My friends,
A few updates on Adam Kokesh’s trial and the court dates for the Hempstead 15.
Adam’s case was adjourned until December 11, however the D.A. did try to raise his bail in obvious contempt toward Adam as an activist and a veteran.
This is yet another clear sign the Nassau County D.A. intends to continue her persecution of veteran activists and escalate injustice against us at every opportunity afforded.
However, a good number of supporters were present at the courthouse to send a clear message to the D.A. that we will not be silenced and her conduct and that of her officers will not be tolerated.
So six more days, total, for us to gather, have our voices heard and condemn the Nassau County Police Department’s offense toward this nations’ veterans and our Constitutional rights.
Dec. 10th and 11th, and Jan. 5th thru 8th are the days set for the 15 of us to be tried. Each day, we will assemble at 8 a.m. to demand that charges are dropped against us and the officers responsible for brutalizing us are held accountable.
Please continue calling District Attorney Kathleen Rice at 516-571-2994 or contacting her here: http://www.nassaucountyny.gov/agencies/DA/contact.html to demand that all charges be dropped against the Hempstead 15.
As well, we are working on a petition exclusively for Nassau County residents to put some constituent-based pressure on the D.A., who is an elected official. If you can be of assistance either in contacting residents of Nassau county via phone or e-mail or actually street canvassing for signatures in Nassau County, please contact Lillian at lvu1@columbia.edu.
Lastly, Nick has received his first medical bill for his hour-and-a-half hospital stay in Nassau County where he was handcuffed to a gurney, diagnosed with a broken face and given nothing more than Motrin for the pain. $5,000, folks! No kidding. Nick nowhere NEAR has that kind of money, and this is only the first of many bills to right the wrong done by the NCPD to his person. NICK NEEDS YOUR HELP!!!!
Please, if you haven’t already sent a donation to Nick through the IVAW website, do so. This troop deserves everyones’ full support at whatever level they can give. If you already have donated, consider doing so again. Nick’s sacrificed everything to do right by this nation and her Constitution, and now, we MUST do right by Nick.
We’ll be sending out more reminders about court dates as they approach and planned actions around them. As well, we are planning several benefits to raise money for Nick that I will keep all in the loop about as more develops. If you can, consider holding one yourself in your local community to raise money and awareness. This is the type of organizing that really makes a difference to people like Nick and the rest of us.
Please stay in the fight with us, and continue sending me your letters and opinions. I read all of them and respond to as many as I can. Your voices ARE this movement, and I want to hear them as much as our President should.
Peace and Solidarity,
Matthis Chiroux
VIDEO OF THE ARRAIGNMENT DEMONSTRATION:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNGTnxWJFW8
GREAT OP-ED BY PULITZER PRIZE-WINNER BOB KEELER IN NEWSDAY ABOUT THE HEMPSTEAD 15:
http://www.newsday.com/news/opinion/ny-opkee125923104nov12,0,6936407.story
VIDEO OF HOFSTRA ACTION AND POLICE BRUTALITY:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvV_6OoqhVw&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eupU-StpCqM&watch_response
NAOMI WOLF INTERVIEWS MATTHIS CHIROUX ABOUT HOFSTRA ACTION:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahP4Y-8_JgY
Kristofer Goldsmith (Army Sergeant)-Dec. 10
Paul Blasenheim-Dec. 10
Geoff Millard (Army Sergeant)-Dec. 11
Megan Day-Dec. 11
Adam Kokesh (Marine Sergeant)-Dec. 11
James Gilligan (Marine Corporal)-Jan 5
Matthis Chiroux (Army Sergeant)-Jan. 5
Nathan Peld (Navy Petty Officer)-Jan. 6
Ryan Olander-Jan. 6
Mike Spinato (Marine Sergeant)-Jan.6
Jose Vasquez (Army Staff Sergeant)-Jan. 7
David Disimino-Jan 7
Nick Morgan (Army Sergeant)-Jan 7
Marlissa Grogan (Marine Captain)-Jan. 8
Leanne Gillouly-Jan. 8
.JPG)
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Blackwater Busted?
by Jeremy Scahill
After more than five years of rampant violence and misconduct carried out by the massive army of private corporate contractors in Iraq--actions that have gone totally unpunished under any system of law--the US Justice Department appears to be on the verge of handing down the first indictments against armed private forces for crimes committed in Iraq. The reported targets of the "draft" indictments: six Blackwater operatives involved in the September 16, 2007, killing of seventeen Iraqi civilians in Baghdad's Nisour Square.
The Associated Press reports, "The draft is being reviewed by senior Justice Department officials but no charging decisions have been made. A decision is not expected until at least later this month." The AP, citing sources close to the case, reports that the department has not determined if the Blackwater operatives would be charged with manslaughter or assault. Simply drafting the indictments does not mean that the Blackwater forces are certain to face charges. The department could indict as few as three of the operatives, who potentially face sentences of five to twenty years, depending on the charges.
If the Justice Department pursues a criminal prosecution, it would be the first time armed private contractors from the United States face justice.
But that is a very big "if."
"The Justice Department has had this matter for fourteen months and has done almost everything imaginable to walk away from it--including delivering a briefing to Congress in which they suggested that they lacked legal authority to press charges," says Scott Horton, distinguished visiting professor of law at Hofstra University and author of a recent study of legal accountability for private security contractors. "They did this notwithstanding evidence collected by the first teams on the scene that suggested an ample basis to prosecute. The ultimate proof here will be in the details, namely, what charges are brought exactly and what evidence has Justice assembled to make its case. Still, it's hard to miss Justice's lack of enthusiasm about this case, and that's troubling."
Even if some Blackwater operatives face charges, critics allege it is the company that must be held responsible. "I am encouraged that the Justice Department is finally making progress in the investigation, but I am disappointed that it took over a year and a lot of pressure for the department to take any action," says Illinois Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky, who introduced legislation that seeks to ban using Blackwater and other armed security companies in US war zones. (She was also the national campaign co-chair of Barack Obama's presidential campaign and is a top candidate to replace him in the US Senate.)
"While it is important to hold these individual contractors accountable for their actions, we must also hold Blackwater accountable for creating a culture that allows this type of reckless behavior," adds Schakowsky. "The indictments do nothing to solve the underlying problem of private security contractors performing critical government functions. The indictments will likely get rid of a few bad apples, but there will be no real consequences for Blackwater. This company is going to continue to do business as usual--the solution is to get them out of this business."
News of potential indictments over the Nisour Square shootings comes as the State Department is reportedly preparing to hit Blackwater with a multimillion-dollar fine for allegedly shipping as many as 900 automatic weapons to Iraq without the required permits. Some of the guns may have made their way to the black market.
Blackwater has served as the official bodyguard service for senior US occupation officials since August 2003, when the company was awarded a $27 million no-bid contract to guard L. Paul Bremer, the original head of the Coalition Provisional Authority. To date, the company has raked in more than $1 billion in "security" contracts under its arrangement with the State Department.
Despite widespread accusations of killings of civilians and other crimes, not a single armed contractor from Blackwater--or from any other armed war corporation--has faced charges under any legal system. Instead, they have operated in a climate where immunity and impunity have gone hand in hand. At present, private contractors--most of them unarmed--outnumber US troops in Iraq by roughly 50,000 personnel.
There is no doubt that the Bush administration will continue enthusiastically to use armed private forces until the second Bush leaves office. This means that the future of Blackwater and the hundreds of for-profit war corporations servicing the Iraq occupation will lay with President-elect Barack Obama. This includes Blackwater and at least 300 other companies, which have been hired by the US government for privatized armed services in Iraq to the tune of about $6 billion in taxpayer money.
"One of the biggest problems that Barack Obama is going to have is turning the government back into a civil service and getting rid of all the private contractors," says Washington Democratic Representative Jim McDermott. "The private contracting thing is the most erosive thing that this administration has done.... You look at all the things that are being run by private contractors, you simply cannot be handing money to a private contractor who is not under the law of that country or the law of this country and can do anything they want. They're really--they're rogue outfits."
Obama has been a passionate critic of the war industry and is the sponsor of the leading Democratic legislation in the Senate to bring more effective regulation and oversight to it. But he has stopped short of supporting Schakowsky and Senator Bernie Sanders's legislation seeking a ban on using Blackwater and other armed contracting companies in Iraq. One of his top foreign policy advisers told The Nation earlier this year that Obama "can't rule out [and] won't rule out" using these companies in Iraq.
In a brief interview with Democracy Now! in February, Obama explained his position when asked about the report in The Nation.
"Here's the problem: we have 140,000 private contractors right there, so unless we want to replace all of or a big chunk of those with US troops, we can't draw down the contractors faster than we can draw down our troops," Obama said. "So what I want to do is draw--I want them out in the same way that we make sure that we draw out our own combat troops."
As Obama's inauguration day draws near, he is facing increased calls from Democrats who have spent years investigating Blackwater to ban the company. Most prominent among these is Henry Waxman, chair of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. He called on Obama to cancel Blackwater's security contracts. "I don't see any reason to have a contract with Blackwater," says Waxman. "They haven't lived up to their contract, and we shouldn't be having these private military contracts. We should use our own military."
As of now, Blackwater's Iraq contract expires in April (it was extended for a year by the State Department despite numerous investigations). "I think there should be very strong handcuffs put on this whole outsourcing question, but particularly with these private security contractors like DynCorp and Blackwater," says Vermont Democrat Peter Welch, who serves on the Oversight Committee with Waxman and supports the calls for Obama to cancel Blackwater's security contracts. "It's just an incredible waste of taxpayer money. It dishonors the Code of Military Conduct. Our soldiers are over there. They abide by rules. Blackwater doesn't."
But not all Democrats agree. Senator John Kerry, who is reportedly among the people being considered for Secretary of State in the Obama administration, shares the president-elect's view. "I don't think they should be banned," says Kerry. "I think they need to operate under rules that apply to the military and everybody else."
As of January 20, 2009, if Obama decides to keep Blackwater and other armed war corporations on the US payroll, these private forces would go from being Bush's mercenaries in Iraq to Obama's. As commander in chief, he would be responsible for their crimes. As for the accountability issue, many critics allege that the most serious problems in holding contractors responsible for their crimes stem from the Bush administration's covering-up of their misconduct and immunizing them from prosecution, and the total lack of political will to bring them to justice. When Obama appoints a new attorney general, there will be more than five years' worth of crimes to investigate--and prosecute.
Copyright © 2008 The Nation
Jeremy Scahill, a Puffin Foundation Writing Fellow at The Nation Institute, is the author of the bestselling Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army, published by Nation Books. He is an award-winning investigative journalist and correspondent for the national radio and TV program Democracy Now!.
After more than five years of rampant violence and misconduct carried out by the massive army of private corporate contractors in Iraq--actions that have gone totally unpunished under any system of law--the US Justice Department appears to be on the verge of handing down the first indictments against armed private forces for crimes committed in Iraq. The reported targets of the "draft" indictments: six Blackwater operatives involved in the September 16, 2007, killing of seventeen Iraqi civilians in Baghdad's Nisour Square.
The Associated Press reports, "The draft is being reviewed by senior Justice Department officials but no charging decisions have been made. A decision is not expected until at least later this month." The AP, citing sources close to the case, reports that the department has not determined if the Blackwater operatives would be charged with manslaughter or assault. Simply drafting the indictments does not mean that the Blackwater forces are certain to face charges. The department could indict as few as three of the operatives, who potentially face sentences of five to twenty years, depending on the charges.
If the Justice Department pursues a criminal prosecution, it would be the first time armed private contractors from the United States face justice.
But that is a very big "if."
"The Justice Department has had this matter for fourteen months and has done almost everything imaginable to walk away from it--including delivering a briefing to Congress in which they suggested that they lacked legal authority to press charges," says Scott Horton, distinguished visiting professor of law at Hofstra University and author of a recent study of legal accountability for private security contractors. "They did this notwithstanding evidence collected by the first teams on the scene that suggested an ample basis to prosecute. The ultimate proof here will be in the details, namely, what charges are brought exactly and what evidence has Justice assembled to make its case. Still, it's hard to miss Justice's lack of enthusiasm about this case, and that's troubling."
Even if some Blackwater operatives face charges, critics allege it is the company that must be held responsible. "I am encouraged that the Justice Department is finally making progress in the investigation, but I am disappointed that it took over a year and a lot of pressure for the department to take any action," says Illinois Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky, who introduced legislation that seeks to ban using Blackwater and other armed security companies in US war zones. (She was also the national campaign co-chair of Barack Obama's presidential campaign and is a top candidate to replace him in the US Senate.)
"While it is important to hold these individual contractors accountable for their actions, we must also hold Blackwater accountable for creating a culture that allows this type of reckless behavior," adds Schakowsky. "The indictments do nothing to solve the underlying problem of private security contractors performing critical government functions. The indictments will likely get rid of a few bad apples, but there will be no real consequences for Blackwater. This company is going to continue to do business as usual--the solution is to get them out of this business."
News of potential indictments over the Nisour Square shootings comes as the State Department is reportedly preparing to hit Blackwater with a multimillion-dollar fine for allegedly shipping as many as 900 automatic weapons to Iraq without the required permits. Some of the guns may have made their way to the black market.
Blackwater has served as the official bodyguard service for senior US occupation officials since August 2003, when the company was awarded a $27 million no-bid contract to guard L. Paul Bremer, the original head of the Coalition Provisional Authority. To date, the company has raked in more than $1 billion in "security" contracts under its arrangement with the State Department.
Despite widespread accusations of killings of civilians and other crimes, not a single armed contractor from Blackwater--or from any other armed war corporation--has faced charges under any legal system. Instead, they have operated in a climate where immunity and impunity have gone hand in hand. At present, private contractors--most of them unarmed--outnumber US troops in Iraq by roughly 50,000 personnel.
There is no doubt that the Bush administration will continue enthusiastically to use armed private forces until the second Bush leaves office. This means that the future of Blackwater and the hundreds of for-profit war corporations servicing the Iraq occupation will lay with President-elect Barack Obama. This includes Blackwater and at least 300 other companies, which have been hired by the US government for privatized armed services in Iraq to the tune of about $6 billion in taxpayer money.
"One of the biggest problems that Barack Obama is going to have is turning the government back into a civil service and getting rid of all the private contractors," says Washington Democratic Representative Jim McDermott. "The private contracting thing is the most erosive thing that this administration has done.... You look at all the things that are being run by private contractors, you simply cannot be handing money to a private contractor who is not under the law of that country or the law of this country and can do anything they want. They're really--they're rogue outfits."
Obama has been a passionate critic of the war industry and is the sponsor of the leading Democratic legislation in the Senate to bring more effective regulation and oversight to it. But he has stopped short of supporting Schakowsky and Senator Bernie Sanders's legislation seeking a ban on using Blackwater and other armed contracting companies in Iraq. One of his top foreign policy advisers told The Nation earlier this year that Obama "can't rule out [and] won't rule out" using these companies in Iraq.
In a brief interview with Democracy Now! in February, Obama explained his position when asked about the report in The Nation.
"Here's the problem: we have 140,000 private contractors right there, so unless we want to replace all of or a big chunk of those with US troops, we can't draw down the contractors faster than we can draw down our troops," Obama said. "So what I want to do is draw--I want them out in the same way that we make sure that we draw out our own combat troops."
As Obama's inauguration day draws near, he is facing increased calls from Democrats who have spent years investigating Blackwater to ban the company. Most prominent among these is Henry Waxman, chair of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. He called on Obama to cancel Blackwater's security contracts. "I don't see any reason to have a contract with Blackwater," says Waxman. "They haven't lived up to their contract, and we shouldn't be having these private military contracts. We should use our own military."
As of now, Blackwater's Iraq contract expires in April (it was extended for a year by the State Department despite numerous investigations). "I think there should be very strong handcuffs put on this whole outsourcing question, but particularly with these private security contractors like DynCorp and Blackwater," says Vermont Democrat Peter Welch, who serves on the Oversight Committee with Waxman and supports the calls for Obama to cancel Blackwater's security contracts. "It's just an incredible waste of taxpayer money. It dishonors the Code of Military Conduct. Our soldiers are over there. They abide by rules. Blackwater doesn't."
But not all Democrats agree. Senator John Kerry, who is reportedly among the people being considered for Secretary of State in the Obama administration, shares the president-elect's view. "I don't think they should be banned," says Kerry. "I think they need to operate under rules that apply to the military and everybody else."
As of January 20, 2009, if Obama decides to keep Blackwater and other armed war corporations on the US payroll, these private forces would go from being Bush's mercenaries in Iraq to Obama's. As commander in chief, he would be responsible for their crimes. As for the accountability issue, many critics allege that the most serious problems in holding contractors responsible for their crimes stem from the Bush administration's covering-up of their misconduct and immunizing them from prosecution, and the total lack of political will to bring them to justice. When Obama appoints a new attorney general, there will be more than five years' worth of crimes to investigate--and prosecute.
Copyright © 2008 The Nation
Jeremy Scahill, a Puffin Foundation Writing Fellow at The Nation Institute, is the author of the bestselling Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army, published by Nation Books. He is an award-winning investigative journalist and correspondent for the national radio and TV program Democracy Now!.
America’s Moronic Iraqi Policy
By Paul Craig Roberts
According to all accounts the US faces its worse economic crisis since the Great Depression with $2 trillion in near-term financing needs for bailouts and economic stimulus. This is an enormous sum for any country, especially for one that is so heavily indebted that it is close to bankruptcy. If the money can’t be borrowed abroad, it will have to be printed--a policy that carries the implication of hyper-inflation.
In normal life a borrower who must appeal to creditors makes every effort to bring order to his financial affairs. But not the Bush regime.
The out-of-pocket costs of Bush’s Iraq war are about $600 billion at the present moment, a figure that increases by millions of dollars every hour.
In addition, there are the much larger future costs that have already been incurred, such as long-term care for the wounded and disabled US soldiers, the replacement costs of the used up equipment, interest payments on the war debt, and the lost economic use of the resources and manpower squandered in war. Experts estimate that the already incurred out-of-pocket and future costs of Bush’s Iraq war to be $3 trillion and rising.
Even these costs might be small if an article by Richard LaMountain in the November 2008 Middle American News is accurate. According to LaMountain, US refugee programs for Iraqis displaced by the US invasion and occupation could result in a large and growing Muslim US population. These would be people whose lives were adversely impacted by the US invasion of Iraq.
