One-Hundred Thousand Casualties a Year

Posted on May 10, 2008 by RagBlog


Real Clear Numbers: 101,000 U.S. Casualties a Year
By Alexander Cockburn / May 11, 2008

A friend of mine who’s a librarian was recently reviewing job applicants. Asked his qualifications in library skills, one man put “machine-gunner.” He was a vet who’d served in Falluja. The library is in a state school here in the US that, last fall, had 650 such vets enrolled. The young man got the job but soon became irked by what he saw as the trivial preoccupations of his colleagues. He applied for a job at a nearby police department. All over the country police departments are advertising for Iraq vets. Three-quarters of the way through the hiring process, the PD signaled to him that things looked good. Then, in rapid succession, three Iraq vets in the area were involved in lethal episodes: two murders and one suicide. The PD immediately called the young man in for a second psychological evaluation, then nixed him for the job. He’s 24. He can’t find anything satisfying to do and is thinking of re-enlisting. He’s against the war.

Those violent episodes are just part of bringing the war home. It’ll be active on the home front for years to come. Just under one in three—31 percent—of those who’ve been deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan suffer from a brain injury or stress disorder or a mix of both these conditions.

On April 17 the RAND Corporation released a study of service members and veterans back home from Iraq and Afghanistan. The 500-page study was titled Invisible Wounds of War: Psychological and Cognitive Injuries, Their Consequences, and Services to Assist Recovery. It was sponsored by a grant from the California Community Foundation and done by twenty-five researchers from RAND Health and the RAND National Security Research Division. From last August to January, the team conducted a phone survey with 1,965 service members, reservists and veterans in twenty-four areas across the country with high concentrations of those people. Some had done more than one tour.

The Associated Press and major newspapers outlined the RAND report’s astounding numbers and then the story slid from view, which is a very bad thing, since the report disclosed in compelling numbers that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are steadily filling every American community with psychologically and physically mutilated victims of war. Many of them will endure lives saturated with physical pain and mental turmoil or confusion. A proportion will be prone to alcoholism, drug use and violence, sometimes deadly. Their partners and their children will suffer all measure of scarring.

Pentagon data show that more than 1.6 million military personnel have deployed to the conflicts since the war in Afghanistan began in late 2001. The RAND study put the percentage of those suffering from PTSD and depression at 18.5 percent, thus calculating that approximately 300,000 current and former service members were suffering from those problems at the time of its survey.

Some 320,000 service members, about 19 percent, according to RAND, may have experienced a possible traumatic brain injury while in a war zone. These injuries have ranged from concussions to severe head wounds. Julian Barnes, in the Los Angeles Times, pointed out in his April 18 story that “a chief difference is that in Iraq and Afghanistan all service members, not just combat infantry, are exposed to roadside bombs and civilian deaths. That distinction subjects a much wider swath of military personnel to the stresses of war.”

“We call it ‘360-365’ combat,” Paul Sullivan, executive director of Veterans for Common Sense, told Barnes. “What that means is veterans are completely surrounded by combat for one year. Nearly all of our soldiers are under fire, or being subjected to mortar rounds or roadside bombs, or witnessing the deaths of civilians or fellow soldiers.”

The RAND report says that about 7 percent suffered from both a probable brain injury and current PTSD or major depression. Only 43 percent reported ever being evaluated by a physician for their head injuries. Only 53 percent of service members with PTSD or depression sought help over the past year. Various reasons were offered to RAND researchers for not getting help, including worries about the side effects of medication, reliance on family and friends to help them with the problem and fear that seeking care might damage career prospects.

The news stories tended to lay stress on the fact that almost half of those with brain injuries or suffering from depression and stress disorder were seeking help. As Terri Tanielian, the project’s co-leader and a researcher at RAND, told the Associated Press, “There is a major health crisis facing those men and women who have served our nation in Iraq and Afghanistan.”

Missing amid the brief stir aroused by this devastating report was any adequate editorial commentary, or inquiry to political candidates, about the obvious fact that every month that US troops remain deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan adds inexorably to this terrible total. But discretion is the order of the day, exemplified by Dr. Ira Katz, top mental health official at the Department of Veterans Affairs, who, as CBS News reported on February 13, e-mailed an aide, “Shh! Our suicide prevention coordinators are identifying about 1000 suicide attempts per month among veterans we see in our medical facilities.”

Here’s how the figures add up, just for Americans. The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have thus far produced 300,000 psychological casualties, 320,000 brain injury casualties, plus 35,000 (probably understated) officially reported “normal” casualties. This adds up to 655,000 US casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan, an average of just under 101,000 Americans killed or wounded every year since the wars began. If the idea of 101,000 casualties for every extra year in Iraq and Afghanistan gets out and infects the voting public, imagine the effect on the currently torpid national debate over leaving in five years versus fifteen years!

Source / CounterPunch

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Wall Street Always Rides a Wave Until It Crashes

Posted on May 10, 2008 by RagBlog

Characterizing the Subprime Mortgage Crisis

Will the Mortgage Industry Pay for Its Crimes?
By Danny Schechter / May 10, 2008

There is a time in the life of every writer when you find yourself fearing that you have become a robo call phone machine — repeating the same message over and over and with diminishing results.

That’s how I felt after 8 months of silence after labeling the credit crisis a “subcrime” scandal, lashing out at the fraudulent activity at its core and calling for the investigation and prosecution of wrongdoers. Almost no media outlets accepted this way of framing the problem, although as usual, the British press was ahead of its American cousins in putting the blame on the bankers, not the borrowers.

When the FBI announced a probe of 14 mortgage companies, I thought that finally some investigators were on the case. But then, word leaked that they were only going after small fish even as big banks reported losses in the billions.

Bank robberies have always been up the FBI’s alley, and after all, this is a bank heist case, perhaps one of the biggest in history. Only it was the banks that were doing the heisting.

The New York Times reported May 5th that a new criminal investigation was finally underway.

A G-Man explained anonymously: “The latest inquiry is broader and deeper. This is a look at the mortgage industry across the board, and it has gotten a lot more momentum in recent weeks because of the banks’ earnings shortfall.”

At last, institutional fraud may be on the agenda. At last, deeper questions are being asked. There have been some Congressional hearings but so far none have risen to a Watergate-type level prompting in-depth investigations fueled by subpoenas.

Slowly, oh so slowly, news outlets are recognizing this is a big crime story, one they missed for years, or at least since 2002 when subprime securities started being packaged for sale.

Reports the Washington Independent:

“As loans made to borrowers with decent credit begin to fail at a surprisingly rapid rate, it’s becoming clear that widespread fraud helped support the entire mortgage system — from borrowers who lied on their loans, to brokers who encouraged it, to lenders who misled some low-income borrowers, to the many lenders, investors and ratings agencies that conveniently and deliberately looked the other way as profits rolled in.

