[Peace] News notes, 4th week in July 2008

[C. G. Estabrook]

SUNDAY 27 JULY 2008 ["There are two dangers that could reach as far as survival
of the species: nuclear war and environmental disaster.
  "About nuclear war, we know exactly what to do. In fact, the World Court has
ruled that it is a legal obligation of the signers of the non-proliferation
treaty to live up to their obligation to eliminate all nuclear weapons. And the
non-signers can be brought in as well. To give an example that is highly
relevant right now, the US population is overwhelmingly in favour of
establishing a nuclear-weapons-free zone (NWFZ) in the Middle East, including
Iran and Israel. The US and the UK are formally committed to this policy. When
they tried to construct a thin legal cover for their invasion of Iraq, they
appealed to Security Council resolution 687, which calls upon Iraq to eliminate
weapons of mass destruction. The US-UK invaders claimed that it had not done so.
Resolution 687 also commits the signers to establish an NWFZ in the region. If
the US were a functioning democracy, in which public opinion influenced policy,
the exceedingly hazardous confrontation between the US and Iran could be
mitigated, perhaps terminated.
  "Naturally, none of this can be reported or discussed, and it is inconceivable
that any viable political candidate would even hint at the stand of the
overwhelming majority of the population. One may recall a remark of Gandhi's
when he was asked what he thought of Western civilisation. His response was that
it might be a good idea. The same is true of "democracy promotion", which, if
sincere, would begin at home.
  "How to stave off the threat of severe environmental catastrophe is less clear,
though some measures are obvious: Conservation, research and development of
renewable energy, measures to cut back emissions sharply, and others. What is
eminently clear is that the longer we delay in addressing these problems, the
more grave will be the consequences for future generations." --Noam Chomsky, 14
July 2008]


[1] US WAR POLICY. It became clear this week (if there was any doubt before)
that killing by Americans throughout the Mideast will continue well into next
year and beyond. Regardless of who becomes the next US president, the massive
regime of murder for which we are responsible will continue -- from the
Mediterranean to the Indus valley, from the Horn of Africa to Central Asia.
   America's parody of a democratic election system has brought us two war
candidates, who differ from each other on foreign policy – that means killing
people – only to gain rhetorical advantage on the other. They would follow the
same policy in office, both insisting now that it will be dictated by
“conditions on the ground.”
   The situation was made clear this week by Obama's much-ballyhooed speech in
Berlin, rightly characterized by NYT columnist David Brooks: Obama "has grown
accustomed to putting on this sort of saccharine show." Brooks noted
that the central paragraph of the speech strove for the heights of Kennedy's 
Cold War rhetoric (if that's what they were), when Obama declaimed
   "This is the moment when we must renew our resolve to rout the terrorists who
threaten our security in Afghanistan, and the traffickers who sell drugs on your
streets ... my country and yours have a stake in seeing that NATO's first
mission beyond Europe's borders is a success ... the work must be done. America
cannot do this alone. The Afghan people need our troops and your troops ... We
have too much at stake to turn back now..."
   The call for more killing is not new – Obama has consistently said that
“Afghanistan is a war we must win” (pretending that there are different wars
rather than simply different theaters in the ME).  And he has consistently
called for attacking Pakistan as Bush attacked Afghanistan in 2001, regardless
of the wishes of the local government.
   But Obama's drug excuse for increasing the killing is new, mendacious, and
surprisingly weak: under the Taliban, heroin production was suppressed,  but
after the American invasion of 2001, and under a US puppet government,
Afghanistan re-emerged as the world's leading source for opium and heroin.
Needless to say, that history has not been part of the US media coverage.
   The USG has used the drug excuse before to cover its suppression of local
people who won't follow orders, notably in Colombia, the Western hemisphere's
leading terror state, and a US beachhead in the newly resistant South America.
Then it was presided over by Rand Beers, until 2003 Assistant Secretary of State
for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs. Beers and his Bobbsey
twin “counter-terrorism expert,” Richard Clarke, are now advising Obama's
campaign (as they did Kerry's).  Presumably they're behind Obama's Clintonesque
attempt to steal the administration's clothes on the argument of drugs as an
excuse to kill people in Afghanistan.
   Interestingly, the neocons have been working hard this week to try to grab the
drugs issue back from Obama.  In a cliche-ridden article in this morning's NYT
magazine, Thomas Schweich, a former assistant to Beers' successor as ASS for
INALEA (now seconded to academia as a visiting professor) asseverates that
“timorous Europeans, myopic media outlets, corrupt Afghans, blinkered Pentagon
officers, politically motivated Democrats and the Taliban were preventing the
implementation of an effective counterdrug program [he means using the military
to spray Afghanistan with Round-Up, regardless of the views of the locals]. And
the rest of us [he means himself as Neocon hero] could not turn them around.”
   The article, stupid as it is, should be read as an indication of the ongoing
Neocon/Realist fight in Washington that cuts across party lines and is the real
source of US terrorism around the world.
   No one whom one encounters in the media goes so far as to suggest that the US
has no right to spray defoliants on Afghanistan as we once did on Vietnam, or
even that a far more effective way of reducing the drug supply (which actually
might be useful) would be to take the profits out of it, as we once did in
regard to bootlegging.
   Instead, the possible candidates for president remain united on war policy,
while trying to pretend that they differ. (There was however one intriguing
suggestion this week that McCain might break out to the Left. Heather Wilson, a
Republican Congresswoman from New Mexico and ally of McCain, said that McCain
just might withdraw from Iraq sooner than Obama's 16 month deadline: "Senator
Obama has said it's a 16-month timeline no matter what," she said, but McCain
would “like troops to come home earlier than 16 months," said the Congresswoman
– of course, “if the conditions allow it.”)