If the US maintains its pro-Israeli stance against Arabs and Muslims generally, the implications of a growing Muslim population and a government obsessed with its “war on terror” are frightening for American civil liberty. In order to contain the potential terror that it will have imported, Washington would impose a total police state. We will have our own Saddam Hussein.
To avoid the immigration that would be problematic for US civil liberties, the war must end. The war must also end in order that bankrupt Washington can borrow abroad the money it needs to bail out the US economy.
The budget authority for the annual out-of-pocket costs of the war have been rising by $150 billion per year, an addition to the budget deficit that must be financed by borrowing abroad. A sane person might think that a government, such as the US, in need of foreign loans to save its economy, would jump at the change to get its troops out of Iraq, where they are not wanted.
Instead the Bush regime has been struggling all year with the Iraq government in order to secure an agreement that lets the US government continue to hemorrhage hundreds of billions of dollars by keeping American troops in Iraq.
The Korean War ended 55 years ago, and the US still has troops in Korea.
Germany was defeated in 1945, and the US still has troops in Germany.
A country that must go hat in hand to its creditors must first look to where costs can be cut. Annual military spending of $700 billion is certainly a good place to start.
But the US government has far more hubris than intelligence and is on its way to being a failed state that has to print money to pay its bills.
It is not too late for the US to save itself and the dollar standard, but it would require a rapid transition from arrogance to humility. The rest of the world can bring America down by not lending to us, in which case neither the trade nor budget deficits could be financed.
The world does not want to bring us down in this way. Our creditors would like to preserve as much as possible the values of their trillions in US dollar assets. This is easier done if the dollar remains the reserve currency. Therefore, the US government has an opportunity to go to its creditors with a plan.
This is what the plan must be: A declaration that repudiates the neoconservative goal to achieve US hegemony over the world; a budget that reduces annual US borrowing needs by several hundreds of billions by ending the Afghan and Iraq wars, by closing overseas military bases, and by cutting military spending; a new corporate tax system that brings back American jobs, manufacturing capability, and export potential by taxing US corporations’ worldwide profits according to the value-added in the US.
Such a plan would demonstrate that the US respects the sovereignty and aspirations of other countries and is willing to cooperate peacefully with others as an occupant of what the Russian president has termed “our common house.” Such a plan would demonstrate that the US government has come to the realization that there is a limit to its borrowing capacity and the loans that it can service and is prepared to put first things first. Such a plan would show that the US can curtail its unsustainable dependency on imports without erecting a wall of tariffs.
If the US had the leadership to approach its creditors with such a plan, a sigh of relief would emit from the rest of the world. Many of the economic hardships that Americans currently face could be avoided, and the prospect of a hyper-inflationary depression would recede.
Such a favorable outcome requires that the government in Washington give up the delusion that Americans are an “indispensable people” who have a monopoly on virtue that gives them claim to hegemony over the world.
According to all accounts the US faces its worse economic crisis since the Great Depression with $2 trillion in near-term financing needs for bailouts and economic stimulus. This is an enormous sum for any country, especially for one that is so heavily indebted that it is close to bankruptcy. If the money can’t be borrowed abroad, it will have to be printed--a policy that carries the implication of hyper-inflation.
In normal life a borrower who must appeal to creditors makes every effort to bring order to his financial affairs. But not the Bush regime.
The out-of-pocket costs of Bush’s Iraq war are about $600 billion at the present moment, a figure that increases by millions of dollars every hour.
In addition, there are the much larger future costs that have already been incurred, such as long-term care for the wounded and disabled US soldiers, the replacement costs of the used up equipment, interest payments on the war debt, and the lost economic use of the resources and manpower squandered in war. Experts estimate that the already incurred out-of-pocket and future costs of Bush’s Iraq war to be $3 trillion and rising.
Even these costs might be small if an article by Richard LaMountain in the November 2008 Middle American News is accurate. According to LaMountain, US refugee programs for Iraqis displaced by the US invasion and occupation could result in a large and growing Muslim US population. These would be people whose lives were adversely impacted by the US invasion of Iraq.
If the US maintains its pro-Israeli stance against Arabs and Muslims generally, the implications of a growing Muslim population and a government obsessed with its “war on terror” are frightening for American civil liberty. In order to contain the potential terror that it will have imported, Washington would impose a total police state. We will have our own Saddam Hussein.
To avoid the immigration that would be problematic for US civil liberties, the war must end. The war must also end in order that bankrupt Washington can borrow abroad the money it needs to bail out the US economy.
The budget authority for the annual out-of-pocket costs of the war have been rising by $150 billion per year, an addition to the budget deficit that must be financed by borrowing abroad. A sane person might think that a government, such as the US, in need of foreign loans to save its economy, would jump at the change to get its troops out of Iraq, where they are not wanted.
Instead the Bush regime has been struggling all year with the Iraq government in order to secure an agreement that lets the US government continue to hemorrhage hundreds of billions of dollars by keeping American troops in Iraq.
The Korean War ended 55 years ago, and the US still has troops in Korea.
Germany was defeated in 1945, and the US still has troops in Germany.
A country that must go hat in hand to its creditors must first look to where costs can be cut. Annual military spending of $700 billion is certainly a good place to start.
But the US government has far more hubris than intelligence and is on its way to being a failed state that has to print money to pay its bills.
It is not too late for the US to save itself and the dollar standard, but it would require a rapid transition from arrogance to humility. The rest of the world can bring America down by not lending to us, in which case neither the trade nor budget deficits could be financed.
The world does not want to bring us down in this way. Our creditors would like to preserve as much as possible the values of their trillions in US dollar assets. This is easier done if the dollar remains the reserve currency. Therefore, the US government has an opportunity to go to its creditors with a plan.
This is what the plan must be: A declaration that repudiates the neoconservative goal to achieve US hegemony over the world; a budget that reduces annual US borrowing needs by several hundreds of billions by ending the Afghan and Iraq wars, by closing overseas military bases, and by cutting military spending; a new corporate tax system that brings back American jobs, manufacturing capability, and export potential by taxing US corporations’ worldwide profits according to the value-added in the US.
Such a plan would demonstrate that the US respects the sovereignty and aspirations of other countries and is willing to cooperate peacefully with others as an occupant of what the Russian president has termed “our common house.” Such a plan would demonstrate that the US government has come to the realization that there is a limit to its borrowing capacity and the loans that it can service and is prepared to put first things first. Such a plan would show that the US can curtail its unsustainable dependency on imports without erecting a wall of tariffs.
If the US had the leadership to approach its creditors with such a plan, a sigh of relief would emit from the rest of the world. Many of the economic hardships that Americans currently face could be avoided, and the prospect of a hyper-inflationary depression would recede.
Such a favorable outcome requires that the government in Washington give up the delusion that Americans are an “indispensable people” who have a monopoly on virtue that gives them claim to hegemony over the world.
The Election is Over; Time to Move On to the Recriminations
Let the Trials Begin!
By DOUGLAS VALENTINE
Amid the euphoria and angst of the Obama apotheosis, the unreality of a mismanaged, two trillion dollar, taxpayer funded bailout of freewheeling capitalists, and the wars of limbo in Iraq and Afghanistan, one little thing is being overlooked.
George W Bush.
The Decider. The psychopath responsible for this appalling mess we're in. The architect of America's ignoble descent into moral darkness. The washed up and universally despised pseudo-despot who reveled in torture, kidnapping and assassination. The War-Monger.
"Bring 'em On!"
"Dead or Alive!"
The raving ignoramus whose words will haunt us forever.
The spoiled child of privilege playing with the lives of our sons and daughters, husbands and wives, mothers and fathers, friends and lovers, as if they were his personal toys.
The mass murderer who illegally invaded and occupied a foreign nation, killing hundreds of thousands of innocent people, utterly destroying their cities and bridges, power plants and schools, and scattering millions of them to the wind, as if he were GOD!
The Comic Book Madman obsessed with Death, reading CIA memos about Al Qaeda, sending kidnappers and hit teams and drones around the world, anywhere he wanted, to kill his imaginary enemies, while America burned.
The Super Traitor.
The elections are over, I say. The people have spoken. It's time to move on to the business at hand - hauling Bush's sorry ass before a war crimes tribunal of the sort he created. But not one staffed by his political cadre of complicit military officers. One composed of his victims.
Let the recriminations begin!
If there were any justice, the process would begin with his midnight arrest. Bush's beloved CIA drones and hitmen invariably kill their target's families in these little snatch operations, and if agreed upon by his inquisitors, I suggest this would be an appropriate touch.
Then the little fucker would be rendered to my basement and put on the waterboard. I'd ask that Joe Liebernut be made to put the wet towel on his face, but Joe would do it just for fun. Same with Limbaugh.
We'll find someone deserving of the job. Perhaps the boys from Gitmo? And I mean, the boys. The brothers and sisters of innocent Iraqis he killed? I think they'll be plenty of volunteers.
The whole point will be to make Bush confess. Not to the crimes he has committed. But to explain why he did it. Was it to show up Poppy? To win the love of Barbara?
I really want to know.
This interrogation should last seven years, and everyone Bush names as having followed his orders should be tried as well. That's Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice and everyone in the CIA for starters.
Bush's kangaroo courtroom trial, presided over by Vincent Bugliosi, should be the highlight of the election campaign of 2016.
The supreme punishments to be broadcast live by Fox News.
Imagine.
Douglas Valentine is the author of four books which are available at his websites http://www.members.authorsguild.net/valentine/ and http://www.douglasvalentine.com/index.html His fifth book, The Strength of the Pack: The Politics, Personalities and Espionage Intrigues That Shaped The DEA, will be published in September 2009 by Trine Day.
By DOUGLAS VALENTINE
Amid the euphoria and angst of the Obama apotheosis, the unreality of a mismanaged, two trillion dollar, taxpayer funded bailout of freewheeling capitalists, and the wars of limbo in Iraq and Afghanistan, one little thing is being overlooked.
George W Bush.
The Decider. The psychopath responsible for this appalling mess we're in. The architect of America's ignoble descent into moral darkness. The washed up and universally despised pseudo-despot who reveled in torture, kidnapping and assassination. The War-Monger.
"Bring 'em On!"
"Dead or Alive!"
The raving ignoramus whose words will haunt us forever.
The spoiled child of privilege playing with the lives of our sons and daughters, husbands and wives, mothers and fathers, friends and lovers, as if they were his personal toys.
The mass murderer who illegally invaded and occupied a foreign nation, killing hundreds of thousands of innocent people, utterly destroying their cities and bridges, power plants and schools, and scattering millions of them to the wind, as if he were GOD!
The Comic Book Madman obsessed with Death, reading CIA memos about Al Qaeda, sending kidnappers and hit teams and drones around the world, anywhere he wanted, to kill his imaginary enemies, while America burned.
The Super Traitor.
The elections are over, I say. The people have spoken. It's time to move on to the business at hand - hauling Bush's sorry ass before a war crimes tribunal of the sort he created. But not one staffed by his political cadre of complicit military officers. One composed of his victims.
Let the recriminations begin!
If there were any justice, the process would begin with his midnight arrest. Bush's beloved CIA drones and hitmen invariably kill their target's families in these little snatch operations, and if agreed upon by his inquisitors, I suggest this would be an appropriate touch.
Then the little fucker would be rendered to my basement and put on the waterboard. I'd ask that Joe Liebernut be made to put the wet towel on his face, but Joe would do it just for fun. Same with Limbaugh.
We'll find someone deserving of the job. Perhaps the boys from Gitmo? And I mean, the boys. The brothers and sisters of innocent Iraqis he killed? I think they'll be plenty of volunteers.
The whole point will be to make Bush confess. Not to the crimes he has committed. But to explain why he did it. Was it to show up Poppy? To win the love of Barbara?
I really want to know.
This interrogation should last seven years, and everyone Bush names as having followed his orders should be tried as well. That's Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice and everyone in the CIA for starters.
Bush's kangaroo courtroom trial, presided over by Vincent Bugliosi, should be the highlight of the election campaign of 2016.
The supreme punishments to be broadcast live by Fox News.
Imagine.
Douglas Valentine is the author of four books which are available at his websites http://www.members.authorsguild.net/valentine/ and http://www.douglasvalentine.com/index.html His fifth book, The Strength of the Pack: The Politics, Personalities and Espionage Intrigues That Shaped The DEA, will be published in September 2009 by Trine Day.
Monday, November 17, 2008
Our airport security system is a bureaucracy of silly stuff
by Jane Ahlin
A Transportation Security Administration employee working domestic security at the Minneapolis airport confiscated my toothpaste. Aware that if I made her mad, I might not be allowed on the flight to Fargo, I still said, “You know, that toothpaste already has been through airport security in Rome and Amsterdam earlier today.”
“Well, this is America,” she said. “It’s too big a size.”
“But most of it has been squeezed out,” I protested. “There probably aren’t two ounces left.”
“It’s too big a size,” she repeated.
She went on to take my hairspray, too, which was not “too big a size”; however, once she had gone through my entire carry-on, insisting that I add bits of make-up and eye-drops and stick deodorant to the one quart-sized clear plastic bag allowed for liquids, gels and pastes, there wasn’t room for it. (Yes, the hairspray can was the right size, but she wasn’t about to bend the one-clear-plastic-quart-sized-bag rule.)
I wanted to scream, “What does this silly ritual have to do with security?”
But I wanted to get home more. So I smiled and she smiled and as soon as I’d retrieved my shoes, belt and sweater from a bin at the end of the conveyor belt and put them back on, I was on my way.
The effectiveness of airport security brings to mind a relative who kept the key to her back door (west) on a nail pounded into the siding (south) – high and around the corner but easily reachable from the back stoop. She admitted to having no illusions a thief wouldn’t find the key, but she was pretty sure she’d outsmarted “kids and drunks.”
That’s what has happened to the annoying and well-established ritual of airport security: It may outsmart kids and drunks, but terrorists? Dream on.
The silliness of airport security was made clear in an article in this month’s Atlantic by Jeffrey Goldberg, a national correspondent for the magazine. Goldberg decided to find out what it would take to get airport security to stop him as a possible terrorist. To that end he carried things on his person, such as “pocketknives, matches, dust masks, lengths of rope, cigarette lighters, nail clippers, 8-ounce tubes of toothpaste,” and “inflatable Yasser Arafat dolls.” Yes, he even carried box cutters through security. On one trip, he put the big toothpastes into the front pockets of his pants and nobody noticed. (Why didn’t I think of that?)
On another trip he wore a neoprene “Beerbelly” across his stomach which contained the contents of two cans of beer, and the security folks didn’t notice, although they did confiscate the bottle of water in his carry-on. On other occasions, he carried a Hezbollah flag or wore T-shirts with slogans such as “Osama Bin Laden, Hero of Islam.” Never was he kept from boarding a plane.
With the help of Bruce Schneier, a man who is on a crusade to revise and improve airline safety measures, Goldberg discovered how easy it is to forge boarding passes on a home computer (including upgrading to “platinum/elite status”) and to falsely label things as medicines. Once, Goldberg even talked his way onto a flight using a fake boarding pass and not carrying a picture ID.
More sobering, he learned how to circumvent the “no-fly list” and discovered how lax security measures are for the thousands of people who work at airports. He also pointed out the vulnerability of the long lines of folks waiting to go through security, where a bomb would kill more people than a bomb on any one flight. What Goldberg made clear was that seven years after 9/11, Americans ought to be getting more from the $7 billion TSA budget than a bureaucracy of silly stuff.
My favorite anecdote in Goldberg’s piece had Schneier carrying two 12-ounce bottles labeled “saline solution” through security. Asked by the agent why he had two, he pointed to his face and said, “Two eyes.” He was waved through.
Next time I fly, I’m labeling my toothpaste “hemorrhoid cream.”
Ahlin is a regular contributor to The Forum’s commentary pages. E-mail janeahlin@yahoo.com
A Transportation Security Administration employee working domestic security at the Minneapolis airport confiscated my toothpaste. Aware that if I made her mad, I might not be allowed on the flight to Fargo, I still said, “You know, that toothpaste already has been through airport security in Rome and Amsterdam earlier today.”
“Well, this is America,” she said. “It’s too big a size.”
“But most of it has been squeezed out,” I protested. “There probably aren’t two ounces left.”
“It’s too big a size,” she repeated.
She went on to take my hairspray, too, which was not “too big a size”; however, once she had gone through my entire carry-on, insisting that I add bits of make-up and eye-drops and stick deodorant to the one quart-sized clear plastic bag allowed for liquids, gels and pastes, there wasn’t room for it. (Yes, the hairspray can was the right size, but she wasn’t about to bend the one-clear-plastic-quart-sized-bag rule.)
I wanted to scream, “What does this silly ritual have to do with security?”
But I wanted to get home more. So I smiled and she smiled and as soon as I’d retrieved my shoes, belt and sweater from a bin at the end of the conveyor belt and put them back on, I was on my way.
The effectiveness of airport security brings to mind a relative who kept the key to her back door (west) on a nail pounded into the siding (south) – high and around the corner but easily reachable from the back stoop. She admitted to having no illusions a thief wouldn’t find the key, but she was pretty sure she’d outsmarted “kids and drunks.”
That’s what has happened to the annoying and well-established ritual of airport security: It may outsmart kids and drunks, but terrorists? Dream on.
The silliness of airport security was made clear in an article in this month’s Atlantic by Jeffrey Goldberg, a national correspondent for the magazine. Goldberg decided to find out what it would take to get airport security to stop him as a possible terrorist. To that end he carried things on his person, such as “pocketknives, matches, dust masks, lengths of rope, cigarette lighters, nail clippers, 8-ounce tubes of toothpaste,” and “inflatable Yasser Arafat dolls.” Yes, he even carried box cutters through security. On one trip, he put the big toothpastes into the front pockets of his pants and nobody noticed. (Why didn’t I think of that?)
On another trip he wore a neoprene “Beerbelly” across his stomach which contained the contents of two cans of beer, and the security folks didn’t notice, although they did confiscate the bottle of water in his carry-on. On other occasions, he carried a Hezbollah flag or wore T-shirts with slogans such as “Osama Bin Laden, Hero of Islam.” Never was he kept from boarding a plane.
With the help of Bruce Schneier, a man who is on a crusade to revise and improve airline safety measures, Goldberg discovered how easy it is to forge boarding passes on a home computer (including upgrading to “platinum/elite status”) and to falsely label things as medicines. Once, Goldberg even talked his way onto a flight using a fake boarding pass and not carrying a picture ID.