Despite its widespread role, fraud hasn’t yet been at the forefront of proposed rescue plans, which center on refinancing people out of loans now resetting to higher rates.”

Why would reputable bankers and respected investment houses engage in these dishonest activities? The short answer: money, and lots of it.

Read the rest here. / ZNet / AlterNet

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We Are Settling for a Child’s Bargain

Posted on May 10, 2008 by RagBlog

Even the symbols of Amerikkkan politics are child’s toys. When will we find the courage to end the cycle of destructive, fear-based politics and throw out the people who wish it upon us? When will we grow up?

Richard Jehn / The Rag Blog


America’s Difficult Adolescence
by Carol Davidek-Waller

Nothing shows the immaturity of our nation more than the way we select our leaders. The majority of our power rests on this simple act of citizenship yet we permit it to be treated like an episode of American Idol.

We allow entrenched power to narrow our choices and even determine which qualities are important for the men and women we grant the power to make decisions over our lives.

In the sixties and seventies, populist leaders were assassinated outright. Today their careers are destroyed by a White House spy network that would have been the envy of the Kremlin, as well as their commandos in the media who host right-wing mullahs, hypocritically fanning the fires of outrage of a 15th-century morality.

Americans may be great innovators, but we do not produce many great leaders. In the decades since the Kennedys and King, there has been a dearth. Can we really afford to throw away those we do have because they do not live up to a moral code that is at odds with human biology and that most of us fail to live up to at some point in our lives?

The same right-wing tarts who preach an America as a Christian nation experience amnesia when confronted with living Christian values; love, tolerance and forgiveness.

These people do not deserve our trust. Their concerns do not reflect true spirituality but rather the pursuit of personal power. They take an unholy pleasure in destroying anyone who stands in their way.

No one but a naïve child, mesmerized by their frightening single-mindedness, would surrender their future to them.

The US Constitution makes no mention of political parties, yet today they wield far more power than any group should in a true representative democracy. They are private corporations who operate corrupt machines that shut out voters, steal elections and stand between us and the candidates we need and deserve. Yet we continue to give them our money and our energy, even though they betray us time and again.

War is an anathema to ordinary citizens. Our children, our brothers and our sisters are stolen from us and their lives thrown away on useless military adventures decade after decade. We pay crippling taxes to fund these debacles and endure ruinous inflation. We still haven’t learned to turn our backs on those who would lead us toward disaster. We listen when the client press laughs at Dennis Kucinich’s proposed Department of Peace.

A just society cannot exist unless there is economic justice. We allow a system of legal bribery to buy the services of our representatives. We shake our heads at the personal indiscretion of men like Eliot Spitzer and allow him to be driven out of office while the real evil-doers who they are pursuing–the men and women who abused their power, profited from the housing bubble and left taxpayers footing the bill–go free.

We have to stop thinking that the gross injustices that exist in our society are not our problem. They are our problem and, to the extent that we don’t act, our fault.

We are settling for a child’s bargain. Everyone is bigger and more powerful than we are. We sell them our vote for the promise of safety and security that is never delivered. And why should it be? The powerful only retain their privilege by keeping us fearful of each other and our global neighbors, and by insisting the way to solve our problems is to annihilate anyone that stands in our way.

We cannot continue to wander in a perpetual springtime of childhood and hope to live our lives in dignity. If we do not grow up and take on our adult responsibilities right now, the lives of our children and grandchildren will be unspeakable.

Source / Eat the State

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The High Cost of Waste in Our Society

Posted on May 10, 2008 by RagBlog


Food waste on ‘staggering’ scale
Axis Commentary / May 10, 2008

Editor’s Note: This is a report from a survey carried out in England and Wales. The BBC report does not mention this in the context of famine now being predicted in some developing countries due to rising food and fuel prices. This is the first survey of its kind ever conducted. Considering that the report is only referent to a small portion of Europe, we have to ask how much food is being wasted every day, worldwide. 3 billion people are still living on a dollar a day in a world dominated by the capitalist model. This is an incredible indictment of the world food pricing and distribution system and hence capitalism itself. – LMB

People are needlessly throwing away 3.6m tonnes of food each year in England and Wales, research suggests.

The Waste & Resources Action Programme (WRAP) found that salad, fruit and bread were most commonly wasted and 60% of all dumped food was untouched.

The study analysed the waste disposed of by 2,138 households.

Environment Minister Joan Ruddock said the findings were “staggering” at a time of global food shortages and WRAP added it was an environmental issue.

‘Value of food’

The study found that £9bn of avoidable food waste was disposed of in England and Wales each year.

It is mostly food that could have been consumed if it had been better stored or managed, or had not been left uneaten on a plate.

Much of that food waste goes into landfill rather than into council food disposal and composting programmes, it said.

“There are climate change costs to all of us of growing, processing, packaging, transporting, and refrigerating food that only ends up in the bin.” – Joan Ruddock, Environment Minister

Based on the data for England and Wales, WRAP estimated that householders across the UK throw away £10.2bn of avoidable food waste every year.

Using the same extrapolation, they also estimated the average UK household needlessly throws away 18% of all food purchased. Families with children throw away 27%.

The study also suggested £1bn worth of food wasted in the UK was still “in date”.

Nearly a quarter, in terms of cost, was disposed of because the “use by” or “best before” date had expired.

Liz Goodwin, chief executive of WRAP, said food waste had “a significant environmental impact.

“What shocked me the most was the cost of our food waste at a time of rising food bills, and generally a tighter pull on our purse strings,” Ms Goodwin said.

“It highlights that this is an economic and social issue, as well as about how much we understand the value of our food.”

Yoghurts and chickens

The study also found that:

* Bakery goods made up 19%, by weight, of all avoidable food waste. Vegetables contributed 18%.

* Meat and fish also made up a large proportion – 18% – of the total money wasted on food. WRAP said 5,500 whole chickens were thrown away each day in the UK.

* “Mixed foods” like ready meals made up 21% of the total cost of waste, with 440,000 thrown away each day.

* The two most significantly wasted foods that could have been eaten were potatoes and bread

* Yoghurt was a commonly abandoned product, with an estimated 1.3m unopened pots disposed of each day.

WRAP receives government funding from England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

The body says The Food We Waste survey is the first of its kind in the world, surveying both household habits and the actual waste they throw away.

The survey interviewed 2,715 households in England and Wales and several weeks later, analysed the rubbish of 2,138 of them.

Ms Ruddock said: “This is costing consumers three times over.

“Not only do they pay hard-earned money for food they don’t eat, there is also the cost of dealing with the waste this creates.

“And there are climate change costs to all of us of growing, processing, packaging, transporting, and refrigerating food that only ends up in the bin.”

READ THE REPORT: The Food We Waste [1.44MB, PDF format]

Source / Axis of Logic / BBC

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Made in the USA?

