Junior’s Reality Is One We Don’t Comprehend

Posted on April 11, 2008 by RagBlog

I’m through with masking the truth. It is time to publicise in vivid red, white, and blue the horrible consequences of this illegal, immoral, unconscionable war in the Middle East. When you finally become sick enough of seeing these graphic, real images of what happens in combat, perhaps some of you will finally begin to do something concrete and active to stop this war.

Richard Jehn / The Rag Blog

Bush Orders Halt to Troop Withdrawals
By DEB RIECHMANN, AP, Posted: 2008-04-10 12:26:29

WASHINGTON (April 10) -President Bush on Thursday ordered an indefinite halt in U.S. troop withdrawals from Iraq after July, embracing the key recommendations of his top war commander. Bush said that Gen. David Petraeus will “have all the time he needs” to consider when more American forces could return home.

Bush’s decisions virtually guarantees a major U.S. presence in Iraq throughout his term in office in January, when a new president takes office.

In another major decision, the president announced he will seek to relieve the heavy strain on the Army by reducing the length of combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan to 12 months, down from the current level of 15 months. He said the change would take effect on Aug. 1, and would affect U.S. forces already deployed on the front lines.

Bush said U.S. force have made major gains since he ordered a buildup of about 30,000 U.S. forces. “We have renewed and revived the prospect of success” the president said.

Bush delivered his remarks in the Cross Hall of the White House before an audience of veterans’ service groups and Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

The president’s decision had been foreshadowed by two days of testimony before a skeptical Congress by Petraeus and Ryan Crocker, the U.S. ambassador to Baghdad. Now in its sixth year, the war has claimed the lives of more than 4,000 U.S. troops and cost more than $500 billion.

Read all of it here.

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M. Wizard on Documentary Film CHICAGO 10

Posted on April 10, 2008 by Thorne Dreyer

CHICAGO 10 – OFFICIAL TRAILER

Power to the People : Chicago Remembered
By Mariann Wizard / April 10, 2008 / The Rag Blog

I took a little time this afternoon and went to see the movie Chicago 10 at the Regal Arbor in Austin — it’s about the trial of the Chicago 8-slash-7, and the “10” in the title, my son’s girlfriend figured out, has gotta be the lawyers, Kunstler and Weinglass, who along with the defendants were all sentenced to varying amounts of time behind bars for contempt.

The movie has a killer soundtrack; LOUD!, which I liked, and combines black and white and color (colorized???) footage from 1968 and ’69 pretty seamlessly with animated courtroom scenes, drawn from news artists’ contemporary sketches. The neat thing about the documentary footage is that director Brett Morgen jiggles and bounces and mixes it like a club deejay workin’ a Smokey Robinson tune, so you see the movement even in the stills, the blood even in the b&w.

Chicago 10 has its limitations — for some reason, although Dr. King’s assassination and the ensuing riots are brought in — Robert Kennedy’s assassination goes unnoted, as does LBJ’s decision not to seek the presidency in 1968 and any mention of Hubert Humphrey. Gene McCarthy is mentioned once, in passing and dismissively, and the clash which finally occurred between Chicago’s finest and actual convention delegates, when the police riot spilled over into the delegates’ hotel, is way downplayed. Having said that, try to catch this limited engagement; it will get your feet moving reflexively to evade capture and keep ahead of the tear gas.

The movie ends with Bobby Seale, free at last, addressing a huge throng of supporters, probably in Oakland, and beginning with the words, “Power to the People”! Good slogan, anybody ever think about reviving it??

Go here to director Brett Morgen website.
Review of Chicago 10 in Mother Jones.
Review in Chicago Tribune.

CHICAGO 10 – Seale vs. Hoffman

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The Clinton-Colombia Connection : It Goes Back a Long Way

Posted on April 10, 2008 by Thorne Dreyer

Bill Clinton and Columbian President Alvaro Uribe Valez at Clinton Global Initiative annual meeting in New York, Sept. 20, 2006.

Columbia : Coffee, Cocaine and Clinton
By Arianna Huffington

A week ago, if you’d asked most people to say the first thing that popped into their heads when they heard the word “Colombia,” you might have gotten: “Bogotá,” “coffee,” “cocaine,” or maybe even “kidnappings.”

Today that list would probably be led by “Clinton.”

First came chief strategist Mark Penn’s “reassignment” following the embarrassing revelation of his side job advising the Colombian government on how to promote a trade agreement loudly decried by the candidate whose campaign has so far paid him and his firm $10,800,000 for his input.

Then came word that Clinton campaign spokesman Howard Wolfson also has financial ties to Colombia via his involvement the Glover Park Group, a company founded by Clinton administration alum Joe Lockhart that has also been advising the Colombian government.

And, of course, there is the Whitman sampler of Colombian goodies gobbled up by Bill Clinton, including: $800,000 in speaking fees from a Colombian pro-free trade agreement group; a “Colombia is Passion” award bestowed by Colombia’s president Alvaro Uribe (who honored the former president as an “unofficial minister of tourism”); and a sweet Colombian oil field deal for a company Clinton pal Frank Giustra’s investment firm had advised. Giustra is the mining magnate who has donated $31 million to Clinton’s charitable fund, and whom Bill personally introduced to Colombian President Uribe (Giustra is the same guy Clinton helped land a uranium deal in Kazakhstan, but that’s a Clinton story for a different blog post).