[2] US TORTURE POLICY. A newly disclosed memo shows Bush administration lawyers
told CIA interrogators they could use a series of harsh measures including
waterboarding, so long as they believed they were acting “in good faith.” The
August 2002 memo was apparently written to address CIA concerns its officers
could once face torture charges for carrying out White House-approved
techniques. The Bush administration’s instructions said officers needed only to
believe they weren’t deliberately inflicting severe pain to cause harm. The memo
says, “Although an honest belief need not be reasonable, such a belief is easier
to establish where there is a reasonable basis for it.” It continues, “The
absence of specific intent negates the charge of torture.” The administration
ultimately rescinded the directive three years later. The memo was released
under a FOIA request filed by the ACLU National Security Project: “These
documents supply further evidence, if any were needed, that the Justice
Department authorized the CIA to torture prisoners in its custody.
   In England, the Foreign Affairs Committee of the House of Commons has just
issued its Human Rights Annual Report. It concluded that America's word can no
longer be trusted when it comes to claims about torture, rendition and human
rights abuses.

[3] US SPYING. Salon.com has published new details about a top secret government
database that might be at the heart of the Bush administration’s domestic spying
operations. The database is known as “Main Core.” It reportedly collects and
stores vast amounts of personal and financial data about millions of Americans.
Some former US officials believe that “Main Core” may have been used by the
National Security Agency to determine who to spy on in the immediate aftermath
of 9/11. [DN]

[4] THEATRES OF THE US MIDEAST WAR.  It's important to realize that the US has
been conducting a generation-long war for the control of energy resources from
the Mediterranean to the Indus valley, from the Horn of Africa to Central Asia –
a circle around the Persian Gulf with a 1500-mile radius.  That war will
continue in the coming administration, unless there is MORE serious opposition
at home and abroad.  Whether we call the resistance to US control “Al-Qaeda,”
“Taliban,” “insurgents,” “militants” or “terrorists” -- they are people who want
us out of their countries and off of their resources.  From the US POV, the war
has several theatres:

   [A] AFPAK. The Bush administration wants to devote $230 million slated for
counterterrorism programs in Pakistan to help the country upgrade its fleet of
F-16 attack planes. The $230 million would represent more than two-thirds of the
total amount of military aid the United States will give to Pakistan this year.
   Tariq Ali points out in an important summary of USG/Pakistani relations,
"Pentagon hawks ... have, for the last year, been pressuring Bush and Rice to
unleash Special Operations units inside Pakistan...," and agreement may be part
of Rice's conversion; she had no hesitation in trying to stage a coup in Gaza
that the Neocon faction detested (and exposed).
   Suggestions by the USG that it could resort to unilateral intervention against
Al Qaeda and the Taliban in Pakistan are generating increasing anxiety in the
Pakistani press and among government officials, who warn that such an action
could backfire [NYT]. Obama said last Sunday that if the US had "actionable
intelligence against high-value Al Qaeda targets, and the Pakistani government
was unwilling to go after those targets," the US should strike. Obama has been
viewed warily in Pakistan because of similar previous comments.

   In Afghanistan, the US military says that it’s investigating three separate
air strikes that have killed an estimated seventy-eight civilians this month.
More than half of the dead were women and children, including forty-seven killed
at a wedding party in the eastern province of Nangarhar. UN figures show
killings of civilians are up 40 percent over the same period last year. [DN]
   In seeking funds in 2007 for construction of a $62 million ammunition storage
facility at Bagram Air Base, Admiral William J. Fallon, then the commander of
the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), referred to Bagram as "the centerpiece for
the CENTCOM Master Plan for future access to and operations in Central Asia."
   Obama urged Europe on Thursday to stand by the United States in bringing
stability to Afghanistan [Reuters] Obama to Europe: "The Afghans need our troops
and your troops" [F24]. "Obama demanded more war in Afghanistan and ... an
invasion of Pakistan" [John Pilger]

   [B] IRAN. Obama has said the world must prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear
weapon.  During a two-day visit to Israel and Palestinian territories, Mr Obama
warned that a nuclear-armed Iran would pose a grave threat to world security. "A
nuclear Iran would pose a grave threat and the world must prevent Iran from
obtaining a nuclear weapon," he said.  If elected, Mr Obama said he would take
"no options off the table" in dealing with the Islamic republic.

   [C] IRAQ. The total cost of the Iraq war is approaching the Vietnam War's
expenditure, while spending for military operations after 9/11 has exceeded it.
The new report by the Congressional Research Service estimates the U.S. has
spent USD 648b on Iraq war operations, putting it in range with the USD 686b, in
2008 dollars, spent on the Vietnam War, the second most expensive war behind
World War II. Since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the U.S. has doled
out almost USD 860b for military operations in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere
around the world.
   On Monday, Democratic Senator Jim Webb of Virginia released a memo showing
Defense Secretary Robert Gates questioning the use of private military firms. In
a letter to Joint Chiefs of Staff Chair Adm. Mike Mullen, Gates asked, “Why have
we come to rely on private contractors to provide combat or combat-related
security training for our forces?” [DN]
   Speaking in Jordan, Obama defended his plan to redeploy troops but stressed he
would still maintain a large US presence in Iraq.

   [D] ISRAEL.  The US security coordinator for Israel-Palestine is
preparing an extremely critical report of Israel's policies in the Palestinian
territories, Ha'aretz reports. Gen, James Jones was appointed by SOS Rice
following the Annapolis peace conference last November. His assignment was to
draft a strategic plan to facilitate stabilization of the security situation.
Some U.S. officials are demanding that the full report not be published, so as
not to create a storm in advance of the presidential elections. General Jones is
insisting that his full report be published.
   Obama also visited Ramallah for a low-key visit with Palestinian officials. He
did not visit the Gaza Strip, where Israel has recently intensified its
blockade. In Gaza, Hamas spokesperson Sami Abu Zuhri said Obama is offering no
alternative to Bush administration policy in the region:  “These positions mean
that there is no minimal hope to any change in the US foreign policy towards the
Arab-Israeli conflict. And this means that we are in front of one American
policy, and the Palestinian people should depend on their own and on the Arab
and Muslim world in facing this opposing American policy, which both the
Democratic and Republican parties are adopting."