Posted on May 10, 2008 by RagBlog

Let’s remember that the USA is the biggest arms manufacturer in the world. Using nothing but Las Vegas odds, the likelihood that all those “Iranian” arms being found in Iraq actually came from the USA is rather high. “[T]he US Congressional Research Service estimates that of arms transfers to developing countries in 2003, around 89% came from just 5 members of the G8: the US, Russia, France, the UK and Germany.” (‘Conventional Arms Transfers to Developing Nations, 1996-2003’ by Richard F. Grimmett, Congressional Research Service, 2004.) Of those five, the US exports more than 50% of their total arms exports.

As we see more and more examples of the US press lying outright to us as a result of Pentagon and other US government prompting, perhaps we should keep some basic facts in mind. Perhaps all this crowing about Iranian arms is nothing more than diversionary bullshit to keep us from looking where the guilt is greatest.

Richard Jehn / The Rag Blog

For more about world arms trade, click here.

IRAQ: The elusive Iranian weapons
By Tina Susman / May 10, 2008

BAGHDAD — There was something interesting missing from Maj. Gen. Kevin Bergner’s introductory remarks to journalists at his regular news briefing in Baghdad on Wednesday: the word “Iran,” or any form of it. It was especially striking as Bergner, the U.S. military spokesman here, announced the extraordinary list of weapons and munitions that have been uncovered in recent weeks since fighting erupted between Iraqi and U.S. security forces and Shiite militiamen.

Among other things, Bergner cited 20,000 “items of ammunition, explosives and weapons” reported by Iraqi forces in the central city of Karbala; an additional Karbala cache containing 570 explosive devices, nine mortars, four anti-aircraft missiles, and 45 RPGs; and in the southern city of Basra alone, 39 mortar tubes, 1,800 mortars and artillery rounds, 600 rockets, and 387 roadside bombs. Read his remarks here.

Not once did Bergner point the finger at Iran for any of these weapons and munitions, which is a striking change from just a couple of weeks ago when U.S. military officials here and at the Pentagon were saying that caches found in Basra in particular had revealed Iranian-made arms manufactured as recently as this year. They say the majority of rockets being fired at U.S. bases, including Baghdad’s Green Zone, are launched by militiamen receiving training, arms and other aid from Iran.

Today brought fresh attacks, including an unusual barrage fired at a military base used by British and U.S. forces in Basra, in southern Iraq. A statement said “several” rockets hit the base during the afternoon, and that initial reports indicated two civilian contractors were killed, and four soldiers and four civilians injured.

It was the first reported attack of its kind since March 27 in Basra.

Iraqi officials also have accused Iran of meddling in violence and had echoed the U.S. accusations of new Iranian-made arms being found in Basra. But neither the United States nor Iraq has displayed any of the alleged arms to the public or press, and lately it is looking less likely they will. U.S. military officials said it was up to the Iraqis to show the items; Iraqi officials lately have backed off the accusations against Iran.

A plan to show some alleged Iranian-supplied explosives to journalists last week in Karbala and then destroy them was canceled after the United States realized none of them was from Iran. A U.S. military spokesman attributed the confusion to a misunderstanding that emerged after an Iraqi Army general in Karbala erroneously reported the items were of Iranian origin.

When U.S. explosives experts went to investigate, they discovered they were not Iranian after all.

Iran, meanwhile, continues to seethe after an Iraqi delegation went to Tehran last week to confront it with the accusations. It has denied the accusations, and it says as long as U.S. forces continue to take part in military action in Iraq’s Shiite strongholds, it won’t consider holding further talks with Washington on how to stabilize Iraq.

Source / Los Angeles Times

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my sweet sixteen

Posted on May 10, 2008 by Thorne Dreyer
Fons Heijnsbroek.


had a telepathic moment with my best gal Mir a couple days ago where

she came up beside me as I knelt on the floor hand-vacuuming her

sleeping pad and I looked to my right and there was her beautiful face

six inches from mine with her smile beaming and even moreso in her eyes

looking at me, and in a deep soul-stirring earth-moving kind of moment

aha I realized my fresh-born puppy was now not only as old as would be

my great-grandmother but that she now embodies and personifies the

wisdom and compassion and trust, and intimacy, that can only be

acquired through a lifetime of closeness and challenges, of adventures

and lazy sleepy afternoons, of scary threatening moments and

exhilarating play, through the death of loved ones and thrill of new

friends, and that she was with awareness and with her presence making

all those things available to me, all of her lifetime of devotion and

experience, in the form of love, love for life and love for her dear

friend and loyal pack member, and that if I would see her this way,

realize her uniqueness, my own uniqueness, and that of our partnership,

and understand life this way – that life is conscious and casual and

cosmic and earthy all at the same time, and infinitely deep with the

joys of the moment, and that we have all this time given to us and that

we deserve to see it and feel it fully as it exists and not in some

stereotyped conception of pet or owner or number of legs or color, or

season or fortune, that there is just now, only now, as we are – well,

just try it, she seemed to say just by being here, being here with me.

my sweet sixteen

Larry Piltz
(for Star)
April 23, 2008

Indian Cove / Austin, Texas

The Rag Blog / Posted May 10, 2008

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Happy Mother’s Day, Texas-Style

Posted on May 10, 2008 by Thorne Dreyer

My neighbor took these in her back yard – here’s what she said:

Yesterday while I was sitting in the back yard reading, four baby armadillos came up from the canyon behind our house. They were digging and chomping up grubs and were totally oblivious to me. I photographed them from just a couple feet away as they dug and chomped.

It was just amazing. We’ve had the occasional armadillo in the yard before, and I’ve even managed to get a good photo of one before. But I’ve never seen babies before, and never had the chance to be so close without disturbing.

Fontaine Maverick / May 10, 2008 / The Rag Blog

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Let’s Hold ‘Em Accountable for the Propaganda

Posted on May 10, 2008 by RagBlog


Why Big Media Needs Propaganda to Survive
by Megan Tady / May 9, 2008

The mainstream media are as likely to report on Pentagon propaganda — and thus, themselves — as President Bush is likely to cede that “mission accomplished” was poor phrasing. That is, it ain’t ever gonna happen.

The mainstream media have instituted a news blackout on the New York Times exposé, casting a dark cloak over the story with the wave of a magician’s wand. Perhaps with this media sleight-of-hand, we’ll soon forget that that this story ever existed.

To avoid being duped, we need to understand not just why the mainstream media are mum on this scandal, but how they created the scandal in the first place. Just how does propaganda creep unnoticed into everyday reporting?

If you haven’t heard already, just six corporations control most of what we read, watch and listen to every day. These corporate giants are motivated entirely by profit, not public service. So as Big Media get bigger, gobbling up more newspapers, radio stations and TV networks through consolidation, our media system actually gets smaller. Corporate execs have gutted newsrooms, shuttered foreign bureaus and slashed spending on investigative reporting.

Staff-strapped media outlets rely increasingly on packaged punditry to fill the void left by investigative reporting and informed debate about the nation’s most important issues.