The Clinton-Colombia connection doesn’t stop there — and involves much, much more than a spousal disagreement over how free our trade with the Colombians should be.

As President, Bill Clinton had initiated Plan Colombia, a $1.3 billion aid package to escalate the war on drugs in Colombia. I wrote a number of columns in 2000 and 2001 outlining the very troubling nature of this Clinton-backed initiative. I’ll include the links at end of this post if you want a fuller history, but here is a quick refresher:

At the time, Colombia was in the midst of a four-decades long three-way civil war pitting the Colombian army, which has one of the worst human-rights records in the Western hemisphere, against leftist rebels and right-wing paramilitary groups, both largely funded by the drug trade (a war that continues to this day). Despite the abject failure of America’s misguided war on drugs — with the hundreds of billions spent on it failing to curtail drug use — Clinton decided that another billion or so directed to Colombia would do the trick. The Colombian military’s extensive ties to right wing death squads be damned! In fact, Clinton signed a waiver of human-rights provisions that Congress had imposed on the Colombia drug-war package.

The story of how Clinton helped funnel all that money to Colombia is a textbook case of much that is wrong with the way our political system operates.

For instance, to avoid resistance from those who did not believe this was the best way to spend over a billion in taxpayer dollars, the Clinton administration decided to introduce the Colombian aid as part of a larger emergency-spending package — bundling the potentially controversial measure with proposals to provide $2.2 billion for relief from natural disasters, and $854 million for military health care. It’s an old legislative ploy designed to squelch debate and force politicians to vote for wasteful — or even terrible — measures just because they don’t want to be painted as being against God, country, and disaster relief.

The Clinton White House also used a poll commissioned by a very interested party to help provide cover for the Colombian initiative. Here’s how it worked: defense contractor Lockheed Martin commissioned Democratic pollster Mark Mellman to conduct a poll which concluded that 56 percent of registered voters would support $2 billion being spent on “tracking planes to be flown in drug-producing areas.” (I’m surprised the poll didn’t also conclude that 82 percent of those 56 percent would be especially overjoyed if those planes were “Lockheed Martin P-3 tracking planes.”) Lockheed’s smart bomb hit its mark: five months after this manufactured mandate was presented to the president, he proposed the $1.3 billion package, confident that he could shake “the will of the people” (or at least the 800 people Mellman offered his tailor-made questions to) in the face of opponents.

And, it wasn’t just the White House playing the Beltway game. When there is that much money involved, you know that lobbyists will be right in the center of the action. In the case of Plan Colombia’s river of cash, among those involved were Clinton confident Vernon Jordan, whose law firm was hired by the Colombian government to stump for it on the Hill. And lobbyists for Occidental Petroleum, BP Amoco, and (flashback alert!) Enron, all of which had business interests in Colombia, were also greasing the wheels for the aid bonanza – as were lobbyists for a pair of helicopter manufacturers looking to get a cut of the substantial slice of the money earmarked for the purchase of drug-war fighting choppers.

This is how our government worked then – and how it continues to work today, with Washington insiders moving back and forth between lobbying firms, campaign staffs, and government positions, and former presidents raking in big bucks making speeches while acting as facilitators to sweetheart private deals and advocating for public ones.

And this is how our government will work in the future as long as we elect candidates whose campaigns are run by the likes of Mark Penn and Howard Wolfson — and advised by the likes of Bill Clinton. And that holds for the likes of Charlie Black, Rick Davis, and the bevy of other lobbyists guiding John McCain’s campaign as well.

Follow the stink rising off the Clinton/Colombia connection and you’ll arrive at the very large slagheap that American politics has become.

Source. The Huffington Post / The Rag Blog

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And It All Comes Tumbling Down

Posted on April 10, 2008 by Thorne Dreyer

Peak Energy. Peak Food?

World oil price hit a record of $112 a barrel today, gasoline prices also hit a record, electric power generation is faltering, and rice prices have risen 50 per cent in two weeks.

Peak energy soon equals peak food, IMO.

Roger Baker / The Rag Blog

Peak Oil Review
By Tom Whipple / April 7, 2008

1. Prices, Production and Exports
2. Electricity Shortages and Diesel
3. Rice, Inflation and Oil
4. Massachusetts Hosts a Meeting
5. Energy Briefs

1. Prices, Production and Exports
It was another week of volatility for oil prices as a potpourri of fundamentals, financial crisis, hearings, unemployment and a looming recession drove oil prices one way and then another. After losing $4 a barrel on Monday as speculators closed positions, prices recovered on Wednesday after the EIA reported that US gasoline stockpiles had fallen by 4.5 million barrels the previous week, twice what analysts had expected. On Friday, prices rose again to close out the week at $106 a barrel after the report that US jobs had declined for the third straight month, confirming fears that the US was headed for a recession. This time oil prices rose on bad economic news in expectation that there will be more interest rate cuts, a weaker dollar, and a flight to safe assets such as oil.

US gasoline prices rose to a record $3.30 on Friday and most analysts believe they will continue rising. The EIA is holding that average gasoline prices will peak at $3.50 later this spring, but many are predicting a spike to the vacinity of $4 a gallon.