[5] AFRICA. Last week Refugees International says U.S. aid to Africa is becoming
increasingly militarized, resulting in less attention to development projects
that could lead to greater stability, the Washington Post reports. The report
warns the U.S. Africa Command is allowing the Defense Department to usurp funds
traditionally directed by the State Department and U.S. aid agencies. Defense
Secretary Gates warned this week against a "militarization" of U.S. foreign
policy and said the State Department should lead U.S. engagement with other
countries ... The Pentagon, which controlled about 3 percent of official aid
money a decade ago, now controls 22 percent, while the U.S. Agency for
International Development's share has declined from 65 percent to 40 percent,
according to the 56-page report.

[6] EUROPE. UKPM Gordon Brown's Labour Party was defeated in Thursday's poll in
the Glasgow East constituency, which Labour won with a huge 13,500 majority at
the 2005 election. The pro-independence Scottish National Party (SNP) scored a
dramatic victory by a slim 365-vote margin in Britain's third-largest city. The
result, following a series of other recent Labour election defeats, will
strengthen expectations that Labour's 11 years in power may be nearing an end
and that it could lose the next general election, due by 2010.
   Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is in Russia to discuss arms deals and energy
policies with his counterpart Dmitry Medvedev. On Tuesday, Medvedev announced
that Russian companies, Gazprom, Lukoil and TNK-BP, would work in Venezuela.

[7] LATIN AMERICA. A former Haitian death squad leader is on trial in New York
for mortgage fraud. Brooklyn prosecutors accuse Emmanuel “Toto” Constant of
helping to orchestrate a scheme to flip properties at inflated prices by selling
them to so-called straw buyers. Human rights groups say Emmanuel “Toto” Constant
ordered killings and torture in the Caribbean nation in the 1990s, before
fleeing to the United States.
   In Argentina, a former army commander has been sentenced to life in prison.
Luciano Benjamin Menendez was convicted on charges of kidnapping, torturing and
killing left-wing dissidents during Argentina’s seven-year dictatorship
beginning in 1976. Some 30,000 people are believed to have died under the
Argentine dictatorship.

[8] ECONOMY.  Congress approved far-reaching legislation to help ease the U.S.
housing crisis. The housing bill would authorize the Treasury Department to
invest billions of dollars in troubled mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie
Mac to protect them from collapse, and it includes a plan that could help
hundreds of thousands of homeowners avoid foreclosure. "This is the most
important piece of housing legislation in a generation," said Senate banking
committee Chairman Christopher Dodd. a mere 45 Republicans voted for the measure
that passed 272 to 152. (Johnson voted no; Kaptur was one of 3 Dems voting no.)
   In other news, the hourly federal minimum wage increased Thursday to $6.59.
The 75-cent increase is the second of three enacted under a 2007 law that saw
the first minimum wage hike in more than a decade. Adjusted for inflation, the
minimum wage remains lower in real terms than it was both ten and forty years ago.

[9] MEDIA.  A Republican lawmaker has introduced a measure to ban several
Iranian television channels, including the news network Press TV. House
Resolution 1308 would label each channel a “Specially Designated Global
Terrorist.” Co-sponsor Gus Bilirakis says the networks broadcast “incitement to
violence” against the United States.
   Headline: “[Columnist Robert] Novak Does Harm on Dramatically Smaller Scale
Than Usual, and Media Gets Interested.” (He hit a pedestrian in Washington.)
   The New York Times suffered a 16.4 per cent decrease in June advertising
revenues and warned on Wednesday that the effects of high oil prices, a slowing
economy and the housing crisis were likely to weigh on its prospects for some
time.  It didn't mention that no one believes it any more.