The “C” in consolidation also stands for “cookie-cutter” journalism, with most reporters falling in line to deliver the official view of the news. Getting a diversity of voices in our news is hardly even a putative goal these days. C also stands for “cheap”: Real reporting is expensive compared to staged shouting matches.

Corporate owners have a vested interest in keeping courageous and intelligent reporting a journalism-school dream, especially when it comes to the Iraq war. After all, General Electric doesn’t want its reporters at MSNBC to question the war while it’s busy churning out Apache helicopters. It turns out that everyone — from the military analysts espousing Pentagon rhetoric to the corporate news owners to the government itself — have shared interests in leading the American people to war.

To consolidate their control, Big Media owners like Rupert Murdoch have cozied up to Washington, deploying legions of lobbyists and lawyers to craft U.S. communications policy, while doling out millions of dollars in campaign contributions to squelch any challenge from elected officials.

Hence, propaganda, misinformation and government spin become the daily news norm — so normal, in fact, that many in the news punditocracy are having trouble understanding what all the hoopla over propaganda is about. Isn’t this the way news is “made”?

There are still many hard-working, well-meaning journalists in the mainstream media producing quality journalism. Unfortunately, the corporate leash let’s very few reporters stray so far. It’s becoming increasingly difficult for most to do their jobs.
Weak and lightheaded, the junk news we now call journalism is now entirely incapable of fulfilling its mission to hold government and corporate actors accountable, to report in the public’s interest, and to critique itself for wrongdoing.

There’s already a concerted effort from activists and the blogosphere to urge Congress to investigate the Pentagon’s propaganda scheme, and Congress has responded.

But the problems run much deeper. Right now, there’s a “resolution of disapproval” before Congress that, if passed, would take a first step toward stopping the media consolidation that has lead American journalism down the propaganda path.

The resolution would overturn an earlier decision by the Federal Communications Commission to relax the longstanding limits on how much media one company can own in a single town. These limits preserve diverse and local perspectives in a news world where consolidated media increasingly speaks with one official voice.

Yes, we need to hold the government accountable for the crime of propaganda. But we also need to roll back consolidation so that new voices can counter the propaganda that has seeped into the newsrooms of the mainstream press.

Megan Tady is a campaign coordinator with Free Press (http://www.freepress.net/), the national, nonpartisan media reform group.

Source / Common Dreams

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A Rag Blogger Conversation about the Democratic Party and Radical Change

Posted on May 9, 2008 by Thorne Dreyer

Posted May 9, 2008 / The Rag Blog
Updated May 10, 2008

[The following is a conversation among Ragbloggers from a left point of view: about the viability of the Democratic Party and the two-party system, about the corporate influence in today’s electoral politics, about the tactic of working for impeachment of George W. Bush, and about Barack Obama and the option of supporting third party candidates. We invite you to add your comments to this discussion at the end of this post.]

The first comment comes from Doug Zachary:

What the Democrats are indicating by their lack of interest in impeaching Bush or in ending the Occupation of Iraq is not only that they have been committed to the war against the Arab world from the beginning, they are also revealing their approval of and commitment to neoliberal economics. They, too, are completely behind the real purpose of the invasion and occupation of Iraq. They, too support the preservation of Bremer’s 100 Laws, the “laws” intended to ensure the domination of the region by US capital. (OK Mariann, International Capital … but with a definite bias, in this particular instance, for US corporations).

Don’t we recall when Bill Clinton turned out the new Robber Barons on Latin America? My view of that regime was from the perspective of the Zapatistas, the Comite Fronterizo de Obreras (Border Commitee of Working Women) and other elements of the proto-union movement in the Maquiladora industries along the US-Mexico border. Has Mr. Obama ever been heard to mention a possible rollback of the WTO/IMF structures that are squeezing the life out of the underdeveloped world? Hell NO, because Globalism is a Repugnican/Demokratic agenda.

Given the corporate ownership of both major political parties and their domination of the US electoral process, it is hard to get out to vote in any case, but I think I will again cast my vote for the Green this year. I heard Bob Jensen say the other night that our best strategy for the near future is to work for the collapse of the Democratic Party, so that political space is created for an honest progressive party. I must agree. If someone can persuade me that we can get there by voting for one of these “democratic” candidates, then I would do so.

Doug Zachery

Brother Doug Zachery et al,

What you are saying is exactly what I said for decades. To quote myself, we have the best democracy that money can buy. We have a system of legal bribery called “campaign contributions”. The basic argument was that the cost of running such an extended campaign nationwide was so great that candidates had to become beholden to capitalist ruling class sources in order to run.

Campaign reforms have somewhat modified this picture. The internet changed it more. Now, individuals are restricted to giving no more than $2300 per candidate per election cycle. Corporations are prohibited from giving money directly to candidates. Hence, “bundlers” within corporations hit up lots of the upper level management for the maximum. The following are Barack Obama’s 20 largest contributors in order:

Goldman Sachs, University of California, UBS Ag, J.P. Morgan Chase & Co, Citigroup Inc., National Amusements Inc., Lehman Bros., Google, Harvard University, Sidney Austin LLP, Skadden Arps et al, Morgan Stanley, Jones Day, Time Warner, Exelon Corp, Wilmerhale LLP, University of Chicago, Latham & Watkins, Microsoft, and Kirkland & Ellis. None of these institutions gave any money to Obama as that is against the law. The money came from individuals who work for these institutions. (opensecrets.org) 12 of them are also among Clinton’s top contributors and 7 of them are among McCain’s.

In the first place, 3 of these 20 institutions that bundled money for Obama are prestigious universities, not corporations. But the combined total that has been donated by all of them is only $6,039,499. This amount is just under 2.6% of the total of $234,745,081 that Barack Obama has raised from over 1.4 million contributors, a record by far for the largest number of contributors to a presidential campaign. According to an Obama campaign source, “90% of what we raised came over the Internet. 50% were for $50 or less. Our average donation is less than $100.” Given that $234 million divided by 1.4 million is more like $167, I think they must mean that the median contribution is under $100. Obama could toss the money he received from his 20 biggest contributors out the window and still have outraised McCain by almost 3 to 1. Both Clinton and McCain remain much more dependent on big money donors, but the rules of the game have changed and no one can run for president henceforth relying largely on ruling class money.

So our analysis of the past has to change. Barack Obama’s campaign is the closest thing to public financing we’ve ever seen in a US presidential election. Does this mean that Barack Obama will be less beholden to ruling class interests? I believe that it means exactly that, although it is a matter of degrees, not absolutes. You can’t base your critique on follow the money and then maintain your critique unchanged when the money is coming from different sources.