In the wake of the inconclusive attack on Basra, Shiite cleric al-Sadr is calling for a million-man demonstration against the US “occupation” on Wednesday, the 5th anniversary of the fall of Baghdad. Some fear the demonstration could set off events destabilizing the government. In the meantime Iraq is still exporting oil from Basra at slightly below pre-attack levels.

OPEC reports March shipments were down about 85,000 b/d from February due to extensive maintenance and other problems in Nigeria that cut exports there to the lowest in five years. Of more interest was the report that Russia failed to increase its oil production for the third month in a row and the first quarter production was down by one percent from a year earlier. Moscow, however, is still predicting that production will grow by 1.7 percent this year, well below the 11 percent increase in 2003. Russin pipeline exports to Europe recovered to 4.23 million b/d in March, but many believe the surge was in anticipation of forrthcoming export taxs and that Moscow’s exports will soon drop.

2. Electricity Shortages and Diesel
Stories of current and imminent shortages of electric power are becoming more frequent each day. A combination of inadequate rain for hydro power, unaffordable oil and coal for thermal power, and rapidly increasing demand is leaving country after country with inadequate power for national grids.

It is becoming apparent that one of the unforeseen consequences of globalization is that there is simply not enough power being produced in the world to run the flood of inexpensive electric consumer goods – TVs, kitchen appliances, air conditioners — that are pouring from the factories of Asia onto the world.

The increasingly frequent “rolling blackouts” that are appearing around the world unfortunately are killing “essential” systems – water pumps, hospitals, banking computers, factories, TV stations, and telephone exchanges – as well as the less-essential consumer devices.

While electric companies may eventually be able to make special arrangements to exempt organizations that are vital to the economy from blackouts, there are massive numbers of organizations around the world that are completely dependent on electricity to keep functioning. For these, the choice is generate their own electricity with their own generators or shut down.

What is developing is a new and potentially very large demand for gasoline and particularly diesel fuel as the national power grids fall further and further behind in their ability to keep up with demand for electricity. Higher prices and shortages are clearly in store as more and more Chinese-made small and medium sized electric generators come into service around the world.

3. Rice, Inflation and Oil
Rice prices increased by 50 percent in the last two weeks to an all-time high as importing countries scrambled to hold off social unrest by securing supplies from the few exporters still willing to sell. As the staple food for 3 billion people, 33 countries are facing unrest as the price of food and energy becomes unaffordable.

There are multiple reasons behind the sudden price increase ranging from weather-related poor harvests, hoarding, and world-wide inflationary pressures resulting from high energy costs to the financial crisis. Major rice exporters such as India, China, and Vietnam have already curtailed or stopped exports to hold down domestic prices.


Among the hardest hit countries so far have been Bangladesh, the Philippines, and Pakistan where millions now face seriously restricted diets.

Even rich oil states are facing problems. Nigeria is one of the world’s largest importers of rice and Kuwait is now shut off from the Indian rice that is the staple food for most of the 1.3 million foreigners working in the country. Even the Saudis have removed the import duties on imported food. In Pakistan 80 million people are estimated to be at risk of not receiving sufficient food.

This situation is too complex to foresee future developments. If it gets worse, widespread food riots could topple governments. If millions are faced with starvation, pressure to stop production of biofuels will increase. Leverage of food exporting nations in world affairs will increase.

Read all of it here. Energy Bulletin / The Rag Blog

Whipple is a retired CIA analyst and without peer in documenting these things and connecting the dots.

Peak energy is an important factor limiting food production. (Food, in the USA especially, is equivalent to peak petroleum).

And peak food is the “final solution” to limiting world population in an expansionist global economy.

An economy in which every additional birth is regarded as a human addition to global profit potential.

In other words, the inherent dynamics of an inherently expansionist global capitalism is pressing the world toward population overshoot and mass starvation (as well as global warming and the extinction of countless species).

Its time we understand that; its probably already too late to avoid an incomprehensible scale of global misery.

Roger Baker / The Rag Blog

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German Citizen Challenges U.S. Rendition Before Human Rights Commission

Posted on April 10, 2008 by Thorne Dreyer

Khaled el-Masri, a German of Lebanese descent says the CIA abducted him Dec. 2003 at the Serbian-Macedonian border. Photo y Thomas Kienzle / AP.

Man claims CIA tortured him, goes to international court
April 9, 2009

Washington — A German citizen thwarted in the U.S. courts is taking his allegations of abduction and torture at the hands of the CIA to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.

On Wednesday, the American Civil Liberties Union petitioned the commission on behalf of Khaled el-Masri, saying the U.S. government should be called on to apologize for its treatment of el-Masri and that the CIA’s anti-terrorism rendition program should be found unlawful.

The commission, headquartered in Washington, D.C., is an autonomous organ of the Organization of American States of which the United States is a member.

A German of Lebanese descent, el-Masri says he was abducted in December 2003 at the Serbian-Macedonian border and flown by the CIA to Afghanistan and abused as part of the administration’s rendition program.

The Bush administration invoked the state secrets privilege in el-Masri’s case, shutting him out of the U.S. court system. The Supreme Court last year refused to hear his case.

The CIA declined to comment about the petition filed on el-Masri’s behalf by the ACLU.

President Bush and others have confirmed the existence of the CIA’s rendition program, but the facts central to el-Masri’s claims “concern the highly classified methods and means of the program,” the government said.

By refusing to hear el-Masri’s case, the high court passed up an opportunity to review the doctrine of state secrets, which critics say this administration has used more frequently than its predecessors.