More sobering, he learned how to circumvent the “no-fly list” and discovered how lax security measures are for the thousands of people who work at airports. He also pointed out the vulnerability of the long lines of folks waiting to go through security, where a bomb would kill more people than a bomb on any one flight. What Goldberg made clear was that seven years after 9/11, Americans ought to be getting more from the $7 billion TSA budget than a bureaucracy of silly stuff.
My favorite anecdote in Goldberg’s piece had Schneier carrying two 12-ounce bottles labeled “saline solution” through security. Asked by the agent why he had two, he pointed to his face and said, “Two eyes.” He was waved through.
Next time I fly, I’m labeling my toothpaste “hemorrhoid cream.”
Ahlin is a regular contributor to The Forum’s commentary pages. E-mail janeahlin@yahoo.com
Sunday, November 16, 2008
With Iran, Obama Needs More Carrot, Less Stick
By Scott Ritter
November 14, 2008 "Truthdig" -- November 13, 2008 -- The American people have spoken, and the next president of the United States will be Barack Obama. Running on a platform of change, the president-elect will be severely tested early in his administration by a host of challenges, be they economic, military, environmental or diplomatic in nature. How Obama handles these issues will define his tenure as America’s chief executive, and there will not—nor should there be—a honeymoon period. The challenges of these times do not permit such a luxury, something the president-elect had to know and comprehend when he chose to run for office. John McCain and Hillary Clinton, Obama’s defeated rivals, were both correct when they noted that the next president would need to be ready to govern on day one. Barack Obama has until the 20th of January to get his policies in order, because at one minute past noon on that day, he becomes the most powerful man in a volatile world. While the problems he will face are many, I will focus on what I believe are the four most critical issues that will need to be addressed in the first weeks and months of the Obama administration: Iran, Iraq, Pakistan and Russia. This will be done in a series of articles, the first of which will deal with Iran.
Barack Obama, the candidate, said many things about Iran, some of which were inherently contradictory. In this he is not unique, since the reality of the rough-and-tumble world of American presidential politics requires any given candidate to show extreme flexibility in defining solutions to complex problems, oftentimes based not on the facts as they exist, but rather the fiction of domestic political imperative. Sometimes initial positions are staked out based upon fact-based analysis, only to be corrected as a given domestic constituency expresses unease and imposes its own fantasy-based worldview on the candidate. Nowhere is this process of the fictionalization of fact more prevalent than on the issue of Iran and its nuclear program. One year ago, in an interview with The New York Times, Obama demonstrated a level-headed approach toward Iran, expressing “serious concern” over the country’s nuclear program and its support for what he termed “terrorist organizations.” He grounded his comments in an appreciation for the cause-and-effect relationship between Iran’s involvement in Iraq and the Bush administration’s invasion and occupation of that country. Obama also expressed the need for “aggressive diplomacy” with Iran at the highest levels and emphasized the importance of economic incentives and security assurances when it came to compelling Iran to change course on its nuclear program.
But many months on the campaign trail, fighting a determined Democratic challenger, Hillary Clinton, and a critical Republican Party, compelled the thoughtful Harvard-educated foreign policy neophyte to buckle under the pressure of needing to be seen as “strong” and “determined” in the face of continued Iranian intransigence. In July of 2008, following a series of Iranian ballistic missile tests, which included the Shahib-3 long-range missile, Obama seemed to retreat from diplomacy, noting aggressively that “Iran is a great threat.” Instead of trying to balance the Iranian decision to test its missiles with ongoing militaristic rhetoric from both the United States and Israel (including a large-scale Israeli air force exercise that simulated a strike on Iran), Obama undertook a single-dimension approach toward the problem and predictably came up with an equally simplistic solution: “We have to make sure we are working with our allies to apply tightened pressure on Iran,” including tighter economic sanctions. Obama noted that there was a “need for us to create a kind of policy that is putting the burden on Iran to change behavior, and frankly we just have not been able to do that over the last several years.” Gone was any notion of understanding the cause-and-effect relationships that may have influenced Iran’s actions, or the notion that wrongheaded American policy (such as continued economic sanctions) may in fact have contributed to Iran’s behavior.
If one was hoping that Obama’s sweeping electoral victory in the 2008 presidential election might have liberated him from the need to assume a “tough guy” pose, the recent press conference given by the president-elect set the record straight. “Iran’s development of a nuclear weapon,” Obama stated, “ … is unacceptable. And we have to mount an international effort to prevent that from happening.” Perhaps Obama received some new insight into Iran from his recent access to top-secret CIA intelligence briefings that prompted him to unilaterally declare as fact the existence of an Iranian program to develop nuclear weapons. There is, of course, no substantive data to sustain such an assertion. As a critic of the U.S. intelligence failure concerning Iraq’s WMD programs in the lead-up to the invasion and occupation of that country, as well as the Bush administration’s politicization of intelligence for ideological motives, Obama would do well to take any intelligence briefing on Iran, void of incontrovertible evidence, with much-warranted skepticism.
The president-elect went on to state, “Iran’s support of terrorist organizations I think is something that has to cease.” It would be nice to know more about how he defines “terrorist organizations.” Is he speaking about Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Palestine or Moqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army in Iraq? The last time I looked, Hezbollah was democratically elected to Lebanon’s parliament, representing a significant percentage of the Shiite population of southern Lebanon. And Hamas became a significant player in Palestine’s budding democracy by appealing to the legitimate needs and desires of a growing number of Palestinians unimpressed by the corruption and undemocratic principles of Fatah and the Palestinian Authority.
If Obama wants to resolve the ongoing debacle that is Iraq, he would be well advised to recognize that Sadr controls more Iraqi citizens than does the Iraqi prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki. In fact, if he’s serious about ending the violence and establishing long-term stability, Obama would do well to exploit Iran’s deep and meaningful contacts with these three organizations with an eye toward integrating them into the mainstream of their respective domestic political environments. Referring to these organizations as being “terrorist” in nature is not only factually simplistic, but also counterproductive when it comes to establishing and maintaining the kind of dialogue that can result in the diplomatic breakthroughs Barack Obama claims to be seeking. Perhaps the president-elect should take his own counsel: He went on to state, “Obviously, how we approach and deal with a country like Iran is not something that we should, you know, simply do in a knee-jerk fashion. I think we’ve got to think it through.”
Thinking through the complexity of the Iranian issue is exactly what needs to be done. Developing policies based on American political pressure rather than the reality of the Iranian “problem” will solve nothing. Now that the presidential election has liberated Obama from the need to play to the fickle whim of domestic politics, he should consider more far-reaching policy options on Iran.
To begin with, Obama should return to a policy more in line with the original October 2003 “Tehran Declaration,” negotiated between the European Union and Iran, which permitted Iran to engage in uranium enrichment so long as an adequate safeguards inspection regime was in place. The original suspension, which Iran had agreed to and implemented, was intended to be temporary, in effect until the International Atomic Energy Agency could get an adequate inspection regime up and running. However, the United States pressured Europe to alter the terms of the declaration, insisting on a permanent suspension of uranium enrichment, something the Iranians refuse to do to this day. According to the IAEA’s director general, Mohamed ElBaradei, the watchdog today has in place a safeguards inspection regime that is operating smoothly and in a manner that allows for not only an accounting of the totality of Iran’s nuclear material stockpile, but a full and comprehensive understanding of the scope and scale of Iran’s centrifuge-based enrichment effort as well. There is, therefore, no legitimate reason for continuing to deny Iran its right to enrich uranium in accordance with the terms of the nonproliferation treaty.
It would be ideal for a more intrusive inspection regime, based on what the IAEA calls an “additional protocol,” to be formalized and implemented. This should not be an insurmountable hurdle for progress. Iran has already indicated a willingness to engage in such an expanded inspection regime, contingent upon international recognition of its rights under Article IV of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty to enrich uranium. Obama has spoken of a need for an effective global nonproliferation regime, but this can never happen if the United States shows disrespect for international law and past agreements. The United States’ hypocritical indifference toward the military nuclear programs of non-NPT nations such as Israel, India and Pakistan undermines the administration’s current stance concerning the NPT-compliant Iran.
Rather than focusing on Iran’s uranium enrichment efforts, Obama would do well to shift his attention to Iran’s long-range ballistic missile program, especially the Shahib-3, which has been cited as the principal delivery system for any nuclear weapon Iran might be developing, real or imagined. The Shahib-3 missile is also used by the United States to justify the installation of a ballistic missile defense shield in Europe (with a missile interceptor facility planned for Poland, and an associated radar facility planned for the Czech Republic), an activity that destabilizes arms control and the West’s already fragile relations with Russia. By focusing on any potential delivery system, the United States would de-escalate international concerns over Iran’s uranium enrichment program and increase the likelihood for a diplomatic resolution agreeable to all parties.
While the specifics of any ballistic missile-based negotiation would have to be worked out between the involved parties, a reasonable starting point would be a one-year moratorium on all ballistic missile tests of a given range (for instance, over 500 kilometers), in exchange for which the United States would support and sponsor a regional multilateral Middle Eastern disarmament conference, the goal of which would be a treaty for the elimination of all long-range ballistic missiles in the Middle East. This would be complicated, especially since such a treaty would by necessity need to include Israel. However, given the alternative (continued confrontation with Iran, and the global instability that would result), the difficulties associated with any such disarmament effort are far outweighed by the consequences of doing nothing. Furthermore, a Middle East ballistic missile disarmament effort could serve as the framework around which other regional disarmament efforts could be shaped, including those related to Pakistan and India, and even the United States, Russia and China. It would require the leadership of the United States to pull off any such effort. This should be the kind of leadership challenge an Obama administration should be seeking to embrace.
By minimizing, or eliminating, the problems associated with any potential nuclear weapons delivery system, such as the Shahib-3 missile, the Obama administration could then focus on resolving the standoff over Iran’s uranium enrichment activities. In this, Obama will be able to turn to a new initiative from a close American ally in the Persian Gulf region, the United Arab Emirates, for some “framework” around which new policies might be constructed. I recently attended a NATO conference held in Abu Dhabi, where the UAE government spoke in some detail about its new policy concerning the evaluation and potential development of nuclear energy. Three major items emerged from this policy announcement: first and foremost, the legitimacy of an oil- and natural gas-rich Middle Eastern nation requiring an alternative means of energy production to offset the demands placed on its energy exportation by increasing domestic demands for energy. The UAE decision was driven by economic analysis which showed a cumulative annual growth rate in energy consumption from 2007 through 2020 of some 9 percent, resulting in increased demands for upwards of 40,000 megawatts, which the UAE is not in a position to provide through traditional energy supplies. Iran, of course, made a similar analysis in the mid-1970s when it decided to embark on an ambitious nuclear energy program. Iran’s logic for pursuing nuclear energy has been derided by many who view Tehran’s ambitions as merely a front for a military program. The analysis of the UAE demonstrates the legitimacy of the Iranian nuclear energy need, and should lay to rest any logic-driven analysis that defines Iran’s nuclear ambition as being military in nature simply because Iran is deemed to be a nation “awash in a sea of oil,” to quote past and current Bush administration officials such as Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Vice President Dick Cheney.
The UAE noted that it was committed to the “highest standards of nonproliferation” when it came to pursuing any potential nuclear energy program, renouncing any intention to develop domestic enrichment and reprocessing capability. On the surface, the UAE’s approach seems to stand as a contrast to the position taken by Iran, which has committed to an indigenous mastery of the entire nuclear fuel cycle, inclusive of enrichment and reprocessing. However, the UAE’s commitment to nonproliferation is contingent upon two pillars. The first is the ability of the UAE to source nuclear fuel from “reliable and responsible foreign suppliers.” The UAE has also expressed an interest in creating a regional nuclear fuel bank that would guarantee the program access to nuclear fuel in times of regional and/or global unrest and uncertainty. In reviewing the Iranian program, one finds the same need for a guaranteed source of nuclear fuel as the driving force behind Iran’s efforts to enrich uranium and reprocess spent nuclear fuel. The vagaries of economic embargoes and sanctions make any Iranian nuclear energy program linked to outside sources of supply futile indeed. The continued American insistence on using economic sanctions and threatening economic embargoes as a means to compel Iran to back down from its position on uranium enrichment is illogical and counterproductive given these realities. Instead, the United States should be seeking to combine Iran’s need for reliable sources of economic-sanction resistant nuclear fuel with that of the UAE (and, looking down the road, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and even Iraq), so that a regional nuclear fuel bank would indeed be just that—regional, inclusive of Iran and its Gulf Arab neighbors.
The second pillar of the UAE nonproliferation commitment was more reality-driven: The small size of any future UAE nuclear reactor program makes the expense of an indigenous uranium enrichment program infeasible. As such, the UAE is well positioned to take a high-minded stance when it comes to adhering to “concerns from the international community regarding spent fuel reprocessing and enrichment plants in developing countries, and the dual-use nature of components employed in fuel fabrication and processing.” Simply put, it can’t afford not to. Iran, on the other hand, doesn’t have that luxury. There is no comparison between the scope and scale of the UAE’s nascent nuclear program with that of Iran. Unlike the UAE, the Iranian program is of a size that could justify an indigenous uranium enrichment and spent fuel reprocessing effort, just as the nuclear energy programs of France, Japan and Germany justify their national fuel-cycle programs.
Establishing a policy that accepts the right of Iran to pursue indigenous enrichment of uranium is actually the soundest approach toward getting Iran to back away from the hard-line position it has taken, because when push comes to shove, Iran cannot afford the uranium enrichment program it has embarked on. This, however, is a conclusion that Iran needs to make, free of international pressure. By respecting Iran’s legal right to enrich uranium, the Obama administration would liberate Iran to make reasoned, rational decisions about its economic future, decisions that would take into account the overall economic health of the country, void of the conservative, nationalistic inputs generated in response to outside pressure.
In the end, Iran will probably have three choices to consider: continue its indigenous enrichment program despite the severe economic burden; drop its uranium enrichment program in favor of a secure, reliable international source of nuclear fuel; or seek to integrate its uranium enrichment and spent fuel reprocessing capabilities into a larger regional and global framework, one that not only provides economic relief for the Iranian effort, but also brings with it greater international scrutiny and inspection, adherence to international practices and procedures on the handling and accountability of nuclear material, and viability to any regional nuclear fuel bank that would incorporate the product of Iran’s enrichment programs. The integration of Iran more fully into the Persian Gulf economy is by far the best guarantor of long-term stability in that region. Iran’s nuclear program should be seen as an opportunity in this regard, not an obstacle.
As Iran heads toward a presidential election in the coming year, the United States—and the Obama administration—would achieve better and longer-lasting results by seeking solutions geared toward resolving the legitimate issues at play in the region, rather than creating short-term sound bites here at home. A clean break with the neoconservative policies of the Bush administration is a prerequisite for success, and achieving this requires great imagination and courage. President-elect Barack Obama has demonstrated the potential for both of those qualities. I hope that promise is realized.
Scott Ritter is a former U.N. weapons inspector and military intelligence officer. He is the author of numerous books, including “Target Iran: The Truth About the White House’s Plans for Regime Change.”
Copyright © 2008 Truthdig, L.L.C. All rights reserved.
November 14, 2008 "Truthdig" -- November 13, 2008 -- The American people have spoken, and the next president of the United States will be Barack Obama. Running on a platform of change, the president-elect will be severely tested early in his administration by a host of challenges, be they economic, military, environmental or diplomatic in nature. How Obama handles these issues will define his tenure as America’s chief executive, and there will not—nor should there be—a honeymoon period. The challenges of these times do not permit such a luxury, something the president-elect had to know and comprehend when he chose to run for office. John McCain and Hillary Clinton, Obama’s defeated rivals, were both correct when they noted that the next president would need to be ready to govern on day one. Barack Obama has until the 20th of January to get his policies in order, because at one minute past noon on that day, he becomes the most powerful man in a volatile world. While the problems he will face are many, I will focus on what I believe are the four most critical issues that will need to be addressed in the first weeks and months of the Obama administration: Iran, Iraq, Pakistan and Russia. This will be done in a series of articles, the first of which will deal with Iran.
Barack Obama, the candidate, said many things about Iran, some of which were inherently contradictory. In this he is not unique, since the reality of the rough-and-tumble world of American presidential politics requires any given candidate to show extreme flexibility in defining solutions to complex problems, oftentimes based not on the facts as they exist, but rather the fiction of domestic political imperative. Sometimes initial positions are staked out based upon fact-based analysis, only to be corrected as a given domestic constituency expresses unease and imposes its own fantasy-based worldview on the candidate. Nowhere is this process of the fictionalization of fact more prevalent than on the issue of Iran and its nuclear program. One year ago, in an interview with The New York Times, Obama demonstrated a level-headed approach toward Iran, expressing “serious concern” over the country’s nuclear program and its support for what he termed “terrorist organizations.” He grounded his comments in an appreciation for the cause-and-effect relationship between Iran’s involvement in Iraq and the Bush administration’s invasion and occupation of that country. Obama also expressed the need for “aggressive diplomacy” with Iran at the highest levels and emphasized the importance of economic incentives and security assurances when it came to compelling Iran to change course on its nuclear program.
But many months on the campaign trail, fighting a determined Democratic challenger, Hillary Clinton, and a critical Republican Party, compelled the thoughtful Harvard-educated foreign policy neophyte to buckle under the pressure of needing to be seen as “strong” and “determined” in the face of continued Iranian intransigence. In July of 2008, following a series of Iranian ballistic missile tests, which included the Shahib-3 long-range missile, Obama seemed to retreat from diplomacy, noting aggressively that “Iran is a great threat.” Instead of trying to balance the Iranian decision to test its missiles with ongoing militaristic rhetoric from both the United States and Israel (including a large-scale Israeli air force exercise that simulated a strike on Iran), Obama undertook a single-dimension approach toward the problem and predictably came up with an equally simplistic solution: “We have to make sure we are working with our allies to apply tightened pressure on Iran,” including tighter economic sanctions. Obama noted that there was a “need for us to create a kind of policy that is putting the burden on Iran to change behavior, and frankly we just have not been able to do that over the last several years.” Gone was any notion of understanding the cause-and-effect relationships that may have influenced Iran’s actions, or the notion that wrongheaded American policy (such as continued economic sanctions) may in fact have contributed to Iran’s behavior.
