inadvertent error.”

The failure of influential American journalists, such as the New York Times’ Judith Miller, to test the accuracy of information played a critical role in the Bush administration’s successful effort to incite the American public to attack a country which was not threatening us.

Though she was far from alone in selling the case for war, Miller -- through her seemingly uncritical reliance on dodgy informants -- was probably responsible to a larger degree than any other American journalist for spreading the fear of nonexistent Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.

As such she and other influential journalists who failed in this way bear a share of moral, if not legal, responsibility for hundreds of thousands of deaths, millions of refugees and all the other carnage, devastation and human suffering of “Operation Iraqi Freedom.”

Some prominent American media figures, however, went considerably further than simple failure to check sources. Some actively and passionately encouraged Americans to commit and/or approve of war crimes, before and during Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Prominent among these was Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly who – regarding both Afghanistan and Iraq – advocated such crimes forbidden by the Geneva Convention as collective punishment of civilians (Gen. Con. IV, Art. 33); attacking civilian targets (Protocol I, Art. 51); destroying water supplies (Protocol I Art. 54 Sec. 2) and even starvation (Protocol I, Art. 54 Sec. 1).

Sept. 17, 2001: "The U.S. should bomb the Afghan infrastructure to rubble: the airport, the power plants, their water facilities, and the roads" in the event of a refusal to hand over Osama bin Laden to the U.S.

Later, he added: “This is a very primitive country. And taking out their ability to exist day to day will not be hard. … We should not target civilians. But if they don't rise up against this criminal government, they starve, period.”

On March 26, 2003, a few days after the invasion of Iraq began, O’Reilly said: “There is a school of thought that says we should have given the citizens of Baghdad 48 hours to get out of Dodge by dropping leaflets and going with the AM radios and all that. Forty-eight hours, you've got to get out of there, and flatten the place.” [See Peter Hart's “O'Reilly's War: Any rationale—or none—will do” Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting, May/June 2003]

Collective Punishment

Another tremendously influential journalist, Pulitzer Prize winner and former executive editor of the New York Times, the late A.M. Rosenthal, also advocated attacking civilian targets and collective punishment in regard to waging war against Muslim nations in the Middle East.

In a Sept. 14, 2001, column, “How the U.S. Can Win the War”, Rosenthal wrote that the U.S. should give Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Libya, Syria and Sudan three days to consider an ultimatum demanding they turn over documents and information related to weapons of mass destruction and terrorist organizations.

During these three days, “the residents of the countries would be urged 24 hours a day by the U.S. to flee the capital and major cities, because they would be bombed to the ground beginning the fourth day."

Right-wing media figure Ann Coulter, on the Sean Hannity Show on July 21, 2006, called for another war and more punishment of civilians, this time in Iran:

”Well, I keep hearing people say we can't find the nuclear material, and you can bury it in caves. How about we just, you know, carpet-bomb them so they can't build a transistor radio? And then it doesn't matter if they have the nuclear material.”

This pattern of the major U.S. news figures advocating aggressive wars even predated 9/11. Three-time Pulitzer Prize winner Thomas Friedman published a strident call for war crimes including collective punishment of Serbs and the destruction of their water supplies over the Kosovo crisis:

“But if NATO's only strength is that it can bomb forever, then it has to get every ounce out of that. Let's at least have a real air war. The idea that people are still holding rock concerts in Belgrade, or going out for Sunday merry-go-round rides, while their fellow Serbs are ‘cleansing’ Kosovo, is outrageous. It should be lights out in Belgrade: every power grid, water pipe, bridge, road and war-related factory has to be targeted.

"Like it or not, we are at war with the Serbian nation (the Serbs certainly think so), and the stakes have to be very clear: Every week you ravage Kosovo is another decade we will set your country back by pulverizing you. You want 1950? We can do 1950. You want 1389? We can do 1389 too.” [New York Times, April 23, 1999]

These casual -- even joking -- comments about inflicting war on relatively weak countries came from American journalists and media figures at the very top of their profession. Each was addressing an audience of millions. It is difficult to overstate their influence.

Over the past decade alone, the massive destruction and carnage wreaked by American pursuit of “the supreme international crime” of aggression has been enabled by negligent, reckless and/or malicious use of this influence.

Sadly, the words of Nuremberg Prosecutor Griffith-Jones concerning the propaganda of German journalist Julius Streicher hold considerable meaning today for some of the most prominent journalists in the country which, 60 years ago, provided the guiding light at Nuremberg:

Streicher “made these things possible – made these crimes possible which could never have happened had it not been for him and for those like him.”