[10] CONGRESS. the House Judiciary Committee held a hearing Friday on Congress
member Dennis Kucinich’s measure to impeach President Bush. The single article
of impeachment accuses Bush of deceiving Congress to authorize the invasion of
Iraq. The witness list included Kucinich, New York Congress member Maurice
Hinchey, former Utah Mayor Rocky Anderson, and former Associate Deputy Attorney
General Bruce Fein.  But the House leadership dassen't call it "an impeachment
hearing."

[11] COURTS. The first US war crimes military commission trial since World War
II opened on Monday at Guantanamo. Osama bin Laden’s driver, Salim Hamdan,
pleaded not guilty. Defense attorney Jon Jackson criticized the proceedings
because Hamdan could still be jailed, no matter the trial’s outcome: “Mr. Hamdan
or any accused at Guantanamo, but for right now, Mr. Hamdan, if he is convicted,
he will stay at Guantanamo Bay. If he is acquitted completely, he’ll stay at
Guantanamo Bay. And if he’s convicted and he gets, let’s say, time served, he’s
going to stay at Guantanamo Bay, because the government has stated, through
their prosecutor, Mr. Murphy, that regardless of what outcome in this case,
they’re allowed to detain Mr. Hamdan for the duration of the global war on
terrorism.”
   Osama bin Laden's driver knew the target of the 4th hijacked jetliner in the
Sept. 11 attacks, a prosecutor said on Tuesday in an attempt to draw a link
between Salim Hamdan and the al Qaeda leadership in the first Guantanamo war
crimes trial.  Hamdan's lawyer said in opening statements that the Yemeni, held
for nearly seven years before his trial, was just a paid employee of the
fugitive al Qaeda leader, a driver in the motor pool who never joined the
militant group or plotted attacks on America.  But prosecutor Timothy Stone told
the six-member jury of U.S. military officers who will decide Hamdan's guilt or
innocence that Hamdan had inside knowledge of the 2001 attacks on the United
States because he overheard a conversation between bin Laden and his deputy,
Ayman al-Zawahiri.  "If they hadn't shot down the fourth plane it would've hit
the dome," Stone, a Navy officer, said in his opening remarks.
   Attorney General Michael Mukasey has called on Congress to reaffirm the right
of the President to indefinitely detain so-called enemy combatants by declaring
an official war against al-Qaeda. Mukasey’s request came just weeks after the
Supreme Court ruled prisoners at Guantanamo can challenge their imprisonment in
US courts. The Center For Constitutional Rights accused Mukasey of trying to
sidestep the court ruling. The American Civil Liberties Union said Mukasey’s
proposal would subvert the right of habeas corpus and represent an enormous
executive branch power grab [DN].
   Last week, a federal appeals court ruled that President Bush can order the
indefinite jailing of civilians imprisoned in the United States. The
five-to-four decision effectively reverses last year’s ruling that the
administration cannot label US residents “enemy combatants” and jail them
indefinitely without charge. The ruling came in the case of the only person
still held as an enemy combatant on US soil. Ali al-Marri was arrested six years
ago at his home in Peoria, Illinois, where he lived with his wife and five
children. He was initially charged with credit card fraud and lying to federal
agents. But in June 2003, President Bush declared him an enemy combatant and
ordered him into military custody. He has spent the last four years in solitary
confinement at a Navy brig in Charleston, South Carolina. Al-Marri’s attorney
Jonathan Hafetz said, “This decision means the president can pick up any person
in the country -- citizen or legal resident -- and lock them up for years
without the most basic safeguard in the Constitution, the right to a criminal
trial.”
   Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic will appear before ICTFY, the
International Criminal tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, established by the
UN.  When will GWB appear before ICTUS?