If one was hoping that Obama’s sweeping electoral victory in the 2008 presidential election might have liberated him from the need to assume a “tough guy” pose, the recent press conference given by the president-elect set the record straight. “Iran’s development of a nuclear weapon,” Obama stated, “ … is unacceptable. And we have to mount an international effort to prevent that from happening.” Perhaps Obama received some new insight into Iran from his recent access to top-secret CIA intelligence briefings that prompted him to unilaterally declare as fact the existence of an Iranian program to develop nuclear weapons. There is, of course, no substantive data to sustain such an assertion. As a critic of the U.S. intelligence failure concerning Iraq’s WMD programs in the lead-up to the invasion and occupation of that country, as well as the Bush administration’s politicization of intelligence for ideological motives, Obama would do well to take any intelligence briefing on Iran, void of incontrovertible evidence, with much-warranted skepticism.
The president-elect went on to state, “Iran’s support of terrorist organizations I think is something that has to cease.” It would be nice to know more about how he defines “terrorist organizations.” Is he speaking about Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Palestine or Moqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army in Iraq? The last time I looked, Hezbollah was democratically elected to Lebanon’s parliament, representing a significant percentage of the Shiite population of southern Lebanon. And Hamas became a significant player in Palestine’s budding democracy by appealing to the legitimate needs and desires of a growing number of Palestinians unimpressed by the corruption and undemocratic principles of Fatah and the Palestinian Authority.
If Obama wants to resolve the ongoing debacle that is Iraq, he would be well advised to recognize that Sadr controls more Iraqi citizens than does the Iraqi prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki. In fact, if he’s serious about ending the violence and establishing long-term stability, Obama would do well to exploit Iran’s deep and meaningful contacts with these three organizations with an eye toward integrating them into the mainstream of their respective domestic political environments. Referring to these organizations as being “terrorist” in nature is not only factually simplistic, but also counterproductive when it comes to establishing and maintaining the kind of dialogue that can result in the diplomatic breakthroughs Barack Obama claims to be seeking. Perhaps the president-elect should take his own counsel: He went on to state, “Obviously, how we approach and deal with a country like Iran is not something that we should, you know, simply do in a knee-jerk fashion. I think we’ve got to think it through.”
Thinking through the complexity of the Iranian issue is exactly what needs to be done. Developing policies based on American political pressure rather than the reality of the Iranian “problem” will solve nothing. Now that the presidential election has liberated Obama from the need to play to the fickle whim of domestic politics, he should consider more far-reaching policy options on Iran.
To begin with, Obama should return to a policy more in line with the original October 2003 “Tehran Declaration,” negotiated between the European Union and Iran, which permitted Iran to engage in uranium enrichment so long as an adequate safeguards inspection regime was in place. The original suspension, which Iran had agreed to and implemented, was intended to be temporary, in effect until the International Atomic Energy Agency could get an adequate inspection regime up and running. However, the United States pressured Europe to alter the terms of the declaration, insisting on a permanent suspension of uranium enrichment, something the Iranians refuse to do to this day. According to the IAEA’s director general, Mohamed ElBaradei, the watchdog today has in place a safeguards inspection regime that is operating smoothly and in a manner that allows for not only an accounting of the totality of Iran’s nuclear material stockpile, but a full and comprehensive understanding of the scope and scale of Iran’s centrifuge-based enrichment effort as well. There is, therefore, no legitimate reason for continuing to deny Iran its right to enrich uranium in accordance with the terms of the nonproliferation treaty.
It would be ideal for a more intrusive inspection regime, based on what the IAEA calls an “additional protocol,” to be formalized and implemented. This should not be an insurmountable hurdle for progress. Iran has already indicated a willingness to engage in such an expanded inspection regime, contingent upon international recognition of its rights under Article IV of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty to enrich uranium. Obama has spoken of a need for an effective global nonproliferation regime, but this can never happen if the United States shows disrespect for international law and past agreements. The United States’ hypocritical indifference toward the military nuclear programs of non-NPT nations such as Israel, India and Pakistan undermines the administration’s current stance concerning the NPT-compliant Iran.
Rather than focusing on Iran’s uranium enrichment efforts, Obama would do well to shift his attention to Iran’s long-range ballistic missile program, especially the Shahib-3, which has been cited as the principal delivery system for any nuclear weapon Iran might be developing, real or imagined. The Shahib-3 missile is also used by the United States to justify the installation of a ballistic missile defense shield in Europe (with a missile interceptor facility planned for Poland, and an associated radar facility planned for the Czech Republic), an activity that destabilizes arms control and the West’s already fragile relations with Russia. By focusing on any potential delivery system, the United States would de-escalate international concerns over Iran’s uranium enrichment program and increase the likelihood for a diplomatic resolution agreeable to all parties.
While the specifics of any ballistic missile-based negotiation would have to be worked out between the involved parties, a reasonable starting point would be a one-year moratorium on all ballistic missile tests of a given range (for instance, over 500 kilometers), in exchange for which the United States would support and sponsor a regional multilateral Middle Eastern disarmament conference, the goal of which would be a treaty for the elimination of all long-range ballistic missiles in the Middle East. This would be complicated, especially since such a treaty would by necessity need to include Israel. However, given the alternative (continued confrontation with Iran, and the global instability that would result), the difficulties associated with any such disarmament effort are far outweighed by the consequences of doing nothing. Furthermore, a Middle East ballistic missile disarmament effort could serve as the framework around which other regional disarmament efforts could be shaped, including those related to Pakistan and India, and even the United States, Russia and China. It would require the leadership of the United States to pull off any such effort. This should be the kind of leadership challenge an Obama administration should be seeking to embrace.
By minimizing, or eliminating, the problems associated with any potential nuclear weapons delivery system, such as the Shahib-3 missile, the Obama administration could then focus on resolving the standoff over Iran’s uranium enrichment activities. In this, Obama will be able to turn to a new initiative from a close American ally in the Persian Gulf region, the United Arab Emirates, for some “framework” around which new policies might be constructed. I recently attended a NATO conference held in Abu Dhabi, where the UAE government spoke in some detail about its new policy concerning the evaluation and potential development of nuclear energy. Three major items emerged from this policy announcement: first and foremost, the legitimacy of an oil- and natural gas-rich Middle Eastern nation requiring an alternative means of energy production to offset the demands placed on its energy exportation by increasing domestic demands for energy. The UAE decision was driven by economic analysis which showed a cumulative annual growth rate in energy consumption from 2007 through 2020 of some 9 percent, resulting in increased demands for upwards of 40,000 megawatts, which the UAE is not in a position to provide through traditional energy supplies. Iran, of course, made a similar analysis in the mid-1970s when it decided to embark on an ambitious nuclear energy program. Iran’s logic for pursuing nuclear energy has been derided by many who view Tehran’s ambitions as merely a front for a military program. The analysis of the UAE demonstrates the legitimacy of the Iranian nuclear energy need, and should lay to rest any logic-driven analysis that defines Iran’s nuclear ambition as being military in nature simply because Iran is deemed to be a nation “awash in a sea of oil,” to quote past and current Bush administration officials such as Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Vice President Dick Cheney.
The UAE noted that it was committed to the “highest standards of nonproliferation” when it came to pursuing any potential nuclear energy program, renouncing any intention to develop domestic enrichment and reprocessing capability. On the surface, the UAE’s approach seems to stand as a contrast to the position taken by Iran, which has committed to an indigenous mastery of the entire nuclear fuel cycle, inclusive of enrichment and reprocessing. However, the UAE’s commitment to nonproliferation is contingent upon two pillars. The first is the ability of the UAE to source nuclear fuel from “reliable and responsible foreign suppliers.” The UAE has also expressed an interest in creating a regional nuclear fuel bank that would guarantee the program access to nuclear fuel in times of regional and/or global unrest and uncertainty. In reviewing the Iranian program, one finds the same need for a guaranteed source of nuclear fuel as the driving force behind Iran’s efforts to enrich uranium and reprocess spent nuclear fuel. The vagaries of economic embargoes and sanctions make any Iranian nuclear energy program linked to outside sources of supply futile indeed. The continued American insistence on using economic sanctions and threatening economic embargoes as a means to compel Iran to back down from its position on uranium enrichment is illogical and counterproductive given these realities. Instead, the United States should be seeking to combine Iran’s need for reliable sources of economic-sanction resistant nuclear fuel with that of the UAE (and, looking down the road, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and even Iraq), so that a regional nuclear fuel bank would indeed be just that—regional, inclusive of Iran and its Gulf Arab neighbors.
The second pillar of the UAE nonproliferation commitment was more reality-driven: The small size of any future UAE nuclear reactor program makes the expense of an indigenous uranium enrichment program infeasible. As such, the UAE is well positioned to take a high-minded stance when it comes to adhering to “concerns from the international community regarding spent fuel reprocessing and enrichment plants in developing countries, and the dual-use nature of components employed in fuel fabrication and processing.” Simply put, it can’t afford not to. Iran, on the other hand, doesn’t have that luxury. There is no comparison between the scope and scale of the UAE’s nascent nuclear program with that of Iran. Unlike the UAE, the Iranian program is of a size that could justify an indigenous uranium enrichment and spent fuel reprocessing effort, just as the nuclear energy programs of France, Japan and Germany justify their national fuel-cycle programs.
Establishing a policy that accepts the right of Iran to pursue indigenous enrichment of uranium is actually the soundest approach toward getting Iran to back away from the hard-line position it has taken, because when push comes to shove, Iran cannot afford the uranium enrichment program it has embarked on. This, however, is a conclusion that Iran needs to make, free of international pressure. By respecting Iran’s legal right to enrich uranium, the Obama administration would liberate Iran to make reasoned, rational decisions about its economic future, decisions that would take into account the overall economic health of the country, void of the conservative, nationalistic inputs generated in response to outside pressure.
In the end, Iran will probably have three choices to consider: continue its indigenous enrichment program despite the severe economic burden; drop its uranium enrichment program in favor of a secure, reliable international source of nuclear fuel; or seek to integrate its uranium enrichment and spent fuel reprocessing capabilities into a larger regional and global framework, one that not only provides economic relief for the Iranian effort, but also brings with it greater international scrutiny and inspection, adherence to international practices and procedures on the handling and accountability of nuclear material, and viability to any regional nuclear fuel bank that would incorporate the product of Iran’s enrichment programs. The integration of Iran more fully into the Persian Gulf economy is by far the best guarantor of long-term stability in that region. Iran’s nuclear program should be seen as an opportunity in this regard, not an obstacle.
As Iran heads toward a presidential election in the coming year, the United States—and the Obama administration—would achieve better and longer-lasting results by seeking solutions geared toward resolving the legitimate issues at play in the region, rather than creating short-term sound bites here at home. A clean break with the neoconservative policies of the Bush administration is a prerequisite for success, and achieving this requires great imagination and courage. President-elect Barack Obama has demonstrated the potential for both of those qualities. I hope that promise is realized.
Scott Ritter is a former U.N. weapons inspector and military intelligence officer. He is the author of numerous books, including “Target Iran: The Truth About the White House’s Plans for Regime Change.”
Copyright © 2008 Truthdig, L.L.C. All rights reserved.
Iraqi Cabinet Approves Security Pact with US
Published on Sunday, November 16, 2008 by the Associated Press
by Qassim Abdul-Zahra
BAGHDAD (AP) -- Iraq's Cabinet on Sunday approved a security pact with the United States that will allow American forces to stay in Iraq for three years after their U.N. mandate expires at the end of the year.
The decision followed months of difficult negotiations and, pending parliamentary approval, will remove a major point of contention between the two allies. Parliament's deputy speaker, Khalid al-Attiyah, said he expected the 275-member legislature to begin debating the document this week and vote on it by Nov. 24.
The U.S. government agreed last week to an Iraqi request to amend the draft. The amendment removed what al-Attiyah said was ambiguous language that could allow U.S. forces not to adhere to a timeline for their withdrawal from Iraqi cities by the end of June and from the entire country by Jan. 1, 2012.
The Shiite, Kurdish and Sunni parties making up Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's government dominate parliament, so there is a good chance that the legislature will approve the security pact.
The final draft of the agreement is designed to meet Iraqi concerns over its sovereignty and its security needs as it continues to grapple with a diminished but persistent insurgency.
It provides for the departure of U.S. forces from Iraq by the end of 2011 and gives Iraq the right to try U.S. soldiers and defense contractors in the case of serious crimes committed off-duty and off-base. It also prohibits the U.S. from using Iraqi territory to attack Iraq's neighbors, like Syria and Iran.
Government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said all but one of the 28 Cabinet ministers who attended Sunday's meeting, in addition to al-Maliki, voted for the pact in a show of hands.
"The government wanted to make sure that the draft of the agreement safeguards the interests of Iraq and its people, with clear and complete timetables," Iraqi government spokesman al-Dabbagh said after the Cabinet's session. "It is not the ideal solution for the Iraqi side or the American side, but conditions on the ground dictated it."
The Cabinet has 37 members and it was not immediately clear why some ministers stayed away. Several of them were believed to be traveling abroad.
"This is an important and positive step," said U.S. Embassy spokesman Adam Ereli.
Violence continues to plague parts of Iraq despite a dramatic improvement in security over the past year, and the attacks underscore the notion that Iraq's nascent security forces still need U.S. backing.
Hours after the Cabinet approved the security pact, seven people died and seven others were wounded in a suicide car bombing at a police checkpoint in Diyala province, northeast of Baghdad, according to police Col. Ahmed Khalifa, chief of Jalula police station. The dead included one police officer.
The U.S. military said the attack in Jalula occurred at a police station and that four police and six civilians died. There was no immediate explanation for the discrepancy, nor any indication that the attack was linked to the Cabinet vote.
And earlier Sunday, a roadside bomb in a Sunni enclave of Baghdad killed three people and wounded seven at a checkpoint belonging to U.S.-backed fighters, according to police and hospital officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to speak to the media.
Two of those killed were members of the local Awakening Council, or Sahwa, one of several names used to refer to the Sunni insurgents and tribesmen who revolted against al-Qaida in Iraq. Sahwa fighters have been targeted by al-Qaida militants since they changed sides in late 2006, with scores of their leaders assassinated and their checkpoints and headquarters bombed.
Proponents of the security pact with the Americans, including al-Maliki's interior and defense ministers, say a continued U.S. military presence is needed until Iraq's security forces can take charge of security in the war-devastated nation.
Parliament is due to go into recess at the end of the month or in early December because of the Muslim Eid al-Adha holiday, when scores of lawmakers travel to Saudi Arabia to perform the annual pilgrimage. Speaker Mahmoud al-Mashhadani canceled all leave for lawmakers and suspended foreign and out-of-town visits to ensure that the house secures a quorum for the security pact vote, al-Attiyah told a news conference.
"I'm optimistic that this agreement will be passed through the Council of Representatives (parliament)," spokesman al-Dabbagh told AP Television News. But he added: "You cannot guarantee 100 percent approval of anything."
Neighboring Iran has bitterly opposed the pact on grounds that it enshrines the U.S. military presence in Iraq and threatens its security and regional influence.
However, Iranian state television took a more nuanced position in a commentary Sunday after it became clear that emboldened Iraqi leaders were going their own way on the pact.
"This is a victory for the al-Maliki government, which was able to apply its own viewpoints," it said in a possible reference to American concessions.
Shiite Iran maintains close relations with many of Iraq's Shiite parties, whose ministers voted in favor of the pact Sunday in what may be a signal that they are willing to balance their ties with the Americans and their longtime supporters in Tehran.
Followers of Shiite leader Muqtada al-Sadr protested Sunday's vote.
"This agreement hands Iraq over (to the United States) on a golden platter and for an indefinite period," said Ahmed al-Massoudi, spokesman for the 30-seat Sadrist bloc in parliament.
Al-Sadr, whose militiamen fought U.S. forces in three uprisings since 2003, has threatened to resume attacks on U.S. forces if they don't immediately begin to withdraw from Iraq.
© 2008 The Associated Press
by Qassim Abdul-Zahra
BAGHDAD (AP) -- Iraq's Cabinet on Sunday approved a security pact with the United States that will allow American forces to stay in Iraq for three years after their U.N. mandate expires at the end of the year.
The decision followed months of difficult negotiations and, pending parliamentary approval, will remove a major point of contention between the two allies. Parliament's deputy speaker, Khalid al-Attiyah, said he expected the 275-member legislature to begin debating the document this week and vote on it by Nov. 24.
The U.S. government agreed last week to an Iraqi request to amend the draft. The amendment removed what al-Attiyah said was ambiguous language that could allow U.S. forces not to adhere to a timeline for their withdrawal from Iraqi cities by the end of June and from the entire country by Jan. 1, 2012.
The Shiite, Kurdish and Sunni parties making up Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's government dominate parliament, so there is a good chance that the legislature will approve the security pact.
The final draft of the agreement is designed to meet Iraqi concerns over its sovereignty and its security needs as it continues to grapple with a diminished but persistent insurgency.
It provides for the departure of U.S. forces from Iraq by the end of 2011 and gives Iraq the right to try U.S. soldiers and defense contractors in the case of serious crimes committed off-duty and off-base. It also prohibits the U.S. from using Iraqi territory to attack Iraq's neighbors, like Syria and Iran.
Government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said all but one of the 28 Cabinet ministers who attended Sunday's meeting, in addition to al-Maliki, voted for the pact in a show of hands.
"The government wanted to make sure that the draft of the agreement safeguards the interests of Iraq and its people, with clear and complete timetables," Iraqi government spokesman al-Dabbagh said after the Cabinet's session. "It is not the ideal solution for the Iraqi side or the American side, but conditions on the ground dictated it."
The Cabinet has 37 members and it was not immediately clear why some ministers stayed away. Several of them were believed to be traveling abroad.
"This is an important and positive step," said U.S. Embassy spokesman Adam Ereli.
Violence continues to plague parts of Iraq despite a dramatic improvement in security over the past year, and the attacks underscore the notion that Iraq's nascent security forces still need U.S. backing.
Hours after the Cabinet approved the security pact, seven people died and seven others were wounded in a suicide car bombing at a police checkpoint in Diyala province, northeast of Baghdad, according to police Col. Ahmed Khalifa, chief of Jalula police station. The dead included one police officer.
The U.S. military said the attack in Jalula occurred at a police station and that four police and six civilians died. There was no immediate explanation for the discrepancy, nor any indication that the attack was linked to the Cabinet vote.
And earlier Sunday, a roadside bomb in a Sunni enclave of Baghdad killed three people and wounded seven at a checkpoint belonging to U.S.-backed fighters, according to police and hospital officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to speak to the media.
Two of those killed were members of the local Awakening Council, or Sahwa, one of several names used to refer to the Sunni insurgents and tribesmen who revolted against al-Qaida in Iraq. Sahwa fighters have been targeted by al-Qaida militants since they changed sides in late 2006, with scores of their leaders assassinated and their checkpoints and headquarters bombed.