In 1947, the United Nations General Assembly passed Resolution 127 in which “the General Assembly … invites the Governments of States Members … to study such measures as might with advantage, be taken on the national plane to combat, within the limits of constitutional procedures, the diffusion of false or distorted reports likely to injure friendly relations between States.”

Unfortunately, 60 years later, little progress has been made. War propaganda is still legal and very much alive – flourishing, in fact, as demonstrated by periodic calls for one more invasion of a country which has never threatened the U.S.: Iran.

As matters stand today, with the United States still the world's preeminent military power, the American propagandists who enabled Operation Iraqi Freedom and other wars of aggression have little need to worry about their legal responsibilities under the Nuremberg principles.

A strong case can be made, though, that they have blood on their hands.

Peter Dyer is a freelance journalist who moved with his wife from California to New Zealand in 2004. He can be reached at p.dyer@inspire.net.nz .

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The NATO Alliance: Dangerous Anachronism

By Doug Bandow
October 17, 2008
Courtesy Of: AntiWar

The impact of the Russia-Georgia war continues to reverberate. Gen. James Craddock, NATO's Supreme Commander, has requested authority to develop contingency plans to defend the Eastern European countries. Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski recently told an American audience that "We need to make NATO's traditional security guarantees credible again" and that "NATO needs to recover its role, not just as an alliance but as a military organization." Kim Holmes of the Heritage Foundation advocates doing "more military contingency planning and military exercises with not only Poland, but the Baltic states." Senators Lindsey Graham and Joe Lieberman recently proclaimed the importance of "reinvigorating NATO as a military alliance," with "contingency planning for the defense of all member states against conventional and unconventional attack."

Until recently, NATO was treated like a social club, with invitations extended pro forma to anyone within geographic reach that exhibited proper manners. But the conflict in the Caucasus brought home to NATO's 26 members the unpleasant prospect of war with Russia. Moscow is truculent and the Europeans are nervous, yet US officials are pushing to bring both Georgia and Ukraine into NATO. This step would directly bring conflict and war into the alliance.

Why is the US still in NATO?

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization was created to prevent the Soviet Union from dominating Western Europe. Europe had been devastated by World War II. The USSR emerged from that conflict as the most powerful continental state. Having fought to prevent Nazi Germany from dominating Eurasia, the US understandably sought to prevent the Soviet Union from achieving the same result.

This was an important but limited objective. Washington made no effort to liberate Eastern or even Central Europe from Soviet control. The US government commemorated the subjugation of the Baltic States, but made no pretense that their captivity threatened American security. And no one shed any tears over the status of the more distant Soviet "republics" which had been part of imperial Russia. NATO was for self-protection, nothing more.

Even so, the alliance barely fulfilled that role. NATO always was America and the others. The US spent far more money on the military, devoted a much larger percentage of its GDP to defense, and treated Moscow as a far more serious threat. The Europeans, in contrast, often promised to hike military outlays but rarely delivered on their pledges. They accepted Washington's aid but ignored Washington's priorities – building a natural gas pipeline to the Soviet Union, supporting Nicaragua's Marxist government, and more.

During the early years of the Cold War, the US may have believed it had no choice but to protect the Europeans, however feckless they might be. But once the Western European states had recovered from World War II, America could and should have reduced its military role and troop levels. The Europeans conceivably could have chosen not to defend themselves, but the prospect of military catastrophe has a way of concentrating the mind.

The point is not that there should have been no continuing alliance. Rather, it should have become the European Treaty Organization, not remained the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Then Europe could have decided how to defend itself without hectoring from Washington.

The end of the USSR and Warsaw Pact destroyed any rationale for the US to continue defending Europe. The great hegemonic enemy and its ideological satellites were all gone. The threat, never very strong, of a single power dominating both Asia and Europe had disappeared. To ease Soviet concerns over the reunification of Germany, Washington even agreed not to expand NATO up to Russia's borders.

But then the West seemed to stop looking at NATO as a military organization. Alliance advocates argued that NATO could promote student exchanges, encourage environmental protection, and combat the drug war – odd tasks for the quintessential military organization. More seriously, the Europeans, at least, saw NATO as a means to help draw the former Soviet satellites into the Western orbit. And the Clinton administration saw NATO expansion as a way to win the votes of ethnic Americans who were promoting their home countries. So the alliance expanded through Central Europe into Eastern Europe, ending up 60 miles from St. Petersburg. NATO now is looking to the Balkans, Ukraine, and Caucasus for new members.

The alliance has invited Albania and Croatia to begin membership talks. Macedonia is next on the list, pending resolution of an esoteric dispute over its name w