[12] POLLS. Conventional wisdom holds that U.S. service members – including the
500,000 currently serving overseas – are a disproportionately Republican and
conservative group. But that assumption is challenged by a unique survey of the
U.S. Army done in 2004 by Maj. Jason Dempsey, then of West Point, and Prof.
Robert Shapiro of Columbia University, via Columbia’s Institute for Social and
Economic Research and Policy.  Their data show that the officer corps indeed is
disproportionately conservative and Republican – but that enlisted service
members, who make up the bulk of the population, are not. They’re essentially no
more conservative, and no more apt to be Republicans, than the U.S. population
as a whole. Fewer are Democrats; more, independents.
   The headline atop Saturday’s op-ed page was a hallowed standby for the NYT:
“Americans Move to the Middle” ... There was one problem: the headline
totally distorted the data.  On foreign policy:
   – “The Iraq war has made the U.S. less safe from terrorism.” 37% in 2003 and
49% four years later.
   – “The U.S. should not attack another country unless it has been attacked
first.” 51% in Oct. 2002 and 57% in 2006
   – “The government is spending too much for national defense and military
purposes.” 19% in Feb. 2001 and 44% in Feb. 2008.
   (From "Americans Move Left, New York Times Misses It," by Jeff Cohen.)

[13] PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN. The 4 August 2008 edition of The Nation carries an
article by Christopher Hayes titled "MoveOn at Ten." Here's John Stauber, of the
Center for Media & Democracy, on the subject: “MoveOn is not a movement although
it wants to be perceived as one. It is a brilliant and effective fundraising and
marketing machine, but 95% or more of their so-called members ignore any
particular email appeal. These 3.2 million people on the MoveOn email list are
the object of marketing and fundraising campaigns, but they have absolutely no
meaningful or democratic control over the decisions of organization, there is no
accountability from the leadership to the MoveOn list members, and those of us
on the list are unable to organize and communicate amongst ourselves within the
list because it can’t be accessed by the grassroots at the local or state level.
MoveOn, the Democracy Alliance, and the various liberal think tanks that have
arisen to fight the Right are clearly a force able to raise millions of dollars
for Democratic candidates and launch PR and messaging campaigns, but none of
them are about empowering a populist grassroots uprising.”
   McCain actually seems to be doing better in the obsessive election polls, in
spite of the obsessive media coverage of Obama's foreign trip (where the Daily
Show's Jon Stewart had the best line: “Of course, after a quick meet-and-greet
with King Abdullah, Obama was off to Israel, where he made a quick stop at the
manger in Bethlehem where he was born.”)
   But the polls show McCain making gains in the so-called “battleground states.”
A WP/WSJ survey even claims that a “Majority of Voters in Colorado, Michigan,
Minnesota and Wisconsin Favor Keeping Troops in Iraq,” and Wisconsin Democrats
on Friday ousted a delegate to their national convention for saying she would
vote for McCain, not Obama in November.
   So the Pepsi/Coke product differentiation of the permitted presidential
candidates continues, and it's only in an interview with a foreign TV station
that we hear Cindy Sheehan's observation that
   “I don't think there is any difference between killing innocent people in Iraq
and killing innocent people in Afghanistan. The people of Afghanistan and indeed
the government of Afghanistan had nothing to do with 9/11 and they were willing
to give up Osama bin Laden to an international tribunal if the Unites States
gave them the proper evidence, the proper warrants and the US refused to do
that.  Now, two countries are destroyed. Thousands of American families have
been devastated and over a million Iraqis and Afghans have been killed and or
are refugees and their country is destroyed and I think somebody needs to be
held accountable for that...
   “We found out last December that Nancy Pelosi was briefed on George Bush's
torture methods and what our country was doing to innocent human beings;
waterboarding, the stress positions, the torture prisons -- Nancy Pelosi and Jay
Rockefeller in the Senate, and both of them have come out strongly against
impeachment, and we believe it is because Congress is complicit in many of the
crimes, especially the leadership in Congress ... the two party system ... is so
corrupt that people who are in high leadership positions can't do anything to
resist the system because they are a part of it.”

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