Proponents of the security pact with the Americans, including al-Maliki's interior and defense ministers, say a continued U.S. military presence is needed until Iraq's security forces can take charge of security in the war-devastated nation.
Parliament is due to go into recess at the end of the month or in early December because of the Muslim Eid al-Adha holiday, when scores of lawmakers travel to Saudi Arabia to perform the annual pilgrimage. Speaker Mahmoud al-Mashhadani canceled all leave for lawmakers and suspended foreign and out-of-town visits to ensure that the house secures a quorum for the security pact vote, al-Attiyah told a news conference.
"I'm optimistic that this agreement will be passed through the Council of Representatives (parliament)," spokesman al-Dabbagh told AP Television News. But he added: "You cannot guarantee 100 percent approval of anything."
Neighboring Iran has bitterly opposed the pact on grounds that it enshrines the U.S. military presence in Iraq and threatens its security and regional influence.
However, Iranian state television took a more nuanced position in a commentary Sunday after it became clear that emboldened Iraqi leaders were going their own way on the pact.
"This is a victory for the al-Maliki government, which was able to apply its own viewpoints," it said in a possible reference to American concessions.
Shiite Iran maintains close relations with many of Iraq's Shiite parties, whose ministers voted in favor of the pact Sunday in what may be a signal that they are willing to balance their ties with the Americans and their longtime supporters in Tehran.
Followers of Shiite leader Muqtada al-Sadr protested Sunday's vote.
"This agreement hands Iraq over (to the United States) on a golden platter and for an indefinite period," said Ahmed al-Massoudi, spokesman for the 30-seat Sadrist bloc in parliament.
Al-Sadr, whose militiamen fought U.S. forces in three uprisings since 2003, has threatened to resume attacks on U.S. forces if they don't immediately begin to withdraw from Iraq.
© 2008 The Associated Press
Documenting the Surge: US Soldier's Films Expose the Realities of the Iraq Occupation
by Jennifer Fenton
"We have an entire generation of people in their twenties and thirties who have never gone through a war...the media and government have gotten so good at the creation of messages, people don't know the reality" - Casey J. Porter
Army Sergeant Casey J. Porter has many battles to fight, and unlike the dramatizations of politicians and media commentators, his battles are concrete, real, and hard fought. During his time as an enlisted soldier deployed in Iraq, Casey has undergone an evolutionary process, one that has taken him from warrior to peace activist. His talent and passion for filmmaking have given him the perfect medium for his personal expression. Utilizing his current circumstances and natural talent as a filmmaker to speak out against the war, Casey's films have turned the heads of people like Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! and filmmaker Michael Moore.
I was fortunate enough to spend some time with Casey recently. Phoning from Iraq, his soft-spoken voice was not quite what I expected - his intellect, courage, and tenacity are apparent, even from three thousand miles away.
"Most Americans are not affected on a daily basis by this war; it is not personal for them...I can tell you for example, that what is happening in Iraq is always in the daily thoughts of my mother."
After serving one tour of duty in Iraq, and completing his voluntary commitment to the military, Casey found himself entangled in the controversial military policy, "stop-loss." The "Backdoor Draft" as some have called it, is the means by which the United States Military may extend the terms of service of a United States soldier to retain them longer than the period for which they volunteered. Critics of "stop-loss" say the policy hurts troop moral and unnecessarily places the burden of war on relatively few families, shielding the majority of Americans from any real sacrifice during wartime.
Shortly before his second deployment to Iraq, Casey became a member of Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW) and helped found its Fort Hood chapter. For Casey, the decision to join the anti-war group was natural. As he experienced the plight of the Iraqi people and the injury and loss of friends who served, his opposition and activism grew into an all out personal mission. Casey has taken his misfortune as a "stop-loss" soldier and turned it into an opportunity to make a difference in how the occupation of Iraq is perceived by Americans. Unwittingly, he is humble about his activism. While discussing his films, Casey says, "most importantly, this is not about me at all, but the soldiers around me and those who continue to deploy year after year. This has been, and will always be about them."
To watch his films, What War Looks Like and Deconstructed (see below), one cannot help but feel an intimate connection to the reality in Iraq. Images of dead bodies, blown-out Humvees, and services for soldiers who have lost their lives challenge the myths, sound bites, talking points, and infotainment created by politicians and media pundits. "The photos you see of soldiers' services in What War Looks Like were taken by me," Casey explains. "Standing there and watching fellow soldiers experience such loss changes you. Watching Iraqi children dig through landfills for food changes you. Seeing the senselessness of it all compels me to speak out...I know that I am not the only soldier who feels this way about the continued occupation of Iraq. Whether they're soldiers who have been stop-lossed or this is their first time over here - they are seeing the truth for themselves."
Casey cites the stark contrast between his daily experiences in Iraq and what is reported in US media as an important reason for taking action. By keeping the truth from the American people, he says they are unable to make sound decisions about the continued occupation of Iraq. Crucial details are kept from view - details that dramatically influence the daily lives of thousands of Americans and their families. The hardship of these families, which goes largely unrecognized except for the splattering of yellow ribbon magnets on cars, is the main reason Casey finds himself motivated to act. "I could not live with myself if I kept my head down and went into another deployment without taking any action...the hardest stand to take is from within," he says.
After the creation of What War Looks Like and the subsequent Internet stir it caused, Casey realized the potential he had to make a difference with what he calls "guerrilla-style filmmaking." Casey's vision for telling the truth and reaching large audiences is slowly gaining momentum on YouTube; his short films continue to garner support from thousands of activists, fellow soldiers, and concerned Americans.
Before we hung up, I asked Casey to comment on the recent lull in the violence in Iraq, which has been credited to "the surge" of forces injected by the Bush Administration in 2007. Casey points to the stifling heat, the re-organization of resistance fighters and the continued construction of walls throughout Iraq's cities. The effects of walls and checkpoints, he notes, rarely make it into US media headlines or political talking points. But one recent report by AP writer Hamza Hendawi supports Casey's assertion: similar to the walls and checkpoints constructed by Israel throughout the West Bank, Baghdad's walls lead to gridlock, rising prices for food and homes, and complaints about living in what feels like a prison.
Casey points out that the construction of these walls brutalizes an already brutalized population. "The look on the faces of the Iraqi people shows just how angry and worn out they feel...and I apologize every chance I get." As long as these walls and checkpoints remain, Casey says Iraqis have no real hope of rebuilding a strong stable economy. This is hardly the free and democratic society promised by the Bush administration.
The continued contradiction between the reality of the war and deliberately inaccurate rhetoric has compelled this soldier to turn his personal misfortune into a source of hope. Casey believes a populace armed with knowledge will act to end the unjustified occupation of Iraq. It is here that Casey has placed his hope for a safe return and an end to this war. And it is in Casey that many have placed their hope for humanity.
Copyright © 2008 The Women’s International Perspective
Jennifer Fenton lives with her family in Pacific Grove, California. She has a Master's Degree in Counseling Psychology and works with gang entrenched youth, addressing social and individual issues that lead to gang violence. Jennifer writes about politics with an emphasis on how national and international political decisions influence people's daily lives.
"We have an entire generation of people in their twenties and thirties who have never gone through a war...the media and government have gotten so good at the creation of messages, people don't know the reality" - Casey J. Porter
Army Sergeant Casey J. Porter has many battles to fight, and unlike the dramatizations of politicians and media commentators, his battles are concrete, real, and hard fought. During his time as an enlisted soldier deployed in Iraq, Casey has undergone an evolutionary process, one that has taken him from warrior to peace activist. His talent and passion for filmmaking have given him the perfect medium for his personal expression. Utilizing his current circumstances and natural talent as a filmmaker to speak out against the war, Casey's films have turned the heads of people like Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! and filmmaker Michael Moore.
I was fortunate enough to spend some time with Casey recently. Phoning from Iraq, his soft-spoken voice was not quite what I expected - his intellect, courage, and tenacity are apparent, even from three thousand miles away.
"Most Americans are not affected on a daily basis by this war; it is not personal for them...I can tell you for example, that what is happening in Iraq is always in the daily thoughts of my mother."
After serving one tour of duty in Iraq, and completing his voluntary commitment to the military, Casey found himself entangled in the controversial military policy, "stop-loss." The "Backdoor Draft" as some have called it, is the means by which the United States Military may extend the terms of service of a United States soldier to retain them longer than the period for which they volunteered. Critics of "stop-loss" say the policy hurts troop moral and unnecessarily places the burden of war on relatively few families, shielding the majority of Americans from any real sacrifice during wartime.
Shortly before his second deployment to Iraq, Casey became a member of Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW) and helped found its Fort Hood chapter. For Casey, the decision to join the anti-war group was natural. As he experienced the plight of the Iraqi people and the injury and loss of friends who served, his opposition and activism grew into an all out personal mission. Casey has taken his misfortune as a "stop-loss" soldier and turned it into an opportunity to make a difference in how the occupation of Iraq is perceived by Americans. Unwittingly, he is humble about his activism. While discussing his films, Casey says, "most importantly, this is not about me at all, but the soldiers around me and those who continue to deploy year after year. This has been, and will always be about them."
To watch his films, What War Looks Like and Deconstructed (see below), one cannot help but feel an intimate connection to the reality in Iraq. Images of dead bodies, blown-out Humvees, and services for soldiers who have lost their lives challenge the myths, sound bites, talking points, and infotainment created by politicians and media pundits. "The photos you see of soldiers' services in What War Looks Like were taken by me," Casey explains. "Standing there and watching fellow soldiers experience such loss changes you. Watching Iraqi children dig through landfills for food changes you. Seeing the senselessness of it all compels me to speak out...I know that I am not the only soldier who feels this way about the continued occupation of Iraq. Whether they're soldiers who have been stop-lossed or this is their first time over here - they are seeing the truth for themselves."
Casey cites the stark contrast between his daily experiences in Iraq and what is reported in US media as an important reason for taking action. By keeping the truth from the American people, he says they are unable to make sound decisions about the continued occupation of Iraq. Crucial details are kept from view - details that dramatically influence the daily lives of thousands of Americans and their families. The hardship of these families, which goes largely unrecognized except for the splattering of yellow ribbon magnets on cars, is the main reason Casey finds himself motivated to act. "I could not live with myself if I kept my head down and went into another deployment without taking any action...the hardest stand to take is from within," he says.
After the creation of What War Looks Like and the subsequent Internet stir it caused, Casey realized the potential he had to make a difference with what he calls "guerrilla-style filmmaking." Casey's vision for telling the truth and reaching large audiences is slowly gaining momentum on YouTube; his short films continue to garner support from thousands of activists, fellow soldiers, and concerned Americans.
Before we hung up, I asked Casey to comment on the recent lull in the violence in Iraq, which has been credited to "the surge" of forces injected by the Bush Administration in 2007. Casey points to the stifling heat, the re-organization of resistance fighters and the continued construction of walls throughout Iraq's cities. The effects of walls and checkpoints, he notes, rarely make it into US media headlines or political talking points. But one recent report by AP writer Hamza Hendawi supports Casey's assertion: similar to the walls and checkpoints constructed by Israel throughout the West Bank, Baghdad's walls lead to gridlock, rising prices for food and homes, and complaints about living in what feels like a prison.
Casey points out that the construction of these walls brutalizes an already brutalized population. "The look on the faces of the Iraqi people shows just how angry and worn out they feel...and I apologize every chance I get." As long as these walls and checkpoints remain, Casey says Iraqis have no real hope of rebuilding a strong stable economy. This is hardly the free and democratic society promised by the Bush administration.
The continued contradiction between the reality of the war and deliberately inaccurate rhetoric has compelled this soldier to turn his personal misfortune into a source of hope. Casey believes a populace armed with knowledge will act to end the unjustified occupation of Iraq. It is here that Casey has placed his hope for a safe return and an end to this war. And it is in Casey that many have placed their hope for humanity.
Copyright © 2008 The Women’s International Perspective
Jennifer Fenton lives with her family in Pacific Grove, California. She has a Master's Degree in Counseling Psychology and works with gang entrenched youth, addressing social and individual issues that lead to gang violence. Jennifer writes about politics with an emphasis on how national and international political decisions influence people's daily lives.
Not much between the ears
by Ross Nelson
Well, nobody can say that we didn’t have a good choice of candidates for president this time around. Starting with the primaries and caucuses, there was someone for nearly everyone. The GOP and the Democrats had Ron Paul and Mike Gravel to discomfit the mainstream hacks and warmongers. The presidential election itself included third-party candidates Chuck Baldwin, Bob Barr and Ralph Nader of the Constitution, Libertarian and Independent parties, respectively. Yet America settled on a race between John McCain, a moderately liberal hack and now nearly universally disclaimed by Republicans as “not really our man,” and Barack Obama, a hard-left unknown.
We shouldn’t be too surprised that an electorate that insisted on re-electing Bill Clinton, already famed for being a dishonest creep with confidential FBI files floating around his living room, and George W. Bush, notorious for killing thousands of Iraqi citizens while strutting about and using English like a third language, would narrow the presidential choices to an all-out warmonger and a Chicago machine pol.
But what was going on between conservatives’ ears? Apparently not enough to figure anything out. It was to laugh to read a letter to The Forum describing John McCain as conservative. Even the purported conservative talking heads ran him down and still are. Only when Obama shaped up as his opponent did they finally close ranks.
Compare McCain to Obama. Both favor a tax cut of some kind. Both want to expand the military, confront Iran and meddle in Russia’s backyard. The two differ on the Iraq war, with McCain in true form bellowing for it. Obama says he doesn’t dislike wars, only dumb ones, and to his credit the Iraq war qualifies. But wars and interventions that are “humanitarian” and for spreading democracy appear to be fine with him. We will see.
Both candidates truckled to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, pledging allegiance to a country whose interests are not always synonymous with ours. Of course, no Republican or Democrat nominee for president would vote against the taxpayer bailout of millionaires and their billionaire companies. McCain favors open borders and is one with Obama on the Patriot Act, FISA revisions, the so-called Protect America Act, and in general liberty-smashing executive acts everywhere. Granted, McCain differs with Obama on several important social issues. But even on the big one, abortion, McCain has been wishy-washy.
Ignorance is a big problem with modern conservatives. Not having the barest idea of what conservatism is about or its history, they are easily manipulated to support whatever Republican runs against the Democrat. Dangle a Democrat in front of them, and they’ll witlessly support any Republican policy, no matter how liberal it may be.
One radio talk show caller recently expressed his impatience with talk about George Bush. How quintessentially American, no matter what the political persuasion. Even though Bush still had two and a half months left in his presidency, he’s history. Move along, folks, nothing to learn here, keep moving. No wonder we persist in the same errors – with our
10-minute memories and “aggressive ignorance” (Bill Kauffman’s utterly appropriate phrase) we refuse to learn anything from what has gone before us.
It is here that conservatives have failed themselves and their country. They should have been the repository of experience and good sense, the people least swayed by the passions and passing arguments of the moment. Instead, they gave their devotion to the false gods of talk radio and were led to abase themselves before Republicans. The old demons of deficit spending, false war, military boot-licking, and president-worship have become conservatism’s new icons. As they sowed, so did they reap.
Nelson is a Fargo postal worker and regular contributor to The Forum’s commentary pages. He can be reached at r.cnelson@702com.net
Well, nobody can say that we didn’t have a good choice of candidates for president this time around. Starting with the primaries and caucuses, there was someone for nearly everyone. The GOP and the Democrats had Ron Paul and Mike Gravel to discomfit the mainstream hacks and warmongers. The presidential election itself included third-party candidates Chuck Baldwin, Bob Barr and Ralph Nader of the Constitution, Libertarian and Independent parties, respectively. Yet America settled on a race between John McCain, a moderately liberal hack and now nearly universally disclaimed by Republicans as “not really our man,” and Barack Obama, a hard-left unknown.
We shouldn’t be too surprised that an electorate that insisted on re-electing Bill Clinton, already famed for being a dishonest creep with confidential FBI files floating around his living room, and George W. Bush, notorious for killing thousands of Iraqi citizens while strutting about and using English like a third language, would narrow the presidential choices to an all-out warmonger and a Chicago machine pol.
But what was going on between conservatives’ ears? Apparently not enough to figure anything out. It was to laugh to read a letter to The Forum describing John McCain as conservative. Even the purported conservative talking heads ran him down and still are. Only when Obama shaped up as his opponent did they finally close ranks.
Compare McCain to Obama. Both favor a tax cut of some kind. Both want to expand the military, confront Iran and meddle in Russia’s backyard. The two differ on the Iraq war, with McCain in true form bellowing for it. Obama says he doesn’t dislike wars, only dumb ones, and to his credit the Iraq war qualifies. But wars and interventions that are “humanitarian” and for spreading democracy appear to be fine with him. We will see.
Both candidates truckled to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, pledging allegiance to a country whose interests are not always synonymous with ours. Of course, no Republican or Democrat nominee for president would vote against the taxpayer bailout of millionaires and their billionaire companies. McCain favors open borders and is one with Obama on the Patriot Act, FISA revisions, the so-called Protect America Act, and in general liberty-smashing executive acts everywhere. Granted, McCain differs with Obama on several important social issues. But even on the big one, abortion, McCain has been wishy-washy.
Ignorance is a big problem with modern conservatives. Not having the barest idea of what conservatism is about or its history, they are easily manipulated to support whatever Republican runs against the Democrat. Dangle a Democrat in front of them, and they’ll witlessly support any Republican policy, no matter how liberal it may be.
One radio talk show caller recently expressed his impatience with talk about George Bush. How quintessentially American, no matter what the political persuasion. Even though Bush still had two and a half months left in his presidency, he’s history. Move along, folks, nothing to learn here, keep moving. No wonder we persist in the same errors – with our
10-minute memories and “aggressive ignorance” (Bill Kauffman’s utterly appropriate phrase) we refuse to learn anything from what has gone before us.
It is here that conservatives have failed themselves and their country. They should have been the repository of experience and good sense, the people least swayed by the passions and passing arguments of the moment. Instead, they gave their devotion to the false gods of talk radio and were led to abase themselves before Republicans. The old demons of deficit spending, false war, military boot-licking, and president-worship have become conservatism’s new icons. As they sowed, so did they reap.