Those, such as the Green Party, who have a vested interest in saying that Barack is just another capitalist politician are arguing against the most left wing candidate to ever run for president of the US. In all likelihood they will become totally irrelevant as a result. If Robert Jensen said what you say, he too is living in the past. The hope of progressives in the US now, given the significant changes in campaign financing, is to capture the Democratic Party from the corporate types who have so long controlled it. I believe Barack Obama is very likely to take us quite a distance in that direction.

David Hamilton

I was having a similar thought earlier, but it was about a broader spectrum, including most of Congress. When most Democrats in Congress refuse to even discuss impeachment or the crimes committed and/or authorized by this president, and when they lie about why by saying it is based mostly on a political decision to pursue other issues, that they “couldn’t get it through,” or that it would take too long, what they are really saying is that they understand and accept the Washington status quo, the way the game is played. That is, they accept that the military can be used for political purposes, and that sometimes you have to bend the rules to stay with the game plan. They are telling us that they would do, or at least like to reserve the ability to do, more or less the same things if they are ever in that position. I probably don’t need to name any names. I’m sure everybody can come up with a few.

Scott Trimble

Scott,

Of course it is completely cynical, but the reason Democrats don’t want to impeach Bush is that he is the strongest force leading to a Democratic Party landslide in November. They don’t want him gone, because they want to run against him. They will tie him around the neck of John McCain like an albatross and cruise to a historic victory.

Yes, many will die as a direct result of this strategy, but it will probably work.

David

David,

What you describe is certainly one motivation for Democrats not to work for impeachment of Bush, but it is one of many. Impeachment at this point would be an incredible long shot and would make little sense at the end of his term.

As you once mentioned, an international war crimes indictment would make more sense. And domestic charges for violation of numerous laws would seem in order, despite inevitable claims of executive immunity.

But to say that many will die as a result of this strategy is silly. That would only be true if impeachment were a realistic option. And it is beyond doubt that many, many more would die with a McCain victory.

Thorne Dreyer

Scott,

Obama was elected to the Senate on a platform of OPPOSING the invasion of Iraq. This at a time when the entire media considered opposition radical and unrealistic.

He has proposed regional discussions as part of US withdrawal, which seems eminently reasonable to me.

I think discussions of exactly how we would withdraw will only confuse the issue at this time.

Like in Austin, 80 percent favor a mass transit system, but come election time, 51 percent oppose any specific system.

We know he was entirely against the war, even to the apparent detriment of his campaign, and we have to trust how he will get us out..

Also don’t forget Obama spent years as a street organizer in Chicago. He is on the side of the people.

Janet Gilles

I certainly hope you are right. I would love to be wrong about him. I would love to find out that all the neo-liberal and pro-military things he has said and done up to now have been a front to get him into a position where he could make some real change.

But if he (or any president) stands too firmly for the people, then the people had better stand behind him even more firmly, or he will become more like JFK than he really wanted to be.

However, when he won’t even advocate for a single-payer universal health care plan, which is probably the most important single-issue change the people of this country need (I believe democracy is the most important change we need, but it really encompasses all issues), then I have a hard time believing he is really “on the side of the people.”

Scott Trimble

I’ve heard Robert Jensen say that the only hope was to destroy the Democratic Party.

I didn’t respond to him them, but I thought: been there and done that.

In 1968, I believe we took out our fury (as we had to) on the Democratic Party and it was years before it recovered as a viable entity.

I don’t see those advocating third party alternatives taking on the apparatus that makes third parties viable. By that I mean, take on the Electoral College and winner take all electoral system, advocate for proportional voting systems as well as campaign reform that gives third parties access to the media and financing. Even the way the Democrats have structured primaries (with proportional voting) can be instructive in that regard. One thing I do not like about Hillary is her message: “If we had primaries like the Republicans, I’d be the winner.” That is patently undemocratic.

Take a page from the book of countries with viable third parties and coalition governments. Absent that, we will continue to have two centrist major parties and third parties will only detract from the party most similar to them. Absent taking on the apparatus, put energy into political movements that can be viable alternatives and put pressure on the Democratic Party. And maintain a healthy skepticism about even the best of the major party candidates.

Alice Embree

In 1968, were there any “third” parties to speak of? I know there was no Green Party at the time. It was the middle of the Cold War, so no “socialist” party could have offered a realistic alternative. The Black Panther Party was not ready to represent a broad swath of America (and I don’t think they ran candidates for office, but I could certainly be wrong on that).

And while you say “it was years before it recovered as a viable entity,” in reality, it maintained its majority in both houses of Congress until 1981 (elections of 1980), in the House of Representatives until 1994, regained the majority in the Senate in 1987, and won the presidency in 1976 (and 92, 96 and 2000- although that’s another story, of course).

Whatever “damage” was done to the Democratic Party in 1968 was apparently enough to give Nixon the White House, but had no effect on their control of Congress. I’ve looked at the history of governors of several states, and see no evidence that the Democratic Party was hurt there either. Of the 34 states I looked at half had Democratic governors and half had Republican governors in 1968. Indeed in the elections that year five of them who had Democratic governors elected Republicans, while only two that had Republican governors switched to Democrats in that election. Nevertheless, two of those five elected Democrats again in 1972. I will grant that many of these Democrats were likely actually Dixiecrats, but I don’t know if that matters in this discussion, except that what happened in 1968 may have signaled to many of those Dixiecrats that it was time to get out, and that can’t be a bad thing.

As for third parties taking on the apparatus that prevent their viability, I know that the Green Party is as vocal a proponent as we can be for changing the winner-take-all system and replacing it with proportional representation and IRV, as well as public financing. As most of us (Greens) see it, the problem is that too many progressives who ought to be helping us take on the apparatus continually buy into the Democratic Party’s illusion, or succumb to the fear that the current Republican bogeyman is so nasty that we have to settle for the “electable” Democrat.

Scott Trimble

Thank you, Alice. I’ve been hoping someone would say this.

There’s an awful lot of pie-in-the sky out there, but life is short and opportunities limited. I don’t expect much from Obama and maybe less from Hillary, but I will enthusiastically support the nominee. There is too much at stake to do otherwise.

Julie Howell

Hi Alice:

I really agree with your assessment of how to proceed into the future with our “been there done that” perspective on history. In San Francisco, where there is a major Green Party presence, the distinction between the Demos and the Greens is frequently blurred. Matt Gonzales got 49% of the City’s vote when he ran for mayor in 2003, but that does not mean most of those voters will vote for him this November.

The Green Party leaders around here are pragmatic and smart; they have three votes out of 11 on the Board of Supervisors, but they control it because they are 3 of the 6 needed for a majority. These six people rarely disagree: 3 are Demos and 3 are Greens. In the last Governor’s race, the Green Party candidate was Peter Camejo–formerly of SWP fame.

But to return to your point: if the goal is to prevent the Demo. party from being centrist, then maybe the best approach is to build independent coalitions that are cross-cultural and still participate in Demo Party politics when it matters–for example, like the current presidential campaign.