“This administration has routinely abused the state secrets privilege to avoid any accountability for egregious violations of the Constitution and international law,” Ben Wizner, staff attorney with the ACLU National Security Project, said in a statement.

El-Masri says the CIA mistakenly identified him as an associate of the Sept. 11 hijackers

Source. Associated Press / The Rag Blog

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Subjecting Iraqi Women to Medieval Mores

Posted on April 10, 2008 by RagBlog

Hidden: The surge is spreading power to gunmen who prefer their women veiled
Wathiq Khuzaie / Getty Images

Sacrificed to the Surge
By Silvia Spring and Larry Kaplow / April 14, 2008

Tribal fighters have cut down Iraq’s violence. But they’re subjecting women to often-medieval mores.

The insurgents have been driven out of her southwest Baghdad neighborhood, but the 30-year-old shop assistant is still frightened. A year ago Al Qaeda in Iraq ruled the streets outside her home, and Mahdi Army militia units kept the area under relentless attack. Now the Iraqis who helped get rid of the killers are the ones who scare her. The Americans imposed order a few months ago by recruiting and paying local men to turn in the names of suspected jihadists.

Similar armed groups have popped up all around the city. Each has its own bizarre rules; some threaten to kill women who don’t wear veils in public. The shop assistant is in mourning for her brother, who was killed last May, but she’s asking for trouble if she wears black more than three days running. According to the new enforcers in her neighborhood, anyone who dresses in mourning is committing blasphemy by questioning the will of God.

In the past year, militias like this one have transformed the war in Iraq. Americans call them Concerned Local Citizens (CLCs), or Sons of Iraq; Iraqis know them as Sahwa—Awakening—after the tribal council in Anbar province that launched a Sunni revolt against the tyranny of Al Qaeda in Iraq. The militias’ vital role (and the uncomfortable fact that many members used to be insurgents themselves) will be a big part of the debate this week, as American lawmakers hear testimony on the war’s progress from U.S. military commander Gen. David Petraeus and the U.S. ambassador to Baghdad, Ryan Crocker. What’s less likely to be discussed—and yet just as important in the long run—is the impact that tribal groups like the CLCs are having on Iraq’s social fabric, and in particular on its women.

America’s efforts to disengage from Iraq have led to some messy compromises. After years of trying without success to wrest Sunni areas from Qaeda control, U.S. ground commanders appear to have done it at last—but only by granting sweeping powers to sheiks and local leaders who can keep the peace. Now Iraq’s Sunni areas have been chopped into fragments, each one run by a different tribal ruler with different views on law and society. In some parts of Baghdad the situation changes visibly from block to block. No one can say how many of these leaders abuse their powers, or if their little sectors can ever be put back under the purview of a centrally controlled government. “We are becoming like Afghanistan was in the ’80s,” says Zainab Salbi, the Iraq-born founder and CEO of the activist group Women for Women International.

Saddam’s Iraq at least offered women the protection of enforced secularism; they were encouraged to study at universities and to pursue professional careers. That changed in the 1990s as the dictator began to rely on tribal sheiks to prop up his rule, while U.N. sanctions drove families into poverty and reduced opportunities for women. Americans arriving in 2003 hoped to make the new Iraq a showcase for gender equality. But women’s advocates say that dream fell by the wayside as violence engulfed the country.

Some tribal leaders are more egalitarian than others. In Baghdad’s Adhamiya district, the local women’s college is bustling with students, even with the Sahwa in charge. Times are tougher in Anbar’s provincial capital, Ramadi, where tribal troops allow women to work but not to go without headscarves, and polygamy is reportedly on the rise. Women rarely venture out of their homes now in rural Sahwa areas like Arab Jabour, south of Baghdad.

In Anbar, the Sahwa movement’s birthplace, tribal leaders have taken full control. “They have their own personal fiefdoms, and they answer to no one,” says Isobel Coleman, a women’s rights specialist for the Council on Foreign Relations. “The tribal groups may not be directly affiliated with Al Qaeda, but they’re no less conservative.” That may be an exaggeration: the jihadists forced girls into marriages, closed schools and killed indiscriminately. But tribal values are more medieval than those enshrined in the Iraqi Constitution—and this time the gunmen have the backing of the U.S. military. Some fear that worse is coming. “I can see in the eyes of some of them that they have something to say to us unveiled women,” says Samara Ali, 27, a library worker at Baghdad University. “I think that they are waiting for a proper time to speak out.”

Read the rest here. Newsweek / The Rag Blog

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But it is real shiny….

Posted on April 10, 2008 by Thorne Dreyer

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Petraeus’ Testimony : Everything His President Wants to Hear

Posted on April 10, 2008 by Thorne Dreyer

General Betray Us? Nahhh…..
By Robert Scheer / April 9, 2008

General Betray Us? Of course he has. MoveOn.org can hardly be expected to recycle its slogan from last September, when Gen. David Petraeus testified in support of escalating the U.S. war in Iraq, given the hysterical denunciations that worthy group received at the time. But it was right then — as it would be to repeat the charge now.

By undercutting the widespread support for getting out of Iraq, Petraeus did indeed betray the American public, siding with an enormously unpopular president who wants to stay the course in Iraq for personal and political reasons that run contrary to genuine national security interests.