Nelson is a Fargo postal worker and regular contributor to The Forum’s commentary pages. He can be reached at r.cnelson@702com.net
Saturday, November 15, 2008
Obama Has to Pay for Eight Years of Bush's Delusions
He will have to get out of Iraq, and he will have to tell Israel a few home truths
by Robert Fisk
American lawyers defending six Algerians before a habeas corpus hearing in Washington this week learned some very odd things about US intelligence after 9/11. From among the millions of "raw" reports from American spies and their "assets" around the world came a CIA Middle East warning about a possible kamikaze-style air attack on a US navy base at a south Pacific island location. The only problem was that no such navy base existed on the island and no US Seventh Fleet warship had ever been there. In all seriousness, a US military investigation earlier reported that Osama bin Laden had been spotted shopping at a post office on a US military base in east Asia.
That this nonsense was disseminated around the world by those tasked to defend the United States in the "war on terror" shows the fantasy environment in which the Bush regime has existed these past eight years. If you can believe that bin Laden drops by a shopping mall on an American military base, then you can believe that everyone you arrest is a "terrorist", that Arabs are "terrorists", that they can be executed, that living "terrorists" must be tortured, that everything a tortured man says can be believed, that it is legitimate to invade sovereign states, to grab the telephone records of everyone in America. As Bob Herbert put it in The New York Times a couple of years ago, the Bush administration wanted these records "which contain crucial documentation of calls for a Chinese takeout in Terre Haute, Indiana, and birthday greetings to Grandma in Talladega, Alabama, to help in the search for Osama bin Laden". There was no stopping Bush when it came to trampling on the US Constitution. All that was new was that he was now applying the same disrespect for liberty in America that he had shown in the rest of the world.
But how is Barack Obama going to repair the titanic damage which his vicious, lying predecessor has perpetrated around the globe and within the US itself? John F Kennedy once said that "the United States, as the world knows, will never start a war". After Bush's fear-mongering and Rumsfeld's "shock and awe" and Abu Ghraib and Bagram and Guantanamo and secret renditions, how does Obama pedal his country all the way back to Camelot? Our own dear Gordon Brown's enthusiasm to Hoover up the emails of the British people is another example of how Lord Blair's sick relationship with Bush still infects our own body politic. Only days before the wretched president finally departs from us, new US legislation will ensure that citizens of his lickspittle British ally will no longer be able to visit America without special security clearance. Does Bush have any more surprises for us before 20 January? Indeed, could anything surprise us any more?
Obama has got to close Guantanamo. He's got to find a way of apologising to the world for the crimes of his predecessor, not an easy task for a man who must show pride in his country; but saying sorry is what – internationally – he will have to do if the "change" he has been promoting at home is to have any meaning outside America's borders. He will have to re-think – and deconstruct – the whole "war on terror". He will have to get out of Iraq. He will have to call a halt to America's massive airbases in Iraq, its $600m embassy. He will have to end the blood-caked air strikes we are perpetrating in southern Afghanistan – why, oh, why do we keep slaughtering wedding parties? – and he will have to tell Israel a few home truths: that America can no longer remain uncritical in the face of Israeli army brutality and the colonisation for Jews and Jews only on Arab land. Obama will have to stand up at last to the Israeli lobby (it is, in fact, an Israeli Likud party lobby) and withdraw Bush's 2004 acceptance of Israel's claim to a significant portion of the West Bank. US officials will have to talk to Iranian officials – and Hamas officials, for that matter. Obama will have to end US strikes into Pakistan – and Syria.
Indeed, there's a growing concern among America's allies in the Middle East that the US military has to be brought back under control – indeed, that the real reason for General David Petraeus' original appointment in Iraq was less to organise the "surge" than it was to bring discipline back to the 150,000 soldiers and marines whose mission – and morals – had become so warped by Bush's policies. There is some evidence, for example, that the four-helicopter strike into Syria last month, which killed eight people, was – if not a rogue operation – certainly not sanctioned byWashington or indeed by US commanders in Baghdad.
But Obama's not going to be able to make the break. He wants to draw down in Iraq in order to concentrate more firepower in Afghanistan. He's not going to take on the lobby in Washington and he's not going to stop further Jewish colonisation of the occupied territories or talk to Israel's enemies. With AIPAC supporter Rahm Emanuel as his new chief of staff – "our man in the White House", as the Israeli daily Maariv called him this week – Obama will toe the line. And of course, there's the terrible thought that bin Laden – when he's not shopping at US military post offices – may be planning another atrocity to welcome the Obama presidency.
There is just one little problem, though, and that's the "missing" prisoners. Not the victimswho have been (still are being?) tortured in Guantanamo, but the thousands who have simply disappeared into US custody abroad or – with American help – into the prisons of US allies. Some reports speak of 20,000 missing men, most of them Arabs, all of them Muslims. Where are they? Can they be freed now? Or are they dead? If Obama finds that he is inheriting mass graves from George W Bush, there will be a lot of apologising to do.
Published on Friday, November 14, 2008 by The Independent/UK
by Robert Fisk
American lawyers defending six Algerians before a habeas corpus hearing in Washington this week learned some very odd things about US intelligence after 9/11. From among the millions of "raw" reports from American spies and their "assets" around the world came a CIA Middle East warning about a possible kamikaze-style air attack on a US navy base at a south Pacific island location. The only problem was that no such navy base existed on the island and no US Seventh Fleet warship had ever been there. In all seriousness, a US military investigation earlier reported that Osama bin Laden had been spotted shopping at a post office on a US military base in east Asia.
That this nonsense was disseminated around the world by those tasked to defend the United States in the "war on terror" shows the fantasy environment in which the Bush regime has existed these past eight years. If you can believe that bin Laden drops by a shopping mall on an American military base, then you can believe that everyone you arrest is a "terrorist", that Arabs are "terrorists", that they can be executed, that living "terrorists" must be tortured, that everything a tortured man says can be believed, that it is legitimate to invade sovereign states, to grab the telephone records of everyone in America. As Bob Herbert put it in The New York Times a couple of years ago, the Bush administration wanted these records "which contain crucial documentation of calls for a Chinese takeout in Terre Haute, Indiana, and birthday greetings to Grandma in Talladega, Alabama, to help in the search for Osama bin Laden". There was no stopping Bush when it came to trampling on the US Constitution. All that was new was that he was now applying the same disrespect for liberty in America that he had shown in the rest of the world.
But how is Barack Obama going to repair the titanic damage which his vicious, lying predecessor has perpetrated around the globe and within the US itself? John F Kennedy once said that "the United States, as the world knows, will never start a war". After Bush's fear-mongering and Rumsfeld's "shock and awe" and Abu Ghraib and Bagram and Guantanamo and secret renditions, how does Obama pedal his country all the way back to Camelot? Our own dear Gordon Brown's enthusiasm to Hoover up the emails of the British people is another example of how Lord Blair's sick relationship with Bush still infects our own body politic. Only days before the wretched president finally departs from us, new US legislation will ensure that citizens of his lickspittle British ally will no longer be able to visit America without special security clearance. Does Bush have any more surprises for us before 20 January? Indeed, could anything surprise us any more?
Obama has got to close Guantanamo. He's got to find a way of apologising to the world for the crimes of his predecessor, not an easy task for a man who must show pride in his country; but saying sorry is what – internationally – he will have to do if the "change" he has been promoting at home is to have any meaning outside America's borders. He will have to re-think – and deconstruct – the whole "war on terror". He will have to get out of Iraq. He will have to call a halt to America's massive airbases in Iraq, its $600m embassy. He will have to end the blood-caked air strikes we are perpetrating in southern Afghanistan – why, oh, why do we keep slaughtering wedding parties? – and he will have to tell Israel a few home truths: that America can no longer remain uncritical in the face of Israeli army brutality and the colonisation for Jews and Jews only on Arab land. Obama will have to stand up at last to the Israeli lobby (it is, in fact, an Israeli Likud party lobby) and withdraw Bush's 2004 acceptance of Israel's claim to a significant portion of the West Bank. US officials will have to talk to Iranian officials – and Hamas officials, for that matter. Obama will have to end US strikes into Pakistan – and Syria.
Indeed, there's a growing concern among America's allies in the Middle East that the US military has to be brought back under control – indeed, that the real reason for General David Petraeus' original appointment in Iraq was less to organise the "surge" than it was to bring discipline back to the 150,000 soldiers and marines whose mission – and morals – had become so warped by Bush's policies. There is some evidence, for example, that the four-helicopter strike into Syria last month, which killed eight people, was – if not a rogue operation – certainly not sanctioned byWashington or indeed by US commanders in Baghdad.
But Obama's not going to be able to make the break. He wants to draw down in Iraq in order to concentrate more firepower in Afghanistan. He's not going to take on the lobby in Washington and he's not going to stop further Jewish colonisation of the occupied territories or talk to Israel's enemies. With AIPAC supporter Rahm Emanuel as his new chief of staff – "our man in the White House", as the Israeli daily Maariv called him this week – Obama will toe the line. And of course, there's the terrible thought that bin Laden – when he's not shopping at US military post offices – may be planning another atrocity to welcome the Obama presidency.
There is just one little problem, though, and that's the "missing" prisoners. Not the victimswho have been (still are being?) tortured in Guantanamo, but the thousands who have simply disappeared into US custody abroad or – with American help – into the prisons of US allies. Some reports speak of 20,000 missing men, most of them Arabs, all of them Muslims. Where are they? Can they be freed now? Or are they dead? If Obama finds that he is inheriting mass graves from George W Bush, there will be a lot of apologising to do.
Published on Friday, November 14, 2008 by The Independent/UK
Friday, November 14, 2008
A New Political Party Is Needed
By Joel S. Hirschhorn
Set aside any Obama euphoria you feel. The other important news is that third-party presidential candidates had a miserable showing this year, totaling just over one percent of the grand total with 1.5 million votes nationwide, compared to some 123 million votes for Barack Obama and John McCain.
It couldn’t be clearer that Americans are not willing to voice their political discontent by voting for third-party presidential candidates. The two-party duopoly and plutocracy is completely dominant. The US lacks the political competition that exists in other western democracies. Without real political competition there is nsufficient political choice.
A key problem is that for many years, third parties have not offered presidential candidates that capture the attention and commitment of even a modest fraction of Americans, unlike Ross Perot (8.4 percent in 1996 and 18.9 percent in 1992), and John Anderson (6.6 percent in 1980).
This year, among the four most significant third-party presidential candidates, Ralph Nader without a national party did the best with 685,426 votes or 0.54 percent of the grand total (a little better than in 2004 with 0.4 percent but much worse than in 2000 running as a Green Party candidate with 2.7 percent). He was followed by Bob Barr the Libertarian Party candidate with 503,981 votes or 0.4 percent of the total (typical of all Libertarian candidates in recent elections, including Ron Paul in 1988), followed by Chuck Baldwin of the Constitution Party with just 181,266 votes or 0.1 percent, and then Cynthia McKinney of the Green Party with only 148,546 votes or 0.1 percent.
Showing the problem of ballot access, engineered by the two major parties, is that there were only 15 states where all four were on the ballot. In all but one, Nader received more votes than the other three third-party candidates. In four states only one of the four candidates was on the ballot; in one state none of them were (Oklahoma).
Nader’s best state was California with 81,434 votes, as it was for McKinney’s with 28,624 votes. Baldwin was not on the ballot there. Alan Keyes received 30,787 votes in California. Barr’s best state was Texas with 56,398 votes. None of the other three were on the ballot there. In his home state of Georgia where he had been a Representative Barr received 28,420 votes (and none of the other three were on the ballot). Baldwin’s best state was Michigan with 14, 973 votes. Nader was not on the ballot there.
In round numbers, Barack Obama raised $639 million or about $10 per vote, and John McCain raised $360 million or $6 per vote, compared to Ralph Nader with $4 million and $6 per vote, Bob Barr with about $1 million or $2 per vote, and Cynthia McKinney with only about $118,000 or less than $1 per vote. Money matters, but the ability of the two-party duopoly to keep third-party presidential candidates out of nationally televised debates matters more for media attention, money and votes.
It must also be noted that there were countless congressional races with third-party and independent candidates, but none were able to win office, with only a very few reaching the 20 percent level. That third-party candidates can win local government offices means little because political party affiliation at that level is overshadowed by personal qualifications.
I say that current third-party activists should admit defeat, shut down their unsuccessful parties, and move on. Unlike so much of American history, current third-parties no longer play a significant role in American politics or even in affecting public policies. They have shown their inability to matter.
We need a new, vibrant political party that could bring many millions of American dissidents, progressives and conservatives, and especially chronic non-voters, together behind a relatively simple party platform focused on structural, government system reforms (not merely political change). Examples include: replacing the Electoral College with the popular vote for president, restoring the balance between Congress and the presidency, eliminating the corrupting influence of special interest money from politics, preventing the president to use signing statements to nullify laws passed by Congress.
What would unite people is a shared priority for revitalizing American democracy. It should position itself as a populist alternative and opponent to the two-party plutocracy. It should define itself as against the corporate and other special interests on the left and right that use money to corrupt our political system. Possible names: Patriotic Party, United Party or National Party. With Thomas Jefferson as its spiritual founder it should seek the political revolution he said was needed periodically.
Here is what helps. Despite considerable enthusiasm for Barack Obama, there is widespread unhappiness with both the Democratic and Republican Parties. One indication is that so voters register as independents. Plus there has always been a chorus of negative views about the two-party system. In one pragmatic sense this is the ideal time to create a new party. Why? Because of the incredible loss of stature of the Republican Party. Why not envision a new party that could replace the Republican Party on the national stage and provide a sharp alternative to the Democratic Party? In other words, we don’t need a new third party as much as we need a new major party.
Joel S. Hirschhorn can be reached through www.delusionaldemocracy.com.
Set aside any Obama euphoria you feel. The other important news is that third-party presidential candidates had a miserable showing this year, totaling just over one percent of the grand total with 1.5 million votes nationwide, compared to some 123 million votes for Barack Obama and John McCain.
It couldn’t be clearer that Americans are not willing to voice their political discontent by voting for third-party presidential candidates. The two-party duopoly and plutocracy is completely dominant. The US lacks the political competition that exists in other western democracies. Without real political competition there is nsufficient political choice.
A key problem is that for many years, third parties have not offered presidential candidates that capture the attention and commitment of even a modest fraction of Americans, unlike Ross Perot (8.4 percent in 1996 and 18.9 percent in 1992), and John Anderson (6.6 percent in 1980).
This year, among the four most significant third-party presidential candidates, Ralph Nader without a national party did the best with 685,426 votes or 0.54 percent of the grand total (a little better than in 2004 with 0.4 percent but much worse than in 2000 running as a Green Party candidate with 2.7 percent). He was followed by Bob Barr the Libertarian Party candidate with 503,981 votes or 0.4 percent of the total (typical of all Libertarian candidates in recent elections, including Ron Paul in 1988), followed by Chuck Baldwin of the Constitution Party with just 181,266 votes or 0.1 percent, and then Cynthia McKinney of the Green Party with only 148,546 votes or 0.1 percent.
Showing the problem of ballot access, engineered by the two major parties, is that there were only 15 states where all four were on the ballot. In all but one, Nader received more votes than the other three third-party candidates. In four states only one of the four candidates was on the ballot; in one state none of them were (Oklahoma).
Nader’s best state was California with 81,434 votes, as it was for McKinney’s with 28,624 votes. Baldwin was not on the ballot there. Alan Keyes received 30,787 votes in California. Barr’s best state was Texas with 56,398 votes. None of the other three were on the ballot there. In his home state of Georgia where he had been a Representative Barr received 28,420 votes (and none of the other three were on the ballot). Baldwin’s best state was Michigan with 14, 973 votes. Nader was not on the ballot there.
In round numbers, Barack Obama raised $639 million or about $10 per vote, and John McCain raised $360 million or $6 per vote, compared to Ralph Nader with $4 million and $6 per vote, Bob Barr with about $1 million or $2 per vote, and Cynthia McKinney with only about $118,000 or less than $1 per vote. Money matters, but the ability of the two-party duopoly to keep third-party presidential candidates out of nationally televised debates matters more for media attention, money and votes.
It must also be noted that there were countless congressional races with third-party and independent candidates, but none were able to win office, with only a very few reaching the 20 percent level. That third-party candidates can win local government offices means little because political party affiliation at that level is overshadowed by personal qualifications.
I say that current third-party activists should admit defeat, shut down their unsuccessful parties, and move on. Unlike so much of American history, current third-parties no longer play a significant role in American politics or even in affecting public policies. They have shown their inability to matter.
We need a new, vibrant political party that could bring many millions of American dissidents, progressives and conservatives, and especially chronic non-voters, together behind a relatively simple party platform focused on structural, government system reforms (not merely political change). Examples include: replacing the Electoral College with the popular vote for president, restoring the balance between Congress and the presidency, eliminating the corrupting influence of special interest money from politics, preventing the president to use signing statements to nullify laws passed by Congress.
What would unite people is a shared priority for revitalizing American democracy. It should position itself as a populist alternative and opponent to the two-party plutocracy. It should define itself as against the corporate and other special interests on the left and right that use money to corrupt our political system. Possible names: Patriotic Party, United Party or National Party. With Thomas Jefferson as its spiritual founder it should seek the political revolution he said was needed periodically.
Here is what helps. Despite considerable enthusiasm for Barack Obama, there is widespread unhappiness with both the Democratic and Republican Parties. One indication is that so voters register as independents. Plus there has always been a chorus of negative views about the two-party system. In one pragmatic sense this is the ideal time to create a new party. Why? Because of the incredible loss of stature of the Republican Party. Why not envision a new party that could replace the Republican Party on the national stage and provide a sharp alternative to the Democratic Party? In other words, we don’t need a new third party as much as we need a new major party.
Joel S. Hirschhorn can be reached through www.delusionaldemocracy.com.
Thursday, November 13, 2008
U.S. Military Fails To Learn An Ancient Military Lesson
No Industrial Economy Equals No Army
By Richard McCormack
richard@manufacturingnews.com
November 13, 2008 "Manufacturing News" -- October 17, 2008 - - It wasn't long ago that the world watched the collapse of the Soviet Empire. At the time, the USSR had a mighty military force that was overextended throughout the world and was bogged down in Afghanistan. Within a flash in 1989, the Soviet Union came tumbling down, not because it could not produce tanks and nuclear warheads, but because it couldn't produce bread. The collapse happened so rapidly it even surprised the U.S. intelligence community.
The United States is now inexplicably suffering the same fate. The country can produce a stealth bomber, but it can't produce a pair of shoes. Ronald Reagan must be turning in his grave.
If Ronald Reagan knew one thing, he knew that for the United States to win the Cold War, it would have to win the economic war. The United States could win an arms race by turning the Soviet Union's economy into a basket case, but only if the United States economy did not suffer the same fate.