The demographic change taking place in Texas is the same that has already taken place in CA– the Latino leadership in LA, which is for the most part progressive, runs the state government–the white Democrats cant win without them. Look down the road ten years from now: if progressives, blacks and Latinos in Texas form alliances, they will control the Demo party and state government–and the changing demographics of TX will take care of the rest.

Actually, the Republican Party was the greatest change agent in CA and the same will probably be true in TX: in the mid and late nineties, they annually ran a racist anti-Latino state referendum. One year the Republican majority voted to declare English the state’s official language; next year they passed a referendum preventing undocumented workers from receiving social services–like emergency room medical services; then they tried declaring CA committed to a “color-blind society.” The net result was to drive 75% of the entire Latino population into the Democratic Party.

Hillary’s victory over Obama–both in TX and CA was purely a function of the Latino vote. You are lucky in Texas to have a precinct level caucus system. In CA the party is completely controlled by local Demo. party hacks and there are no precinct level organizations–at least you have a ready-made participatory Democratic Party that encourages everyone to get involved. I’m a registered Democrat so I can vote in the primary; but in November I almost always vote Green- because the Democrat always wins in the County I live in.

Jeff Jones
San Francisco

Hey Folks,

Can I not agree with Bob Jensen and still vote for Mr. Obama? David Hamilton’s arguments that Obama is the most left-wing feminist candidate in history and his precise accounting for the man’s money has moved me back toward voting for him.

If elected, however, I believe that Obama will be an impotent President, as Congress and the Senate will still be the property of the corporations. Unless an extraordinarily high percentage of our legislators dump their financial support and attempt to go to the people for funding, they will continue to serve their Masters. Perhaps the public might then move to make Jensen’s dream real.

Political parties do come and go; they are born and they die.

Doug Zachary

Doug,

If we want to be effective it would behoove us to avoid over-simplification: there are differences between the nature of the two parties and the interests they represent. But the most hopeful (sorry for the choice of words!) thing about Obama is that he has built an energetic and, from my expeience, surprisingly radical movement of independent and enthusiastic people – primarily young – who come from outside the party system.

I believe that that movement will provide him with a unique base of support, as will the African-American community. And they will also serve him as a conscience, staying on his ass should he stray.

And I totally agree with Alice. Working exclusively for third party candidates – at this point in history – dooms us to irrelevance. If we are secure in our world view and remain conscious of the limitations of electoral politics, and if we want to be effective and not just pure, working within the two-party system will not leave us somehow vaguely tainted.

In my view, to be relevant, we must relate to the Obama phenomenon. And we must always continue to work outside the system as well as within.

Thorne Dreyer

Thorne,

I do not believe that there is no difference between these two capitalist parties; neither will I ignore the similarities. I am absolutely certain that the New Democrats, or even the New New Democrats, do not see the world the way that I do or the way that increasing numbers of people, young people especially, do.

Obama might, in fact, be sincere; that is impossible to judge at this point. My guess is that for all his theatrical, tent-revival “Hope” sermonizing, he will be able to make no significant changes in the behavior of capital, domestically or globally. Nor am I convinced that he intends to. He could certainly, as my 85 year old aunt in Dallas said to me yesterday, have baptized people by the thousands in this “Hope” crusade of his. So go on and “rededicate your life” to the Democratic Party, if you are so “moved” by this bogus Revival scheme. I have had all that Elmer Gantry “Great Awakening” jive I need for a lifetime. It is my guess that y’all gonna end up in some metaphorical place similar to that occupied by my dear Aunt (name redacted) when, following an especially rousing tent revival in 1951 in Leonard, Texas, she wound up in love with a missing evangelist preacher, pregnant and incarcerated in Gainesville.

I can assure that the women with whom I have worked in the Maquiladoras, the Comite Fronterizo de Obreras, barely recognize any difference in the United States political parties, with respect to the effects on their lives. Their families and towns have been destroyed by decisions made, by Democrats and Republicans alike, to refuse Mexico (and all of Latin America) the right to employ protectionist policies similar to those used by the US and Britain to good effect for a couple of hundred years. Families in Veracruz, who had lived in their Mothers’ Mothers’ Mothers’ houses for many generations were dispossessed by US Democrats like Bill Clinton who forced NAFTA down their throats on January 1, 1994. Within weeks , the Vera Cruz tire industry was destroyed and the people found themselves moving by the thousands into cardboard houses in Ciudad Acuna. They suddenly found themselves competing for jobs in the maquiladoras that paid inadequate wages, stripped them of dignity, and poisoned their bodies. I know many of these folks by name and I share their distrust of US politics, Democratic or Republican.

The New Democrats have been all about US hegemony and economic Neoliberalism. The “Liberal” era of capitalism was that period in the last two decades of the 19th century when the apologia for the domination of the planet by capital was excused by the Big Lie, the lie that such domination would lead to “development” of all societies. That, the existence of “liberal capitalism” is the myth that distinguished it from previous theories of capital that had said that capital looked after its own interests, and damn the workers. Neoliberal capitalist theory now holds sway, and it is the Democrats as much as the Republicans, maybe more for that matter, who have enforced the structures of the IMF and the WTO and thereby forced the less powerful countries to succumb, selling their public sectors, their resources, and their people to international capital. Back then it was the Filipinos, among others, who paid the price for capitalist domination. Today it is the Iraqis. Tomorrow …?

This eighteen year old war is and was a Democratic party war as well as a Republican war. The New Democrats bombed Iraq and destroyed a modern infrasturcture. They imposed sanctions on the Iraqi people that caused hundreds of thousands of children to die. They then voted almost unanimously for this invasion and continued to fund this war after they gained control of Congress. They have refused to hold this criminal regime accountable. They are also complicit in the destruction of the US Constitution.

In the Summer of 1996 I spent seven days and nights in the jungle in the Zapatista village of Realidad, a few miles from the Guatemalan border. We were 600 leftist political activists and scholars from every nation in this hemisphere hosted by 600 indigeous revolutionaries, surrounded by 60,000 Mexican troops. I listened as delegation after delegation told us the horrors visited upon their villages, towns and cities by neoliberal Democratic and Republican politicians in the north since 1972. I camped with a small group of young people whose parents had been in Allende’s cabinet, and sang that “Commandante, Che Guevara” (literally, y’all) under a Full Moon. Spooky and life-changing. For me there has been not turning back to the illusion that either of the capitalist parties will look after my interests or those of the people i love, here or abroad. I have seen Reality and, unlike neoliberal Bill Clinton, I felt the pain. There has been no turning back. I vote Socialist and I vote Green.

Should we elect Obama, which, given all these “born again” believers, I imagine we will, the New Democratic legislators and their lobbyist bosses will castrate him and toss him aside. I will be very interested to revisit this conversation two years after Obama takes office.

