[Peace-discuss] From the week's news

[LAURIE]

I am afraid that while I agree with the contents of the post I have to ask
how said doctrine so interpreted is different in other than the words
selected for use to describe it from colonial and imperialist doctrines in
the Cold War years and prior to that.  Haven't colonial and imperialist
powers in the past, including the US, said and attempted to implement
similar doctrines wherein they claim themselves as being exclusions to which
the doctrines do not apply.  Ask any of the oppressed or colonized peoples
about what is meant by the "White Man's Burden" and why we never hear about
the "People of Color's Burden," why colonial and imperialist powers are
always civilizing the savages, bringing God to the heathens, or improving
the lives and living conditions of those colonized even if the colonizing
parties have to destroy them to do it but rarely about how evil it is that
the colonizing parties are exploiting the colonized and their resources in
the name of God, Truth, Morality, the Modern Civilized Way (in the Case of
Amerika, the American way), Equality, Freedom, or Democracy.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: peace-discuss-bounces at lists.chambana.net [mailto:peace-discuss-
> bounces at lists.chambana.net] On Behalf Of C. G. Estabrook
> Sent: Sunday, September 14, 2008 12:24 PM
> To: E. Wayne Johnson
> Cc: peace-discuss
> Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] From the week's news
> 
> [The "Bush doctrine" of course is evil nonsense. Here's a good account
> (from a
> Canadian newspaper, four years ago) of what it means. BTW last Friday,
> 12
> September, marked the tenth year of imprisonment in United States high
> security
> jails of the "Cuban Five."  --CGE]
> 
> 
> Every self-respecting president has a doctrine attached to his name.
> The core
> principle of the Bush II doctrine is that the United States must "rid
> the world
> of evil," as the president said right after 9/11.
> 
> A special responsibility is to wage war against terrorism, with the
> corollary
> that any state that harbours terrorists is a terrorist state and should
> be
> treated accordingly.
> 
> Let's ask a fair and simple question: What would the consequences be if
> we were
> to take the Bush doctrine seriously, and treat states that harbour
> terrorists as
> terrorist states, subject to bombardment and invasion?
> 
> The United States has long been a sanctuary to a rogues' gallery of
> people whose
> actions qualify them as terrorists, and whose presence compromises and
> complicates U.S. proclaimed principles.
> 
> Consider the Cuban Five, Cuban nationals convicted in Miami in 2001 as
> part of a
> spy ring.
> 
> To understand the case, which has prompted international protests, we
> have to
> look at the sordid history of U.S.-Cuba relations (leaving aside here
> the issue
> of the crushing, decades-long U.S. embargo).
> 
> The United States has engaged in large- and small-scale terrorist
> attacks
> against Cuba since 1959, including the Bay of Pigs invasion and the
> bizarre
> plots to kill Castro. Direct U.S. participation in the attacks ended
> during the
> late '70s - at least officially.
> 
> In 1989, the first president Bush granted a pardon to Orlando Bosch,
> one of the
> most notorious anti-Castro terrorists, accused of masterminding the
> bombing of a
> Cuban airliner in 1976. Bush overruled the Justice Department, which
> had refused
> an asylum request from Bosch, concluding: "The security of this nation
> is
> affected by its ability to urge credible other nations to refuse aid
> and shelter
> to terrorists, whose target we too often become."
> 
> Recognizing that the United States was going to harbour anti-Castro
> terrorists,
> Cuban agents infiltrated those networks. In 1998, high-level FBI
> officials were
> sent to Havana, where they were given thousands of pages of
> documentation and
> hundreds of hours of videotape about terrorist actions organized by
> cells in
> Florida.
> 
> The FBI reacted by arresting the people who provided the information,
> including
> a group now known as the Cuban Five.
> 
> The arrests were followed by what amounted to a show trial in Miami.
> The Five
> were sentenced, three to life sentences (for espionage; and the leader,
> Gerardo
> Hernandez, also for conspiracy to murder), after convictions that are
> now being
> appealed.
> 
> Meanwhile, people regarded by the FBI and Justice Department as
> dangerous
> terrorists live happily in the United States and continue to plot and
> implement
> crimes.
> 
> The list of terrorists-in-residence in the United States also includes
> Emmanuel
> Constant from Haiti, known as Toto, a former paramilitary leader from
> the
> Duvalier era. Constant is the founder of the FRAPH (Front for
> Advancement of
> Progress in Haiti), the paramilitary group that carried out most of the
> state
> terror in the early 1990s under the military junta that overthrew
> president
> Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
> 
> At last report, Constant was living in Queens, N.Y.