What has happened in the short span of 19 years since the demise of the Soviet Empire? Why did America's strategic military and political leaders not learn the principle lesson of ancient history: "rich country, strong army."
For the past seven years, the U.S. military has been repeatedly warned about the loss of the U.S. industrial base and its high-tech capabilities and its potential to profoundly impact the military. In 2005, a Defense Science Board Task Force on High Performance Microchip Supply said the country was losing its high-tech industrial capability and that "urgent action is recommended." It warned that America's most strategic industries were not in a position to change the competitive dynamics that had emerged globally to shift the balance of production and markets away from the United States. "Addressing this problem is a uniquely government function," said the report. "The task force considers DOD the logical steward to lead, cajole and encourage a national solution to this critical problem regardless of which arm of government must act."
The response from DOD's top political appointees and the White House National Security Council: nothing.
For years, the U.S. military shrugged off similar admonishments from the National Academy of Sciences, the United States-China Economic and Security Review Commission, and the Advisory Group on Electron Devices, which DOD even temporarily shut down in 2003 because it did not like a report it produced describing the wholesale destruction of U.S. innovation capability. Anybody raising such issues has been branded with the pejorative label of being a "protectionist." But without an economy, what is there for the U.S. military to protect?
Over the past 30 years, zealous libertarian free-market economists have won the debate in Washington policy circles. They should be proud: their intellectual prowess has led to the collapse of the American economy, American capitalism and the American empire.
Ever since the end of the Reagan administration, I have watched from a front-row seat in Washington, D.C., as the leadership in the U.S. government sat back and allowed the wholesale outsourcing of key industrial sectors like semiconductors, lithography, printed circuit boards, photomasks, machine tools, computers, consumer electronics, foundries and software; not to mention textiles and apparel, automotive parts, furniture, toys, sporting goods, home furnishings and appliances. The U.S. government did not lift a finger as the United States trade deficit in goods soared to $838 billion in 2006, and as tens of thousands of industrial plants closed and millions of high-paid workers were sent to the streets.
It is obvious that the political appointees in the Pentagon still do not comprehend the implications of the U.S. financial system collapse as millions of Americans lose their jobs, are forced out of their homes and even die because they can't afford health care. If they did, there would be crash meetings with officials at the Commerce Department and USTR with proposals on what must be done immediately to start rebuilding the American industrial base, similar to what is occurring now among Treasury and Federal Reserve officials to salvage the banking system.
The U.S. government did not expect and has not planned for a "worst-case" economic scenario such as the one that is currently unfolding. In fact, the U.S. did whatever was in its power to foster the eventual financial meltdown -- because there was no leadership anywhere to be found in the military/political complex to assure that the United States remains an industrial powerhouse. Five defense "integrators" -- Raytheon, General Dynamics, Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman -- do not constitute a robust industrial base.
None of this would have been allowed to happen under Ronald Reagan in the 1980s at the height of the Cold War. After much ideological debate over free trade and free markets during the first four years of his presidency, Ronald Reagan adopted a robust industrial policy aimed at competing head-on with both the Soviet Union and Japan. It wasn't easy for him to do so, but he supported important U.S. industries like semiconductors, autos and machine tools, and invested billions of dollars into future U.S. technological capability.
For his defense of U.S. industry and its workers, Reagan transformed the country's political dynamic with legions of Reagan Democrats, who remain to this day committed to the Republican Party despite its subsequent repudiation of Reagan's industrial embrace. Ronald Reagan's industrial legacy -- and the enduring dedication of middle-class workers -- is the reason why George W. Bush is still in office.
It was the Department of Defense during the Reagan presidency that created the Semiconductor Manufacturing Technology (SEMATECH) consortium. The National Center for Manufacturing Sciences (NCMS) was created to foster the development of an advanced machine tool and automation industry. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) funded a vast array of important industrial technologies. DOD's top technologists had a long-term vision that was unencumbered by a corporate fixation on quarterly profits, and they pumped billions of dollars into entrepreneurial companies and individuals that were focusing on computational sciences, digital technologies, networking, optics, lasers, advanced materials and global positioning capabilities. There was no place else in the government that could fund this research, even though much of it was commercial in nature. DOD's technologists knew how to get results.
The investments made during the Reagan years resulted in the incredibly prosperous decade of the 1990s. The digital technology revolution that drove the U.S. economy through the 1990s was Ronald Reagan's economic legacy.
What happened to America's strategic military thinkers and leaders? Why did they fall asleep at the helm? Why were they persuaded by free-market economic ideologues that the United States didn't need to produce anything to be a military superpower -- that it was okay to be a "knowledge" economy based on services and consumption? How did they fail to learn the lesson of the economic collapse of the Soviet Union?
It all started changing radically the moment Ronald Reagan left the presidency. As editor of New Technology Week at the time, the biggest and most unexpected shock of the first Bush administration in 1989 was its immediate reversal of Reagan's industrial policies. During Reagan's term, there were passionate and patriotic scientists, engineers and industrialists who were compelled to fight for American industry. Bob Costello in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, started the Defense Manufacturing Board; Craig Fields and his cohorts Arati Prabhakar (who later became director of NIST), Lance Glasser (who helped create the National Electronics Manufacturing Initiative) and dozens of others at DARPA were actively engaged in funding promising commercial technologies; Malcolm Baldrige and Bruce Merrifield at the Commerce Department understood the strategic importance of critical technologies; Sens. Jeff Bingaman, Fritz Hollings, Joe Lieberman and Pete Dominici and their trusted aides Ed McGaffigan, Bill Bonvillian and Pat Windham funded defense technology programs in the Senate. Reps. Mel Levine, Don Ritter and George Brown and aides like Jim Turner in the House of the Representatives pushed an aggressive technology agenda. Dozens of high profile executives worked the issue in Washington, D.C., including Bob Galvin, CEO of Motorola; Robert Noyce, inventor of the integrated circuit and co-founder of Intel; Dick Elkus, inventor of the videocassette recorder; John Young CEO of Hewlett Packard; and Ian Ross, president of AT&T Bell Labs. Among the trade associations, Dick Iverson of the American Electronics Association went out on a limb to ensure the United States remain a viable industrial powerhouse. All of these people sacrificed their careers to put their country first.
Ronald Reagan's management style of allowing people to take big risks with potentially big failures may not have worked in many areas of government -- resulting in the Iran/Contra, HUD, EPA and Interior Department scandals -- but it is exactly the type of management philosophy needed for success in scientific, engineering and technological endeavors.
It all worked until George Herbert Walker Bush took office in 1988, and it came tumbling down, driven by free-market zealots who have put the United States in its current financial bind. A heated and frankly ridiculous debate emerged over "industrial policy, corporate welfare and picking winners and losers." Bush's science advisor Alan Bromley was thrown in the dog house for six months, told not to talk to any member of the press, after he confided to the Wall Street Journal that there was a need for an industrial policy. Bush's Defense Secretary Dick Cheney reflected the "who cares about U.S. industry philosophy" when he told Aerospace Daily on January 23, 1992 that "buy American" and other similar policies favoring U.S. industry "raise questions about my spending money on things I could get cheaper elsewhere, and it raises the specter of having to rely upon less than first-rate technology in certain areas."
Within the George HW Bush administration there was the despised economic "troika" of White House chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors Michael Boskin, OMB director Richard Darman and Bush chief of staff John Sununu working against the long-term technology interests of U.S. industry. Boskin is quoted as saying, "Computer chips, potato chips, what's the difference." Bush's Commerce Secretary Robert Mossbacher had his own famous line when it came to the U.S. government putting in place policies and funding programs to assure U.S. participation in the high-definition television and flat-panel display industries: "Uncle Sam will not be Uncle Sugar."
In a highly symbolic act, Bush's team fired DARPA director Craig Fields, who remains a hero to this day among entrepreneurial technologists. Michael Sekora, a physicist who directed the Defense Intelligence Agency's "Project Socrates," which monitored advanced technologies of U.S. economic competitors, abruptly resigned and his program was eliminated. Bob Costello, former DOD undersecretary of acquisition, said upon the elimination of the Defense Manufacturing Board: "It sends a terrible signal to industry. It's a step backward, a tragedy. I don't know see what we gain by doing away with it."
George HW Bush's ideological economic stridency abruptly ended the Reagan era of industrial engagement, and it assured his loss of the presidency after one term to Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton in 1992 who touted, "it's the economy, stupid."
Clinton's era started well, but then fizzled. His ambitious Technology Reinvestment Project (TRP) was quashed by the new Republican majority in Congress in 1994. Clinton created the Office of Economic Security in the Defense Department, and the National Economic Council at the White House to parallel the National Security Council. But without the Soviet Union around, Clinton could coast, benefiting from the "peace dividend" that came from cutting the military and plowing the savings into reducing the deficit.
Clinton also hired Robert Rubin from Goldman Sachs and free-trade economist Lawrence Summers from Harvard to be his chief economic advisors and they relentlessly pursued the same ideological concept of trade at the expense of U.S. industry. Rubin and Summers are a good part of the reason Sen. Hillary Clinton did not make it out of this year's presidential primaries -- due to the baggage from her husband's embrace of unfettered "free" trade. Yet, amazingly, both men are now seen standing astride Barack Obama -- making it difficult for an otherwise articulate person to present a viable way out of this economic mess other than through tired ideas of tax cuts and additional spending that will lead to further debt.
John McCain seems just as bad. For the past 10 years, he was the leader in the Senate in opposing any program aimed at ensuring a healthy American industrial base. He was always the first senator to rush to the Senate floor whenever any bill came over from concerned Republican members of the House that included "Buy American" provisions and other proposals that would favor the U.S. industrial base over foreign sources of supply. He killed almost all of them.
The last eight years have been a washout. Bush's tax cuts did nothing to encourage U.S. industrial innovation or high-tech domestic production. The government relentlessly pursued free-trade policies with marginal countries and encouraged outsourcing of virtually every important industrial sector. There has been an unwillingness to aggressively enforce trade laws in favor of remaining U.S. producers. The government has overseen reductions in spending on research and development in the physical sciences and engineering. It has created a despondent government workforce whose work has been doctored by political appointees and has been told to shut up and do nothing and wait for retirement. It has aggressively attacked U.S. companies like Microsoft and it put others like Arthur Anderson out of business. And the political leadership at the Department of Defense both forgot what it takes for a nation to be a military superpower and, like the Soviet Union, got lost in Iraq and Afghanistan.
And yet over the past month as major U.S. financial institutions failed, there has been little discussion about real proposals aimed at extricating the country from what could potentially be an impending economic calamity. There is no articulation of a viable vision of how to right the sinking ship, other than proposing tax cuts or spending more money the country doesn't have to go deeper into debt to cover bad debts that have still not been written off.
Few talking heads have said anything about the importance of reviving the U.S. high-tech manufacturing base and of rebuilding U.S. industrial capacity for the "environmental" era that will demand a new generation of radical innovation and efficiency in product design, production and use. Without a viable industry how is the United States going to pay off even more debt? By selling lollipops to the world's suckers who continue buying America's financial "paper"?
Wall Street needs to have its knuckles rapped publicly by the country's top political leaders -- and rapped incredibly hard -- for its continuing insistence on rewarding companies for laying off Americans and moving production offshore; for placing such undue emphasis on pennies-per-share quarterly profits at the expense of good-paying American jobs and America's continued economic viability.
When Hewlett Packard announced three weeks ago in the midst of the financial crisis that it was laying off 24,000 workers its stock price went up. Then, incredibly, last week Hewlett Packard announced plans to build a new computer plant -- in China! This has to stop. Who will be able to afford HP computers?
The trade numbers released on Friday, October 10 show that the trade deficit did not go down. The deficit in goods remained at a staggering $71 billion for the month of September. Yet there is still happy-talk among America's "leaders" about the marginal growth of U.S. exports. Such talk obfuscates what is a bad situation: combined with the federal budget deficit, America continues to go deeper into debt to the tune of more than $3 billion a day. As Nucor CEO Dan DiMicco said recently: "We'll be indentured to foreign creditors if this madness persists. We have lost our minds."
Without a vibrant industrial sector, America's economy became hollowed out. Americans stopped making enough money to afford all of the things they were buying from overseas producers. They over borrowed. Without a solid industrial economic core the financial sector collapsed. The military structure of the United States will be next.
It took only 19 years for the United States to follow the USSR into an economic ditch.
By Richard McCormack
richard@manufacturingnews.com
November 13, 2008 "Manufacturing News" -- October 17, 2008 - - It wasn't long ago that the world watched the collapse of the Soviet Empire. At the time, the USSR had a mighty military force that was overextended throughout the world and was bogged down in Afghanistan. Within a flash in 1989, the Soviet Union came tumbling down, not because it could not produce tanks and nuclear warheads, but because it couldn't produce bread. The collapse happened so rapidly it even surprised the U.S. intelligence community.
The United States is now inexplicably suffering the same fate. The country can produce a stealth bomber, but it can't produce a pair of shoes. Ronald Reagan must be turning in his grave.
If Ronald Reagan knew one thing, he knew that for the United States to win the Cold War, it would have to win the economic war. The United States could win an arms race by turning the Soviet Union's economy into a basket case, but only if the United States economy did not suffer the same fate.
What has happened in the short span of 19 years since the demise of the Soviet Empire? Why did America's strategic military and political leaders not learn the principle lesson of ancient history: "rich country, strong army."
For the past seven years, the U.S. military has been repeatedly warned about the loss of the U.S. industrial base and its high-tech capabilities and its potential to profoundly impact the military. In 2005, a Defense Science Board Task Force on High Performance Microchip Supply said the country was losing its high-tech industrial capability and that "urgent action is recommended." It warned that America's most strategic industries were not in a position to change the competitive dynamics that had emerged globally to shift the balance of production and markets away from the United States. "Addressing this problem is a uniquely government function," said the report. "The task force considers DOD the logical steward to lead, cajole and encourage a national solution to this critical problem regardless of which arm of government must act."
The response from DOD's top political appointees and the White House National Security Council: nothing.
For years, the U.S. military shrugged off similar admonishments from the National Academy of Sciences, the United States-China Economic and Security Review Commission, and the Advisory Group on Electron Devices, which DOD even temporarily shut down in 2003 because it did not like a report it produced describing the wholesale destruction of U.S. innovation capability. Anybody raising such issues has been branded with the pejorative label of being a "protectionist." But without an economy, what is there for the U.S. military to protect?
Over the past 30 years, zealous libertarian free-market economists have won the debate in Washington policy circles. They should be proud: their intellectual prowess has led to the collapse of the American economy, American capitalism and the American empire.
Ever since the end of the Reagan administration, I have watched from a front-row seat in Washington, D.C., as the leadership in the U.S. government sat back and allowed the wholesale outsourcing of key industrial sectors like semiconductors, lithography, printed circuit boards, photomasks, machine tools, computers, consumer electronics, foundries and software; not to mention textiles and apparel, automotive parts, furniture, toys, sporting goods, home furnishings and appliances. The U.S. government did not lift a finger as the United States trade deficit in goods soared to $838 billion in 2006, and as tens of thousands of industrial plants closed and millions of high-paid workers were sent to the streets.
It is obvious that the political appointees in the Pentagon still do not comprehend the implications of the U.S. financial system collapse as millions of Americans lose their jobs, are forced out of their homes and even die because they can't afford health care. If they did, there would be crash meetings with officials at the Commerce Department and USTR with proposals on what must be done immediately to start rebuilding the American industrial base, similar to what is occurring now among Treasury and Federal Reserve officials to salvage the banking system.
The U.S. government did not expect and has not planned for a "worst-case" economic scenario such as the one that is currently unfolding. In fact, the U.S. did whatever was in its power to foster the eventual financial meltdown -- because there was no leadership anywhere to be found in the military/political complex to assure that the United States remains an industrial powerhouse. Five defense "integrators" -- Raytheon, General Dynamics, Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman -- do not constitute a robust industrial base.
None of this would have been allowed to happen under Ronald Reagan in the 1980s at the height of the Cold War. After much ideological debate over free trade and free markets during the first four years of his presidency, Ronald Reagan adopted a robust industrial policy aimed at competing head-on with both the Soviet Union and Japan. It wasn't easy for him to do so, but he supported important U.S. industries like semiconductors, autos and machine tools, and invested billions of dollars into future U.S. technological capability.
For his defense of U.S. industry and its workers, Reagan transformed the country's political dynamic with legions of Reagan Democrats, who remain to this day committed to the Republican Party despite its subsequent repudiation of Reagan's industrial embrace. Ronald Reagan's industrial legacy -- and the enduring dedication of middle-class workers -- is the reason why George W. Bush is still in office.
It was the Department of Defense during the Reagan presidency that created the Semiconductor Manufacturing Technology (SEMATECH) consortium. The National Center for Manufacturing Sciences (NCMS) was created to foster the development of an advanced machine tool and automation industry. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) funded a vast array of important industrial technologies. DOD's top technologists had a long-term vision that was unencumbered by a corporate fixation on quarterly profits, and they pumped billions of dollars into entrepreneurial companies and individuals that were focusing on computational sciences, digital technologies, networking, optics, lasers, advanced materials and global positioning capabilities. There was no place else in the government that could fund this research, even though much of it was commercial in nature. DOD's technologists knew how to get results.
The investments made during the Reagan years resulted in the incredibly prosperous decade of the 1990s. The digital technology revolution that drove the U.S. economy through the 1990s was Ronald Reagan's economic legacy.
What happened to America's strategic military thinkers and leaders? Why did they fall asleep at the helm? Why were they persuaded by free-market economic ideologues that the United States didn't need to produce anything to be a military superpower -- that it was okay to be a "knowledge" economy based on services and consumption? How did they fail to learn the lesson of the economic collapse of the Soviet Union?
It all started changing radically the moment Ronald Reagan left the presidency. As editor of New Technology Week at the time, the biggest and most unexpected shock of the first Bush administration in 1989 was its immediate reversal of Reagan's industrial policies. During Reagan's term, there were passionate and patriotic scientists, engineers and industrialists who were compelled to fight for American industry. Bob Costello in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, started the Defense Manufacturing Board; Craig Fields and his cohorts Arati Prabhakar (who later became director of NIST), Lance Glasser (who helped create the National Electronics Manufacturing Initiative) and dozens of others at DARPA were actively engaged in funding promising commercial technologies; Malcolm Baldrige and Bruce Merrifield at the Commerce Department understood the strategic importance of critical technologies; Sens. Jeff Bingaman, Fritz Hollings, Joe Lieberman and Pete Dominici and their trusted aides Ed McGaffigan, Bill Bonvillian and Pat Windham funded defense technology programs in the Senate. Reps. Mel Levine, Don Ritter and George Brown and aides like Jim Turner in the House of the Representatives pushed an aggressive technology agenda. Dozens of high profile executives worked the issue in Washington, D.C., including Bob Galvin, CEO of Motorola; Robert Noyce, inventor of the integrated circuit and co-founder of Intel; Dick Elkus, inventor of the videocassette recorder; John Young CEO of Hewlett Packard; and Ian Ross, president of AT&T Bell Labs. Among the trade associations, Dick Iverson of the American Electronics Association went out on a limb to ensure the United States remain a viable industrial powerhouse. All of these people sacrificed their careers to put their country first.