Once again, the president is passing the buck to the uniformed military to justify continuing a ludicrous imperial adventure, and the good general has dutifully performed.

So why are we surprised? Why do we expect the generals to lead us on the path to peace when that is the professional task of statesmen and not warriors? It is an abdication of civilian control of the military, the basic principle of American constitutional governance, to assign a central role to an active duty general to make the decision to end the war. It betrays the legacy warnings of our two most famous wartime generals, George Washington and Dwight D. Eisenhower.

American history offers no greater heroes, not because of their considerable success in battle but because they gained the wisdom to sound the alarm against unbridled militarism so passionately and effectively. The farewell addresses of both those departing generals-turned-president still stand as the essential bookends for what has been written about the limits on military adventure required for democracy’s survival. Washington’s plea to the nation “to moderate the fury of party spirit, to warn against the mischiefs of foreign intrigue, to guard against the impostures of pretended patriotism” sets the standard for enlightened political discourse. A close second is Eisenhower’s warning that, “In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex.”

We have had many other examples of retired military officers asserting the need for informed and rational public decision making as to matters of war and peace. Republican presidential candidate John McCain was one of those voices when, as a senator, he led the fight, along with fellow Vietnam War veteran John Kerry, to normalize relations with the same Communist leadership in Hanoi that had once been our enemy. Does anyone, McCain included, now think we were wrong to bring the troops home from Vietnam — and just why are the dire consequences that McCain now predicts for a withdrawal from Iraq any more plausible?

McCain says we have to back the president and his generals, even though he concedes that “four years of mismanaged war had brought us almost to the point of no return.” Who mismanaged that war if not Bush and the generals he picked for the task? But don’t blame the generals, for as long as a president demands victory, they will pretend to deliver it. If they demur, they will be replaced, as recently occurred with the sudden retirement of Petraeus’ boss, Admiral William Fallon, for his suggestion in Esquire magazine that he might favor a more restrained approach in a conflict with Iran.

No such dissension from Petraeus — his faithful testimony, at least to the president if not the truth, on Tuesday was a particularly painful performance. Civilian deaths in March were 50 percent higher than in February, and there were a score of recent American deaths, and there is no evidence of political progress to support Petraeus’ stab at optimism over the “fragile” situation in Iraq. Most absurd was the suggestion that the problem would all go away if Iran would only behave, when in fact American troops are being sacrificed on the pro-Iranian side of an internal Shiite power dispute. The Shiites in charge of “our” government in Iraq are exiles trained for decades in Iran.

Not so Moqtada al-Sadr, who stayed in Iraq under Saddam Hussein, the killer of his father. Al-Sadr now opposes what he clearly labels as the U.S. occupation out of an Iraqi nationalism that is also in conflict with Iran. Now he’s the bad guy, and the Sunnis, who hate us even more, are being temporarily paid off by the United States to stop killing Americans. They, too, will turn against us, but it will not stop Petraeus or some other general in charge from telling Congress a few months from now what the president wants them to hear.

Robert Scheer’s new book on defense spending, “The Pornography of Power: How Defense Hawks Hijacked 9/11 and Weakened America,” is due out in June.

Source. The Huffington Post / The Rag Blog

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Food Supplies: Killing Us Slowly

Posted on April 10, 2008 by RagBlog

Photo: BBC

Food Price Rises Threaten Global Security – UN
by David Adam / April 9, 2008

Rising food prices could spark worldwide unrest and threaten political stability, the UN’s top humanitarian official warned yesterday after two days of rioting in Egypt over the doubling of prices of basic foods in a year and protests in other parts of the world.

Sir John Holmes, undersecretary general for humanitarian affairs and the UN’s emergency relief coordinator, told a conference in Dubai that escalating prices would trigger protests and riots in vulnerable nations. He said food scarcity and soaring fuel prices would compound the damaging effects of global warming. Prices have risen 40% on average globally since last summer.

“The security implications [of the food crisis] should also not be underestimated as food riots are already being reported across the globe,” Holmes said. “Current food price trends are likely to increase sharply both the incidence and depth of food insecurity.”

He added that the biggest challenge to humanitarian work is climate change, which has doubled the number of disasters from an average of 200 a year to 400 a year in the past two decades.

As well as this week’s violence in Egypt, the rising cost and scarcity of food has been blamed for:

· Riots in Haiti last week that killed four people
· Violent protests in Ivory Coast
· Price riots in Cameroon in February that left 40 people dead
· Heated demonstrations in Mauritania, Mozambique and Senegal
· Protests in Uzbekistan, Yemen, Bolivia and Indonesia

UN staff in Jordan also went on strike for a day this week to demand a pay rise in the face of a 50% hike in prices, while Asian countries such as Cambodia, China, Vietnam, India and Pakistan have curbed rice exports to ensure supplies for their own residents.

Read all of it here. The Guardian /UK / The Rag Blog

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Police State Amerikkka – Just Another Episode

Posted on April 10, 2008 by RagBlog


Irish Anti-War Activist Refused Entry Into The United States
by Pat Flynn / April 9, 2008

AN anti-war activist, who was acquitted of causing damage to a US military jet at Shannon Airport in 2003, has been deported from the United States.

27 year old Damien Moran, an English teacher and former seminarian originally from Co Offaly, was refused entry to the US by Homeland Security agents at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport on Sunday. Mr Moran had been invited to attend and speak at a conference against the U.S. Government’s missile defence plans.

