The Rag Blog

Robert Reich, Secretary of Labor in the Clinton I administration, made a remark recently that bears serious consideration. We should not, Reich suggested, pick a presidential candidate by making a list of salient issues and ticking off positions one by one, finally settling on the candidate who agrees with us the most. All of the challenges facing the country this year are interrelated, and more important than any one of them is how a candidate is able to understand and explain those connections and deal with each problem in a way that does not make too many others worse.

Some Indians claim that only Indian issues matter in their feelings toward the presidential contest, but those Indians are few for a couple of reasons. First, Indian country is not exempt from economic downturns or global warming or the military misadventures that our people always wind up fighting in disproportionate numbers. Second, there are few enough policy wonks for what Robert Odawi Porter calls “American Indian control policy” that most candidates’ positions could have been spit out of the same copier.

Reich says our troubles all fit together. My son just got back from Iraq, so the war has been worrying me, the war of choice in Iraq where the issue appears to be the identity of the proper Caliph at the time Mohammed ascended to heaven. This is the theological dispute between Sunni and Shi’a. I was raised to think, contrary to the Bush II administration and the debate in the Republican primaries, that the United States has no public policy on theological issues.

Everyone but a purblind Bush II sycophant knows it’s about oil. As is the economic downturn about oil – both the rise in energy prices and the funding of the oil war on credit rather than by raising taxes like countries normally do when they fight a war. As is the global climate change problem. Our reliance on fossil fuels and the growing economies of China and India doing the same lead directly to the destruction of habitat that is ruining subsistence hunting for Inuit and Athabascan Indians.

There is another American Indian side to the energy policy issue that is not so bleak. Most people agree that one solution is to remove the incentives (read “corporate welfare”) for fossil fuels and replace them with incentives for renewables, except the Libertarian Ron Paul, who thinks the market can fix it all magically because if climate change is really a problem every single consumer will pay to stop it on an individual level whether that individual has any money or not and in spite of the fact that government has spent over 100 years tilting the playing field the way it is now – in favor of Big Oil.

Should national energy policy move to renewables – solar, wind, geothermal, hydro, biomass – Indian country is well positioned in every way except for having transmission lines to become a major source of clean power. Tribal governments have the authority to issue tax-free revenue bonds for governmental functions such as power generation. The trick is to issue bonds to power the reservation and build in a manner that allows the tribe to feed the U.S.-Canadian electrical grid. It’s not that hard, since power generation is normally built in modules to accommodate growth.

Turning energy policy to renewables is far more important to much of Indian country than an increase in social spending. With such a turn we could prosper far beyond the Bush I policies that depended on the fact that a rising tide lifts all boats and certainly beyond the Bush II policies that depended on the fact that a rising tide lifts all yachts.

It’s a cliche to call 2008 a change election but it’s not an empty cliche. A Clinton II administration or an Obama administration or even a McCain or Romney administration will at the very least have to change back to what Karl Rove, deputy chief of staff under Bush II, disdainfully called “reality-based politics.” His disdain was based on the conviction that power defines its own reality, as when the administration was able to find several grown men with college degrees who would profess not to know whether waterboarding is torture.

If Rove had been in charge during the Reagan administration, ketchup would now be a vegetable in the eyes of the school lunch program because the evidence we used to beat back that nonsense would have been inadmissible. What Bush II has given us that could never have happened even under Bush I is a government where facts don’t matter, where employees of the National Park Service tell tourists that the Grand Canyon is evidence of Noah’s flood and where there is no moral distinction between a glob of human cells and a human being.

The biggest change we can anticipate in 2008 with any candidate except perhaps Mike Huckabee is that we can negotiate differences because we once more agree on the nature of reality and we once more feel a shared obligation to explain our values to each other. Huckabee is now only a player for the vice presidency on a McCain ticket.

Even with McCain/Huckabee or Romney and whoever, I think we are about to re-enter a time where evidence matters and persuading others to our positions is more important than being able to bludgeon anybody who dissents. Former New York Gov. Mario Cuomo used to say we run in poetry but govern in prose.

For many years, the United States has been awfully short of political poetry, the importance of which traditional Indian leaders certainly understood. It often takes an orator to create consensus. Sen. Barack Obama’s speech upon winning Iowa was political poetry of the highest order and those who complain that “change” is not a platform miss the point. That speech recalled Robert F. Kennedy in 1968 and for those of us who remember a vision of what might have been. The recollection was strong enough in me to awaken assassination fears, so it’s ironic that Obama’s base appears to be young people who can’t possibly have such memories.