Ronald Reagan's management style of allowing people to take big risks with potentially big failures may not have worked in many areas of government -- resulting in the Iran/Contra, HUD, EPA and Interior Department scandals -- but it is exactly the type of management philosophy needed for success in scientific, engineering and technological endeavors.
It all worked until George Herbert Walker Bush took office in 1988, and it came tumbling down, driven by free-market zealots who have put the United States in its current financial bind. A heated and frankly ridiculous debate emerged over "industrial policy, corporate welfare and picking winners and losers." Bush's science advisor Alan Bromley was thrown in the dog house for six months, told not to talk to any member of the press, after he confided to the Wall Street Journal that there was a need for an industrial policy. Bush's Defense Secretary Dick Cheney reflected the "who cares about U.S. industry philosophy" when he told Aerospace Daily on January 23, 1992 that "buy American" and other similar policies favoring U.S. industry "raise questions about my spending money on things I could get cheaper elsewhere, and it raises the specter of having to rely upon less than first-rate technology in certain areas."
Within the George HW Bush administration there was the despised economic "troika" of White House chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors Michael Boskin, OMB director Richard Darman and Bush chief of staff John Sununu working against the long-term technology interests of U.S. industry. Boskin is quoted as saying, "Computer chips, potato chips, what's the difference." Bush's Commerce Secretary Robert Mossbacher had his own famous line when it came to the U.S. government putting in place policies and funding programs to assure U.S. participation in the high-definition television and flat-panel display industries: "Uncle Sam will not be Uncle Sugar."
In a highly symbolic act, Bush's team fired DARPA director Craig Fields, who remains a hero to this day among entrepreneurial technologists. Michael Sekora, a physicist who directed the Defense Intelligence Agency's "Project Socrates," which monitored advanced technologies of U.S. economic competitors, abruptly resigned and his program was eliminated. Bob Costello, former DOD undersecretary of acquisition, said upon the elimination of the Defense Manufacturing Board: "It sends a terrible signal to industry. It's a step backward, a tragedy. I don't know see what we gain by doing away with it."
George HW Bush's ideological economic stridency abruptly ended the Reagan era of industrial engagement, and it assured his loss of the presidency after one term to Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton in 1992 who touted, "it's the economy, stupid."
Clinton's era started well, but then fizzled. His ambitious Technology Reinvestment Project (TRP) was quashed by the new Republican majority in Congress in 1994. Clinton created the Office of Economic Security in the Defense Department, and the National Economic Council at the White House to parallel the National Security Council. But without the Soviet Union around, Clinton could coast, benefiting from the "peace dividend" that came from cutting the military and plowing the savings into reducing the deficit.
Clinton also hired Robert Rubin from Goldman Sachs and free-trade economist Lawrence Summers from Harvard to be his chief economic advisors and they relentlessly pursued the same ideological concept of trade at the expense of U.S. industry. Rubin and Summers are a good part of the reason Sen. Hillary Clinton did not make it out of this year's presidential primaries -- due to the baggage from her husband's embrace of unfettered "free" trade. Yet, amazingly, both men are now seen standing astride Barack Obama -- making it difficult for an otherwise articulate person to present a viable way out of this economic mess other than through tired ideas of tax cuts and additional spending that will lead to further debt.
John McCain seems just as bad. For the past 10 years, he was the leader in the Senate in opposing any program aimed at ensuring a healthy American industrial base. He was always the first senator to rush to the Senate floor whenever any bill came over from concerned Republican members of the House that included "Buy American" provisions and other proposals that would favor the U.S. industrial base over foreign sources of supply. He killed almost all of them.
The last eight years have been a washout. Bush's tax cuts did nothing to encourage U.S. industrial innovation or high-tech domestic production. The government relentlessly pursued free-trade policies with marginal countries and encouraged outsourcing of virtually every important industrial sector. There has been an unwillingness to aggressively enforce trade laws in favor of remaining U.S. producers. The government has overseen reductions in spending on research and development in the physical sciences and engineering. It has created a despondent government workforce whose work has been doctored by political appointees and has been told to shut up and do nothing and wait for retirement. It has aggressively attacked U.S. companies like Microsoft and it put others like Arthur Anderson out of business. And the political leadership at the Department of Defense both forgot what it takes for a nation to be a military superpower and, like the Soviet Union, got lost in Iraq and Afghanistan.
And yet over the past month as major U.S. financial institutions failed, there has been little discussion about real proposals aimed at extricating the country from what could potentially be an impending economic calamity. There is no articulation of a viable vision of how to right the sinking ship, other than proposing tax cuts or spending more money the country doesn't have to go deeper into debt to cover bad debts that have still not been written off.
Few talking heads have said anything about the importance of reviving the U.S. high-tech manufacturing base and of rebuilding U.S. industrial capacity for the "environmental" era that will demand a new generation of radical innovation and efficiency in product design, production and use. Without a viable industry how is the United States going to pay off even more debt? By selling lollipops to the world's suckers who continue buying America's financial "paper"?
Wall Street needs to have its knuckles rapped publicly by the country's top political leaders -- and rapped incredibly hard -- for its continuing insistence on rewarding companies for laying off Americans and moving production offshore; for placing such undue emphasis on pennies-per-share quarterly profits at the expense of good-paying American jobs and America's continued economic viability.
When Hewlett Packard announced three weeks ago in the midst of the financial crisis that it was laying off 24,000 workers its stock price went up. Then, incredibly, last week Hewlett Packard announced plans to build a new computer plant -- in China! This has to stop. Who will be able to afford HP computers?
The trade numbers released on Friday, October 10 show that the trade deficit did not go down. The deficit in goods remained at a staggering $71 billion for the month of September. Yet there is still happy-talk among America's "leaders" about the marginal growth of U.S. exports. Such talk obfuscates what is a bad situation: combined with the federal budget deficit, America continues to go deeper into debt to the tune of more than $3 billion a day. As Nucor CEO Dan DiMicco said recently: "We'll be indentured to foreign creditors if this madness persists. We have lost our minds."
Without a vibrant industrial sector, America's economy became hollowed out. Americans stopped making enough money to afford all of the things they were buying from overseas producers. They over borrowed. Without a solid industrial economic core the financial sector collapsed. The military structure of the United States will be next.
It took only 19 years for the United States to follow the USSR into an economic ditch.
Obama Pressured to Back Off Iraq Withdrawal
by Gareth Porter
WASHINGTON - The promotion of Robert M. Gates as President-elect Barack Obama's secretary of defence appears to be the key element in a broad campaign by military officials and their supporters in the political elite and the news media to pressure Obama into dropping his plan to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq in as little as 16 months.
Despite subtle and unsubtle pressures to compromise on his withdrawal plan, however, Obama is likely to pass over Gates and stand firm on his campaign pledge on military withdrawal from Iraq, according to a well-informed source close to the Obama camp.
Within 24 hours of Obama's election, the idea of Gates staying on as defence secretary in an Obama administration was floated in the New York Times, which reported that 'a case is being made publicly by columnists and commentators, and quietly by leading Congressional voices of Mr. Obama's own party -- that Mr. Gates should be asked to remain as defence secretary, at least for an interim period in the opening months of the new presidency.'
The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday that two unnamed Obama advisers had said Obama was 'leaning toward' asking Gates stay on, although the report added that other candidates were also in the running. The Journal said Gates was strongly opposed to any timetable for withdrawal from Iraq, and it speculated that a Gates appointment 'could mean that Mr. Obama was effectively shelving his campaign promise to remove most troops from Iraq by mid-2010.'
Some Obama advisers have been manoeuvering for a Gates nomination for months. Former Navy Secretary Richard Danzig publicly raised the idea of a Gates reprise in June and again in early October. Danzig told reporters Oct. 1, however, that he had not discussed the possibility with Obama.
Obama advisers who support his Iraq withdrawal plan, however, have opposed a Gates appointment. Having a defence secretary who is not fully supportive of the 16-month timetable would make it very difficult, if not impossible for Obama to enforce it on the military.
A source close to the Obama transition team told IPS Tuesday that the chances that Gates would be nominated by Obama 'are now about 10 percent'.
The source said that Obama is going to stick with his 16-month withdrawal timeline, despite the pressures now being brought to bear on him. 'There is no doubt about it,' said the source, who refused to elaborate because of the sensitivity of the matter.
Opposition to Obama's pledge to withdraw combat troops from Iraq on a 16-month timetable is wide and deep in the U.S. national security establishment and its political allies. U.S. military leaders have been unequivocal in rejecting any such rapid withdrawal from Iraq, and news media coverage of the issue has been based on the premise that Obama will have to modify his plan to make it acceptable to the military.
The Washington Post published a story Monday saying that Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, opposes Obama's timeline for withdrawal as 'dangerous', insisting that 'reductions must depend on conditions on the ground'. Along with Gen. David H. Petraeus, now the head of CENTCOM and responsible for the entire Middle East, and Gen. Ray Odierno, the new commander in Iraq, Mullen was portrayed as part of a phalanx of determined military opposition to Obama's timeline.
Post reporters Alec MacGillis and Ann Scott Tyson cited 'defence experts' as predicting a 'smooth and productive' relationship between Obama and these military leaders 'if Obama takes the pragmatic approach that his advisers are indicating, allowing each side to adjust at the margins.' But if Obama 'presses for the withdrawal of two brigades per month,' the same analysts predicted, 'conflict is inevitable.'
The story quoted a former Bush administration National Security Council official, Peter D. Feaver, who was a strategic planner on the administration's Iraq 'surge' policy, as warning that Obama's timetable would precipitate 'a civil-military crisis' if Obama does not agree to the demands of Mullen, Petraeus and Odierno for greater flexibility.
Underlying the campaign of pressure is the assumption that Obama's 16-month timetable is mainly posturing for political purposes during the primary campaign, and that Obama is not necessarily committed to the withdrawal plan.
Feaver, who has returned to Duke University, said in an interview with IPS that he did not believe such a crisis was likely, because, 'It is unlikely Obama will come in and do what he said he would do during the campaign.' Obama has given himself 'enough wiggle room to change the plan', Feaver said.
Similarly CNN Pentagon correspondent Jamie McIntyre also reported Nov. 7 that Obama 'gave himself some wiggle room' to respond to military demands for more flexibility. McIntyre said he had 'pledged to consult U.S. commanders and adjust as necessary'.
Obama's website makes no such pledge to 'adjust' the timetable. Instead it says the 'removal of our troops will be responsible and phased, directed by military commanders on the ground and done in consultation with the Iraqi government.' It defends the rate of withdrawal of one or two brigades per month and offers to leave a 'residual force' in Iraq to 'train and support the Iraqi forces as long as Iraqi leaders move toward political reconciliation and away from sectarianism.'
When Obama met with Petraeus in Baghdad in July, Petraeus presented a detailed case for a 'conditions-based' withdrawal rather than Obama's timetable and ended with a plea for 'maximum flexibility' on a withdrawal schedule, according to Joe Klein's account in Time Oct. 22.
But Obama refused to back down, according to Klein's account. He told Petraeus, 'Your job is to succeed in Iraq on as favourable terms as we can get. But my job as a potential commander in chief is to view your counsel and interests through the prism of our overall national security.' Obama defended his policy of a fixed date for withdrawal in light of the situation in Afghanistan, the costs of continued U.S. occupation and the stress on U.S. military forces.
Opponents of Obama's plan outside the Bush administration appear to be unaware of the fact that the Bush administration has already given up the 'conditions-based withdrawal' that the U.S. military has called for in agreeing to Iraqi demands for complete U.S. withdrawal by the end of 2011.
Feaver, the former strategic planner for National Security Adviser Stephen J. Hadley, said he assumes that, 'if the U.S. agreed to it, it preserves the flexibility that Petraeus and Odierno say they've needed all along.'
But even the small loophole left in previous versions of the text, allowing the 2011 deadline to be extended if the pact were revised with the agreement of the Iraqi parliament, has now been closed in the 'final' version which the Bush administration submitted to the Maliki government last week, according to a Nov. 10 report by Associated Press, which had obtained a copy of the text.
© 2008 Inter Press Service
WASHINGTON - The promotion of Robert M. Gates as President-elect Barack Obama's secretary of defence appears to be the key element in a broad campaign by military officials and their supporters in the political elite and the news media to pressure Obama into dropping his plan to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq in as little as 16 months.
Despite subtle and unsubtle pressures to compromise on his withdrawal plan, however, Obama is likely to pass over Gates and stand firm on his campaign pledge on military withdrawal from Iraq, according to a well-informed source close to the Obama camp.
Within 24 hours of Obama's election, the idea of Gates staying on as defence secretary in an Obama administration was floated in the New York Times, which reported that 'a case is being made publicly by columnists and commentators, and quietly by leading Congressional voices of Mr. Obama's own party -- that Mr. Gates should be asked to remain as defence secretary, at least for an interim period in the opening months of the new presidency.'
The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday that two unnamed Obama advisers had said Obama was 'leaning toward' asking Gates stay on, although the report added that other candidates were also in the running. The Journal said Gates was strongly opposed to any timetable for withdrawal from Iraq, and it speculated that a Gates appointment 'could mean that Mr. Obama was effectively shelving his campaign promise to remove most troops from Iraq by mid-2010.'
Some Obama advisers have been manoeuvering for a Gates nomination for months. Former Navy Secretary Richard Danzig publicly raised the idea of a Gates reprise in June and again in early October. Danzig told reporters Oct. 1, however, that he had not discussed the possibility with Obama.
Obama advisers who support his Iraq withdrawal plan, however, have opposed a Gates appointment. Having a defence secretary who is not fully supportive of the 16-month timetable would make it very difficult, if not impossible for Obama to enforce it on the military.
A source close to the Obama transition team told IPS Tuesday that the chances that Gates would be nominated by Obama 'are now about 10 percent'.
The source said that Obama is going to stick with his 16-month withdrawal timeline, despite the pressures now being brought to bear on him. 'There is no doubt about it,' said the source, who refused to elaborate because of the sensitivity of the matter.
Opposition to Obama's pledge to withdraw combat troops from Iraq on a 16-month timetable is wide and deep in the U.S. national security establishment and its political allies. U.S. military leaders have been unequivocal in rejecting any such rapid withdrawal from Iraq, and news media coverage of the issue has been based on the premise that Obama will have to modify his plan to make it acceptable to the military.
The Washington Post published a story Monday saying that Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, opposes Obama's timeline for withdrawal as 'dangerous', insisting that 'reductions must depend on conditions on the ground'. Along with Gen. David H. Petraeus, now the head of CENTCOM and responsible for the entire Middle East, and Gen. Ray Odierno, the new commander in Iraq, Mullen was portrayed as part of a phalanx of determined military opposition to Obama's timeline.
Post reporters Alec MacGillis and Ann Scott Tyson cited 'defence experts' as predicting a 'smooth and productive' relationship between Obama and these military leaders 'if Obama takes the pragmatic approach that his advisers are indicating, allowing each side to adjust at the margins.' But if Obama 'presses for the withdrawal of two brigades per month,' the same analysts predicted, 'conflict is inevitable.'
The story quoted a former Bush administration National Security Council official, Peter D. Feaver, who was a strategic planner on the administration's Iraq 'surge' policy, as warning that Obama's timetable would precipitate 'a civil-military crisis' if Obama does not agree to the demands of Mullen, Petraeus and Odierno for greater flexibility.
Underlying the campaign of pressure is the assumption that Obama's 16-month timetable is mainly posturing for political purposes during the primary campaign, and that Obama is not necessarily committed to the withdrawal plan.
Feaver, who has returned to Duke University, said in an interview with IPS that he did not believe such a crisis was likely, because, 'It is unlikely Obama will come in and do what he said he would do during the campaign.' Obama has given himself 'enough wiggle room to change the plan', Feaver said.
Similarly CNN Pentagon correspondent Jamie McIntyre also reported Nov. 7 that Obama 'gave himself some wiggle room' to respond to military demands for more flexibility. McIntyre said he had 'pledged to consult U.S. commanders and adjust as necessary'.
Obama's website makes no such pledge to 'adjust' the timetable. Instead it says the 'removal of our troops will be responsible and phased, directed by military commanders on the ground and done in consultation with the Iraqi government.' It defends the rate of withdrawal of one or two brigades per month and offers to leave a 'residual force' in Iraq to 'train and support the Iraqi forces as long as Iraqi leaders move toward political reconciliation and away from sectarianism.'
When Obama met with Petraeus in Baghdad in July, Petraeus presented a detailed case for a 'conditions-based' withdrawal rather than Obama's timetable and ended with a plea for 'maximum flexibility' on a withdrawal schedule, according to Joe Klein's account in Time Oct. 22.
But Obama refused to back down, according to Klein's account. He told Petraeus, 'Your job is to succeed in Iraq on as favourable terms as we can get. But my job as a potential commander in chief is to view your counsel and interests through the prism of our overall national security.' Obama defended his policy of a fixed date for withdrawal in light of the situation in Afghanistan, the costs of continued U.S. occupation and the stress on U.S. military forces.
Opponents of Obama's plan outside the Bush administration appear to be unaware of the fact that the Bush administration has already given up the 'conditions-based withdrawal' that the U.S. military has called for in agreeing to Iraqi demands for complete U.S. withdrawal by the end of 2011.
Feaver, the former strategic planner for National Security Adviser Stephen J. Hadley, said he assumes that, 'if the U.S. agreed to it, it preserves the flexibility that Petraeus and Odierno say they've needed all along.'
But even the small loophole left in previous versions of the text, allowing the 2011 deadline to be extended if the pact were revised with the agreement of the Iraqi parliament, has now been closed in the 'final' version which the Bush administration submitted to the Maliki government last week, according to a Nov. 10 report by Associated Press, which had obtained a copy of the text.
© 2008 Inter Press Service
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