Currently working as an English teacher in Warsaw, Poland, in November 2006, Moran was acquitted along with 4 other anti-war activists of causing €2m worth of damage to a US Navy logistics warplane shortly before the outbreak of the Iraq War.

In the early hours of February 3rd 2003, Deirdre Clancy, Nuin Dunlop, Karen Fallon, Ciaron O’Reilly and Damien Moran entered a hangar at Shannon Airport and damaged the Navy jet. All five later went on trial at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court charged with two counts each of causing criminal damage worth €2m to the aircraft.

However, after their trial collapsed twice they were acquitted at a third hearing in 2006. The jury returned a unanimous ‘Not Guilty’ verdict on both charges in the cases of all five accused. The jury accepted defence evidence that the accused honestly believed they were acting to save lives and property in Iraq and Ireland, and that their disarmament action was reasonable taking into consideration all the circumstances.

Speaking about his deportation from the US, Damien Moran said: “I was immediately detained and questioned by Homeland Security officers about our non-violent and legal action at Shannon in February 2003. The information the border authorities claimed to have was, that I was arrested for damaging a U.S. fighter jet at Shannon. I let them know that their database was out of date and that it should also read acquitted as an Irish jury had decided unanimously we had a lawful excuse to help save life and property in Iraq.”

Mr Moran added, “My mobile phone was seized and I was interrogated about the purpose of my trip and why I had damaged US military property. I had been invited to speak at a university in Colorado Springs and at a conference in Omaha on US militarism in Poland and Ireland. Homeland Security’s unjustified refusal to allow me to enter the US and meet family, speak with US citizens is just another example of how quasi-fascist the U.S. State apparatus has become.”

Reacting to the news, leading Cork based anti-war activist Dr Fintan Lane said, “I’m not surprised. The US administration under Bush is utterly paranoid. I suppose at least they didn’t attempt to snatch Damien and transport him to their torture camp in Cuba. The sad irony, of course, is that Damien gets booted out of the US for engaging in a peaceful protest against war and mass murder, while every day hundreds of US gunmen are allowed through Ireland on their way to kill people in the Middle East.”

© 2008 The Limerick Reader

Source

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Bush’s War : Now Available in the Comfort of Your Home

Posted on April 9, 2008 by Thorne Dreyer

Frontline presents revealing behind-the-scenes view of Bush’s War.
By Jim Retherford / April 9, 2008 / The Rag Blog

Anyone who has followed the downward spiraling debacle of Bush
Administration Middle East policy may have wished, as I have, to have
been a fly on the wall of the Situation Room as Dick Cheney, Donald
Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, and Richard Perle steamrolled their
ideology-driven Iraq war agenda over Colin Powell’s politically
formidable State Department team, a Democratic-controlled Senate,
and a skeptical,maligned, and marginalized intelligence community.

PBS Frontline’s two-part series, Bush’s War, provides an “insider”
view of decision- and opinion-making in the rush to war by the
Cheney-Rumsfeld White House. Perfidy, intrigue, back-stabbing, and
big lies drive this Machiavellian tale of ideological crusade by all
of the Vice President’s men — and Mushroom Cloud Condi too.

Drawing from a treasure trove of some 40 previous Frontline features
on Iraq and the “War on Terror,” producer Michael Kirk adds fresh
reporting and new interviews to craft a sharply focused documentary
narrative of this troubling period in American history. Part One,
which aired last night (Tuesday), provides shifty-eye close-ups of
the veep’s henchmen, Wolfowitz, Perle, and Libby, and a seldom-seen
look at the backroom sharks, Gonzales, Addington, and Yoo. Richard
Clarke, Joe Wilson, Richard Armitage, and a stellar cast of former
generals and CIA officials, in counterpoint, present a compelling
case against rushing to war with Iraq, but, as Frontline shows, they
were clearly outflanked and outgunned by the neocons’ “shock and awe” propaganda machine.

Read more background on the show here.
Though Part One aired last night, it can still be viewed online here.
Part Two will air at 9 p.m., Tuesday, April 15, but can also be viewed online now.

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The Raid on the Compound at Eldorado : A Rag Blogger Discussion

Posted on April 9, 2008 by Thorne Dreyer

Investigators bused dozens of women and children from the polygamist compound in Eldorado, Texas, yesterday, as other law enforcement agents continued to search the compound for more evidence. They were taken to San Angelo, about 45 miles away. Photo by Tony Gutierrez/AP

Updated April 10, 2008 / The Rag Blog

The following comments were originally posted on the MDS/Austin listserv. There is no pretense towards a comprehensive analysis here; these are simply obvervations and reactions to the event and responses to those reactions. I do believe there are some important points made here and if you would like to add your opinion, please do so using the “Opinion” function below.

Thorne Dreyer / The Rag Blog / April 9, 2008

Everyone knows that the goverment is a better and more loving parent than a heathen religious cult with barbaric attitudes toward sex and marriage.

It’s just too bad the government wasn’t around when the Mormons moved to Utah or they could have nipped these very same dangerous practices in the bud long ago, right?

Here is the Los Angeles Times story on the raid.

Roger Baker

Roger, I’m not so sure about the “bud” part, and I don’t defend anyone here, but as between the government and the cult lies the right to a jury trial, and this is the foresight of the founders who distrusted big government, as you know.