You believe that “that movement will provide him with a unique base of support”. I believe that this so-called movement will melt away when the “:citizens” who make it up disappear into their individual struggles to get by and to satisfy their Madison Avenue-inspired appetites. You have a lot more faith in the US citizenry than I do. my belief is that they are sunk into the Matrix, and that the “Obama movement” is just another illusion passing over their closed eyelids. They will sleep till the day comes when the “Other” 94% of this planets population finds a way to hold us all accountable for the excesses, not only of our political classes, but of the citizenry at large. Thankfully, that day may be just around the corner.

What is your notion of effectiveness? From time to time, political parties die. If and when the racist and sexists working class voters get a clue that the Repugnicans do not in fact represent their interests, maybe that party also will suffer huge losses. Maybe some day it too will die. Why is it that all you “Progressives” seem to assume that these two parties are here to stay, when history shows that no political party, indeed no political system, is immortal? Only Brother Trimble seems to have the righteous indignation and the courage to imagine a better system.

Please pardon the preaching tone here, but I am “hopeful” that I might bring, maybe just one of you lost lambs, out of that tent before it is too late, and back to the Left.

Praise the Lord and pass the mescaline!
Great Jehova, you’ll come over …

Doug

Doug et al,

In regards to participation in the Democratic Party, I’m just encouraging pragmatism. This is what Jeff Jones is saying in his post on this subject. Sometimes, conditions will lead us to support the Green Party and sometimes opportunities present themselves that indicate the correct strategy is involvement in the Democratic Party, especially when we can take over major parts of it.

For decades, I have been among those who chose the former path, supporting third party candidates in general elections, not having voted for a Democrat for president since McGovern. I participated in Jesse Jackson’s presidential effort in 1988. Otherwise, it was Dr. Spock and Eldridge Cleaver and Ralph Nader for me. But this time is different. This time, thanks largely to the overarching stupidity, hubris and abject failure of the Bush regime, the pendulum is swinging powerfully to the left like never before in my lifetime.

Objective analysis points to a Democratic Party landslide in November. Krugman in the NYTimes listed the major factors determining presidential elections: the state of the economy and the popularity of the sitting president. The Republicans are deep in the toilet on both counts with no help in sight.

Current polls show both Obama and Clinton are, on average, beating McCain narrowly in national head-to-head matchups. But, these polls are not to be trusted. At this point 8 years ago, many said Ross Perot was leading.

So, how is it going to go when it is just Obama vs McCain, especially if it is Obama/Clinton vs McCain/whoever (Lieberman)? My prediction is an Obama/Clinton slam dunk. Many polls of political opionions have shown the general population relatively favoring Democratic positions, e.g., on the war in Iraq and universal health care. Hatred of Bush is deep. The economy sucks. Gas and food prices are through the roof. Besides the telegenic qualities of Obama vs McCain are striking to say the least – 21st century multi-ethnic young rock star of hope vs another old white guy telling his war stories from Vietnam. McCain will play the patriotism card and his underlings will play the race card. It won’t matter. It’s going to be a massacre. And the Democrats will win big majorities in the House (50+ majority) and Senate (10+ majority) too.

Hence, it’s time to get on board with Obama. Of course, to us, he will be a flawed messenger, especially in the upcoming general election where there will be little pressure for him to run further left. But an Obama administration will be a profound change. I suggest that you consult that other 94% you mention who aren’t US citizens about who they would like to see be the next US president. Celebrations of an Obama
victory with resonate around the globe, from Kenya to Paris, from the Gaza to Caracas. The US will not fully deserve the reputational make-over Obama is going to provide.

My own expectations for Obama include: Very near complete withdrawal from Iraq by 2010. He will initially enhance the US military effort in Afghanistan and then find a negotiated settlement. He’ll talk directly with Tehran, Havana and Caracas and the Cuban embargo will end along with the threats against Iran. He will press Israel harder than any previous president to reach a just solution with the Palestinians. He
will talk to Hamas and Hezbollah. He won’t hold hands with the Saudi king. In short, he’ll significantly reign in American militarism. He’ll pass some form of universal health care that will be a positive reform, but less than single payer. He’ll rebalance leftward the Supreme Court. He’ll exponentially increase use of alternative energy.

The most far reaching policy changes of the Obama administration will be shaped as much by the force of events as the ideology of the president. Many potential disasters have been exacerbated by Bush and will await Obama. No president since Roosevelt in 1932 will have a plate so full. He will be pushed by deteriorating conditions to take more profound steps.

But why not support the Green Party in Texas in 2008 where McCain will likely win anyway? Because even Texas might be “in play” this November. And besides, the main point of voting for the Green Party is so that they reach the 5% threshold needed for continuous ballot status. They can do that more likely in some down ticket race. So stay with Obama in solidarity, even if he is going to lose Texas.

This train’s a comin’ and you better get on board. On the presidential level the third party alternative this time will mean minuscule support and irrelevance. Progressives for Obama will dwarf them.

David H.

For additional comments by Scott Trimble, go here.

The Rag Blog

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Concerning the Crime of Journalism

Posted on May 9, 2008 by Thorne Dreyer

Al-Jazeera journalist Sami al-Haj, released this week from the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay.

The U.S. War on Journalists
by Amy Goodman / May 8, 2008

Sami al-Haj is a free man today, after having been imprisoned by the U.S. military for more than six years. His crime: journalism.

Targeting journalists, the Bush administration has engaged in direct assault, intimidation, imprisonment and information blackouts to limit the ability of journalists to do their jobs. The principal target these past seven years has been Al-Jazeera, the Arabic television network based in Doha, Qatar.

In November 2001, despite the fact that Al-Jazeera had given the U.S. military the coordinates of its office in Kabul, U.S. warplanes bombed Al-Jazeera’s bureau there, destroying it. An Al-Jazeera reporter covering the George Bush-Vladimir Putin summit in Crawford, Texas, in the same month was detained by the FBI because his credit card was “linked to Afghanistan.” In spring 2003, the U.S. dropped four bombs on the Sheraton hotel in Basra, Iraq, where Al-Jazeera correspondents—the only journalists reporting from that city—were the lone guests. Another Al-Jazeera staffer showed his ID to a U.S. Marine at a Baghdad checkpoint, only to have his car fired upon by the Marines. He was unhurt. That can’t be said for Tareq Ayyoub, an Al-Jazeera correspondent who was on the roof of the network’s bureau in Baghdad on April 8, 2003, when a U.S. warplane strafed it. He was killed. His widow, Dima Tahboub, told me: “Hate breeds hate. The United States said they were doing this to rout out terrorism. Who is engaged in terrorism now?”