> 
> The United States has refused Haiti's request for extradition. The
> reason, it is
> generally assumed, is that Constant might reveal ties between
> Washington and the
> military junta that killed 4,000 to 5,000 Haitians, with Constant's
> paramilitary
> forces playing the leading role.
> 
> The gangsters leading the current coup in Haiti [i.e., in 2004 --CGE]
> include
> FRAPH leaders.
> 
> For the United States, Cuba has long been the primary concern in the
> hemisphere.
> A declassified 1964 State Department document declares Fidel Castro to
> be an
> intolerable threat because he "represents a successful defiance of the
> United
> States, a negation of our whole hemispheric policy of almost a century
> and a
> half," since the Monroe Doctrine declared that no challenge to U.S.
> dominance
> would be tolerated in the hemisphere.
> 
> Venezuela now presents a similar problem. A recent lead article in the
> Wall
> Street Journal says, "Fidel Castro has found a key benefactor and heir
> apparent
> to the cause of derailing the U.S.'s agenda in Latin America:
> Venezuelan
> President Hugo Chavez."
> 
> As it happens, last month, Venezuela asked the United States to
> extradite two
> former military officers who are seeking asylum in the United States.
> The two
> had taken part in a military coup supported by the Bush administration,
> which
> backed down in the face of outrage throughout the hemisphere.
> 
> The Venezuelan government, remarkably, observed a ruling of the
> Venezuelan
> supreme court barring prosecution of the coup leaders. The two officers
> were
> later implicated in a terrorist bombing, and fled to Miami.
> 
> Outrage over defiance is deeply ingrained in U.S. history. Thomas
> Jefferson
> bitterly condemned France for its "attitude of defiance" in holding New
> Orleans,
> which he coveted. Jefferson warned that France's "character (is) placed
> in a
> point of eternal friction with our character, which though loving peace
> and the
> pursuit of wealth, is high-minded."
> 
> France's "defiance (requires us to) marry ourselves to the British
> fleet and
> nation," Jefferson advised, reversing his earlier attitudes, which
> reflected
> France's crucial contribution to the liberation of the colonies from
> British rule.
> 
> Thanks to Haiti's liberation struggle of 1804, unaided and almost
> universally
> opposed, France's defiance soon ended. But, then as now, the guiding
> principles
> of American outrage over defiance remain in place, determining friend
> and foe.
> 
> chomsky.info
> 
> 
> E. Wayne Johnson wrote:
> > Au contraire, It is generally well accepted that the "/Bush
> Doctrine/" is an
> > extension of US Imperialism to include preventive measures as a
> pretext for
> > military intervention in other sovereign countries.
> >
> > John W. wrote:
> >> I see that SOMEONE agrees with me about Charlie Gibson:
> >>
> >> "Day after day McCain's escorts shielded Palin from any impromptu
> exchanges
> >> with the press, until the eagerly awaited 3-part interviews with
> ABC's
> >> Charles Gibson began last Thursday. *I'll root for anyone against an
> >> uppity, patronizing network interviewer and so I was in Palin's
> corner when
> >> ABC's Gibson went after her about the Bush Doctrine, which he made
> sound as
> >> though it was something you learned in school along with the
> Gettysburg
> >> address.  No one knows what the Bush doctrine is, least of all
> President
> >> Bush. He's spent seven long years trying to define it.* Basically
> the
> >> Doctrine says it's okay for employees or subcontracted agents of the
> US
> >> Government to kidnap people, lock them up in wire or concrete
> hutches for
> >> years at a time, regularly electrocuting them and beating their
> genitals
> >> until they go mad. Small wonder Sarah Palin didn't want to get too
> >> specific..."
> >>
> >>
> >> On Sat, Sep 13, 2008 at 10:07 PM, C. G. Estabrook <galliher at uiuc.edu
> >> <mailto:galliher at uiuc.edu>> wrote:
> >>
> >> "Move over, Sarah Palin! You only want to shoot wolves from
> helicopters.
> >> Real men like Obama want more helicopter gunships to mow down Afghan
> kids
> >> from the air."
> >>
> >> ...
> _______________________________________________
> Peace-discuss mailing list
> Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net
> http://lists.chambana.net/cgi-bin/listinfo/peace-discuss