Julie Howell

Well answer me this. How many of the Branch Davidians had the right to a jury trial when the government invaded their compound and killed most of them?

How many pot smokers have been locked up by the government to save them from their sins. And the list goes on.

I don’t think the corporate morality of the government is likely to save many sinners compared to their close friends and community.

An exception to that is if you are a fundamentalist Christian, the Bush administration will open every possible door. Karl Rove figured out that angle a long time ago.

Roger Baker

The DEA undercover agent, Mr. Gonzales, warned the DEA/government against storming the Brach Davidian compound but the DEA — Treasury Agents — and all wanted the publicity more than they wanted to save any lives. They could have simply arrested Koresh while he was jogging or at the local cafe. In this latest case they could have investigated before moving in for the mass arrest, which is what it was.

The police will say there was an “Imminent Harm” situation but that doesn’t answer the question of why they rounded everyone up and hauled them off. The head guy, Jeffs, was already in jail. Has the caller ever shown up? Who was the complaint against? Would not detaining that or those specific persons been enough?

What ever happened to “police work”? Careful police investigation would be too much work and not have given them the headlines. Then there is always the attitude that “we make the rules, we don’t play by them”. The ultimate power for control freaks is having no restraint on themselves while having the ability to kill anyone with impunity. Barbara Erenreich’s book “Blood Rites” contains a lot of insight on this. The ability to terrorize a marginal group sends a message to the whole society, “You could be next”.

Alan Pogue

That’s exactly the point. The government can be very dangerous when it doubts it’s ability to win a jury verdict. There is injustice committed in your name every day in courts of this country, but the ultimate arbiter IS the community. What I’m saying is, cult v. government is a false dichotomy here due to the right to a jury trial….

The factor y’all aren’t taking into consideration is, this is not a police investigation, per se, it is a Child Protective Services (CPS) case. These people think they are god. They respect no authority. When they see “imminent harm,” Katie bar the door. Forget “probable cause,” “right to privacy,” or “innocent until proven….” This is one of the most dangerous government agencies in terms of their high-handiness with people’s personal lives.

Julie Howell

I’m with you all the way. The sad thing is that there are real cases of child, spouse and elderly abuse but the budget for investigators and psychological help is always being cut. But anyone can make an anonymous phone call and they will come down on you like a SWAT team. Be the first to call.

I’d like to see some investigation leading to solid evidence before anyone is arrested for anything. So I was speaking to why the “authorities” are often disinclined to do a professional job. Where does the sadism come in. If the obvious job for a sexual predator is “camp counselor,” “religious leader” and such then the obvious job for the sadist is “police and prison guards” and such. A good psychological screening could be put into place if one were wanted.

The problem for society is that no one is effectively policing the guardians. Those who do not mind pushing people around will gravitate to jobs that allow them to push people around. I even see this at self-policing left events. The tendency to abuse power is universal. In Austin police cadets used to be given the ink blot (what do you see?) test but that was dropped in favor of a simple/cheap multiple choice test that most could figure out. The cops (of various kinds) are supposed to channel their sadistic tendencies toward the disenfranchised so no one who “matters” will care. If a good system were put in place to curb/modify the power of the police (of all kinds) then the powerful would be less so.

I’m mad at MADD but they only wish they had the power of CPS.

The difficulty, as always, is organizing people to create the new system.

Alan Pogue

What makes this case different is the fact this is a Child Protective Services (CPS) case. These people think they are god and their mission is to make folks behave. They are the ones who took the “outcry” call and organized all the response. This is one of the most dangerous state agencies in terms of its high-handedness and disregard for all civil liberties. Judges do anything they ask.

Especially at the outset of a case. And of course the rationale is, better safe than sorry. CPS is the one behind this case and they have never heard of “innocent until proven ….”

Julie Howell


i have thought long and hard about how to reply to this issue. i spend most of my work time representing either children or parents in child abuse/neglect cases. i deal w/cps on a daily basis. my experience with them is therefore from a different perspective.

does cps have some ridiculous policies? you bet. does it overstep its boundaries at times? of course. i often fight them tooth and nail. other times i am in alignment with them. i am all too versed in the spectrum of child endangerment. i have represented hundreds of children and scores of parents. i will not go into any specifics. let me just say that these are real life situations that are uglier than anything most of us have ever seen or lived through.

i have read the affidavit that was the basis for the ruling that allowed cps to go into the compound. there are very serious allegations contained in the affidavit that sound quite plausible to me. i think what cps did in this instance is probably a good thing. it is not okay in my book for girls to be raised from birth to be the sacrificial lambs for procreation with an older man. that is what is happening. it is not about religion. screw religion. someone needs to hold the men in this group accountable for their behavior. it may seem like a drastic way to do it because it is.

the group is represented by a lawyer from jerry goldstein’s office. so they have the best lawyers that money can buy. each child will be appointed an attorney ad litem & a guardian ad litem. the attorney represents what the child wants if the child is old enough to direct representation. the guardian represents the child’s best interests.

so the children will be protected.

child abuse cuts across all racial, gender, religious, and socio-economic strata. yes poverty and lack of education make it even worse. social services in texas are of course almost non-existent. that is a much bigger picture issue. i deal with this every day. i often joke that i live in cps world.

i think we all need to be less knee-jerk in our reactions.

lori jo hansel

The fact that the sexual abuse went on with the consent of the community is what I am having trouble wrapping my mind around. And the scale of the problem – I just read that there are 416 children that were removed. I’d say your chances for being an advocate for one or more of these kids is pretty high.