Then there is the story of Sami al-Haj. A cameraman for Al-Jazeera, he was reporting on the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan. On Dec. 15, 2001, while in a Pakistani town near the Afghanistan border, Haj was arrested, then imprisoned in Afghanistan. Six months later, shackled and gagged, he was flown to the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay. Haj was held there for close to six years, repeatedly interrogated and never charged with any crime, never tried in a court. He engaged in a hunger strike for more than a year, but was force-fed by his jailers with a feeding tube sent into his stomach through his nose. Haj was abruptly released this week. The U.S. government announced that he was being transferred to the custody of Sudan, his home nation, but the government of Sudan took no action against him. He was rushed to an emergency room, and soon was seen on his old network, Al-Jazeera:

“I’m very happy to be in Sudan, but I’m very sad because of the situation of our brothers who remain in Guantanamo. Conditions in Guantanamo are very, very bad, and they get worse by the day. Our human condition, our human dignity was violated, and the American administration went beyond all human values, all moral values, all religious values. In Guantanamo, you have animals that are called iguanas, rats that are treated with more humanity. But we have people from more than 50 countries that are completely deprived of all rights and privileges, and they will not give them the rights that they give to animals.” He described the desecration of the Quran as part of the effort to break him: “They hold the Quran in contempt, destroyed it several times and put their dirty feet on it. They also sat on the Quran while trying to get us angry. They repeatedly committed violations against our dignity and our sexual organs.” At least one official in the Defense Department has denied the charges.

Asim al-Haj, Sami’s brother, told me in an interview last January about the 130 interrogations: “During these times, the interrogations were all about Al-Jazeera and alleged relations between Al-Jazeera and al-Qaida. They tried to induce him to spy on his colleagues at Al-Jazeera.”

According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, 10 journalists have been held for extended periods by the U.S. military and then released without charge. Just weeks ago in Iraq, the U.S. military released Pulitzer Prize-winning Associated Press photographer Bilal Hussein after holding him without charge for two years. The military had once accused Hussein of being a “terrorist media operative who infiltrated the AP.”

The committee reports that 127 journalists and an additional 50 media workers have been killed in Iraq since 2003, well more than twice the number killed in World War II. We need to remind the Bush administration: Don’t shoot the messenger.

[Amy Goodman is the host of “Democracy Now!,” a daily international TV/radio news hour airing on 650 stations in North America. Her third book, “Standing Up to the Madness: Ordinary Heroes in Extraordinary Times,” was published in April.]

© 2008 Amy Goodman
Source. / Truthdig

Thanks to David Hamilton / The Rag Blog

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Signs of a Sick Society, Episode XXIX

Posted on May 9, 2008 by RagBlog

Hundreds of civilians die each month in the failed state of Iraq, they have no potable water, no power on a regular basis, inflation runs rampant, and crime has become a way of life for many. But our military planners, in their infinite wisdom, have the time to plan a fucking golf course for the Green Zone in Baghdad. If that’s not a sign of a sick society (and I am talking about Amerikkkan society, not Iraqi), I don’t know what is …

Richard Jehn / The Rag Blog

A plan by US military planners for the “Tigris Woods Golf and Country Club” in the Green Zone in Baghdad, Iraq. Photograph: US Army/AP

Luxury hotels and golf: welcome to the Green Zone
By Michael Howard / May 6, 2008

Pentagon airs plan to turn Baghdad military redoubt into a chic urban oasis

Picture, if you will, a tree-lined plaza in Baghdad’s International Village, flanked by fashion boutiques, swanky cafes, and shiny glass office towers. Nearby a golf course nestles agreeably, where a chip over the water to the final green is but a prelude to cocktails in the club house and a soothing massage in a luxury hotel, which would not look out of place in Sydney harbour. Then, as twilight falls, a pre-prandial stroll, perhaps, amid the cool of the Tigris Riverfront Park, where the peace is broken only by the soulful cries of egrets fishing.

Improbable though it all may seem, this is how some imaginative types in the US military are envisaging the future of Baghdad’s Green Zone, the much-pummelled redoubt of the Iraqi capital where a bunker shot has until now had very different connotations.

A $5bn (£2.5bn) tourism and development scheme for the Green Zone being hatched by the Pentagon and an international investment consortium would give the heavily fortified area on the banks of the Tigris a “dream” makeover that will become a magnet for Iraqis, tourists, business people and investors. About half of the area is now occupied by coalition forces, the US state department or private foreign companies.

The US military released the first tentative artists’ impression yesterday. An army source said the barbed wire, concrete blast barriers and checkpoints that currently disfigure the 5 sq mile area would be replaced by shopping malls, hotels, elegant apartment blocks and leisure parks. “This is at the end of the day an Iraqi-owned area and we will give it back to them with added value,” said the source, who requested anonymity.

Potential investors are being encouraged to take a punt that years ahead, Baghdad’s fortunes may mirror former war-torn cities such as Sarajevo and Beirut that have risen from the ashes.

Marriott International has already signed a deal to build a hotel in the Green Zone, according to Navy Captain Thomas Karnowski, the chief US liaison. Also in the pipeline is a possible $1bn investment from MBI International, a hotel and resorts specialist led by Saudi sheikh, Mohamed Bin Issa Al Jaber.

One Los Angeles-based firm, C3, has said it wants to build an amusement park on the Green Zone’s outskirts. As part of the first phase, a skateboard park is due to open this summer.

American officials stress that final decisions about reconstruction and development rest with the Iraqi government. Karnowski added that as well as the benefits of renovating and demilitarising an important area of Baghdad, the blueprint would help to create a “zone of influence” around the massive new US Embassy compound being built on the eastern tip of the Green Zone. The $1bn project to move the embassy from Saddam’s old presidential palace is planned for completion later this year.

“When you have $1bn hanging out there and 1,000 employees lying around, you kind of want to know who your neighbours are. You want to influence what happens in your neighbourhood over time,” Karnowski told Associated Press.

He acknowledged that any project would face formidable difficulties: “There is no sewer system, no working power system. Everything here is done on generators. No road repair work. There are no city services other than the minimal amount we provide to get by.”

There is also the not insignificant matter of the dire security situation. Shia militants under attack from US and Iraqi forces elsewhere in the capital have been launching volleys of rockets on the Green Zone for much of the last month.

Despite the apparent Pentagon enthusiasm, other US officials in Baghdad seemed more sceptical. “We approach this with perhaps a dose of realism,” offered one. “These are issues for the Iraqis to discuss. We do not own the International Zone, and its future is really up to the Iraqis.”

For many Baghdad residents, the Green Zone has been a no-go area for years, first under Saddam and now under the occupation. “What do I care?” shrugged one, Ahmed Hussein. “I don’t have electricity, I don’t have fresh water and I don’t have a job.”

Source / The Guardian

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In Three Lines:

Posted on May 9, 2008 by Thorne Dreyer

Why McCain wants to be president

When his father and grandfather were admirals, they invested heavily in War, Inc. In Congress he promoted measures to protect their legacy, even for 100 years: a Captain Dupont in the House, a Rear Admiral Rockefeller in the Senate. Now he wants stockholders to elect him CEO/Commander in Chief.

Dick J. Reavis
The Rag Blog / May 9, 2008

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