Fontaine Maverick

A few thoughts about mind wrapping:

Just like the women in the burkas, there are women who appreciate life in the functional state of polygamy. Look, they get to have a family of many women and children as opposed to one man per woman which quite often can be very abusive. If there are many women per one man, they can manage to fly under his radar most of the time.

If the sexual “duty” is the abuse, when it is divided among dozens of women it isn’t all that frequent. I’m sure it is excessively onerous for the young and nubile women who the head honcho thinks require impregnation, to keep the family growing. He probably justifies it in that motherhood provides them with their purpose in life–taking care of their babies and young children.

As they age and new ones take their place the sex drys up. The community of women and children develops close ties as though members of one huge family. There is a kibbutzen quality to it. Imagine endlessly being away at summer camp.

I worry for how all these children will be absorbed into the larger community. Who will support them? Who will provide basic food, shelter and clothing if the big daddy of them all is in prison? Did he really father all 400 or were some procured in other ways? I’m sure the story will continue to unfold for years to come.

It kind of reminds me of that convent of cloistered nuns who lived over in Tarrytown in a righteously valuable manse while they were on welfare, having no man to provide–except god who saw no reason to waste money on them. After all they had taken vows of poverty, chastity and obedience–they became brides of Christ. Since He isn’t around anymore they became perfect candidates for state aid.

There are reasons that the practice has gone on uninterupted in places like Utah for decades on end. Providing all these women and children with alternative life stations in the larger community is going to be tricky. Will there be a human version of a pet adoption shelter? Group homes funded by the state? Arranged marriages?

Texas takes it on. Wow. It could have been worse. It could have been the feds with tanks and firepower–ATF, FBI with orders coming out of the AG’s office in DC.

Frances Morey


Yes, they may have to go as far as Austin to get 832 lawyers, as every client has a conflict with every other client. The problem here is getting the clients to use the options the law provides. No matter how good the lawyer, the client runs the case.

Julie Howell

On further reflection, I agree that I should have been less knee-jerk about this issue.

It is an important topic, because I think the US global empire is breaking down and I think this trend will gradually lead to many more religious cults and localized community reorganization attempts.

The raid on this FLDS cult instantly brought to my mind the botched government attack on the Branch Davidians, which almost everyone can now agree was a horrible mistake. The whole concept of government-imposed morality reminds me of Bush destroying Iraq in the name of bringing democracy.

The real objection to this particular religion is that it does seem to be socially engineered to allow a few older males to appropriate young females as wives, which drives out younger males. One of the women wrote a scathing indictment of her experience titled “Escape.”

Here is a link.

I think the ultimate litmus test may whether a majority of the cult members were happy and might wish to go back to the security and support of the cult, as alien as that might seem to the outside world. It might be that a majority were contented, as the Branch Davidians apparently were. I am most curious about where their money came from, but I’m sure the mediaand pundits will soon be all over this issue from every angle.

As strange and repressive as this cult may seem to mainstream America, I believe we are living within a political system and economy that is just as crazy right now.

Instead of a few cult elders running things for their own benefit in a commune, we now have a tiny number of billionaires acting to push the great majority of humans off the edge of an environmental cliff, and virtually assuring mass misery through over-population of the planet in the next century. The corporate empire is destroying the planet through global warming, killing off nature and countless brethren species, and assuring human misery on a vast scale in the name of greedy unlimited profit.

I think it is hypocritical to go after a religious cult for arguable abuses, while being blind to the similar problems that our civilization and culture are creating on a planetary scale, however
normal we may consider our current policies according to the conventional thinking.

Has anyone read the “World Scientist’s Warning to Humanity,” signed by a majority of the world’s Nobel Prize winning scientists about a decade ago? Our current policies amount to a short-sighted economic and political cult of power junkies, leveraged with fossil fuel based
technology, applied on a global scale — and at gunpoint. Let us try to look at these things in perspective.

Roger Baker

Marci Hamilton from the Washington Post did a long and comprehensive Q & A about the subject of these cults, with all of the social consequences and legal problems. She mentions the possibility that some of the clients (young mothers who have no education or job skills) may not cooperate. You have the problem of the child/wives having to testify against the cult “fathers”.

She also talks a lot about the young boys who are kicked out of the tribe to make room for the older men to have all of the women to themselves. These boys are simply dumped on the streets. It’s tragic. If I had any illusions about this being a “freedom of choice” issue, I am now cured.

Here is Marci Hamilton’s story.

Fontaine Maverick

There is no bright line right and wrong here.

The government is, as usual, overstepping.

But the fate of those children is hard to justify. The girls get to be sex machines from puberty and the boys get thrown out as veal is produced from dairy farms….

What is the significance of “consent” among kids who have no knowledge of the possibilities?

Isn’t this a natural consequence of home-schooling? Isn’t the whole point of home-schooling to avoid the contamination of the dominant culture? Or to avoid the discomfort to parents in having to put their ideas in direct competition with the dominant culture with the stakes being the loyalty of their children?

No easy answers.

Steve Russell

See The Raid at Eldorado : Two Views on The Rag Blog

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