So while Robert Reich is correct that our problems are interconnected and involve all our relations, I do not join the cynics who claim that “change” is by its nature an empty promise. When electoral cynicism is the subject, I remember Vine Deloria Jr.’s bon mot that Indians tend to elect crooks and white people tend to elect morons. Not this election. Coming off eight years of reality defined by power, there is little room to be more crooked or more moronic than the status quo. When a candidate calls for “change,” most voters of all ethnicities understand we are so far down that any change is up.

Perhaps a global political apocalypse has already arrived.

Activists and dissidents should understand that evil forces and tyrannical governments have evolved. Just as human knowledge and science expand, so do the strategies and instruments used by rulers, elites and plutocrats. By learning from history and using new technology they have smarter tools of tyranny. The best ones prevent uprisings, revolutions and political reforms. Rather than violently destroy rebellious movements, they let them survive as marginalized and ineffective efforts that divert and sap the energy of nonconformist and rebellious thinkers. Real revolution remains an energy-draining dream, as evil forces thrive.

Most corrupt and legally sanctioned forms of tyranny hide in plain sight as democracies with free elections. The toughest lesson is that ALL elections are distractions. Nothing conceals tyranny better than elections. Few Americans accept that their government has become a two-party plutocracy run by a rich and powerful ruling class. The steady erosion of the rule of law is masked by everyday consumer freedoms. Because people want to be happy and hopeful, we have an epidemic of denial, especially in the present presidential campaign. But to believe that any change-selling politician or shift in party control will overturn the ruling class is the epitome of self-delusion and false hope. In the end, such wishful thinking perpetuates plutocracy. Proof is that plutocracy has flourished despite repeated change agents, promises of reform and partisan shifts.

The tools of real rebellion are weak. Activists and dissidents look back and see successful rebellions and revolutions and think that when today’s victims of tyranny experience enough pain and see enough political stink they too will revolt. This is wrong. They think that the Internet spreads information and inspiration to the masses, motivating them to revolt. This is wrong. They await catastrophic economic or environmental collapse to spur rebellion. This too is wrong.

Why are these beliefs wrong? Power elites have an arsenal of weapons to control and manipulate social, political and economic systems globally: corruption of public officials that make elections a sham; corporate mainstream media that turn news into propaganda; manipulation of financial markets that create fear for the public and profits for the privileged; false free trade globalization that destroys the middle class; rising economic inequality that keep the masses time-poor and financially insecure; intense marketing of pharmaceuticals that keep people passive; and addictive consumerism, entertainment and gambling that keep people distracted and pacified.

The biggest challenge for dissidents and rebels is to avoid feel-good therapeutic activism having virtually no chance of removing evil and tyranny. Idealism without practicality tactics without lofty goals, and symbolic protests pose no threat to power elites. Anger and outrage require great strategic thinking from leaders seeking revolution, not mere change. And social entrepreneurs that use business and management skills to tackle genuine social problems do nothing to achieve political reforms. To the extent they achieve results they end up removing interest in overthrowing political establishments that have allowed the problems to fester.

What is the new tool of tyranny? Technological connectivity achieved through advanced communications and computer systems, especially the rise of wireless connectivity. The global message to the masses is simple: Buy electronic products to stay plugged in. Connectivity may give pleasure, but it gives even more power to elites, rulers and plutocrats. It allows them to coordinate their efforts through invisible cabals, to closely monitor everything that ordinary people and dissidents do, and to cooperatively and clandestinely adjust social, financial and political systems to maintain stability and dominance.

In this dystopian world all systems are integrated to serve upper class elites and the corporate state, not ordinary people. When ordinary people spend their money to be more shackled to connectivity products, they become unwitting victims of largely invisible governmental and corporate oppressive forces. They are oblivious that their technological seduction exacerbates their political and economic exploitation. Though some 70 percent believe the country is on the wrong track, they fail to see the deeper causes of the trend. And if Americans were really happy and content with their consumer culture, then why are they stuffing themselves with so many antidepressants, sleeping pills and totally unhealthy foods? In truth, the vast majority of people are in denial about the rotten system they are trapped in (aka The Matrix). They are manipulated to keep hope alive through voting, despite the inability of past elections to stop the slide into economic serfdom.

Increasingly, the little-discussed phenomenon of economic apartheid ensures that elites live their lavish lives safely in physically separated ways. Concurrently, economic inequality rises, as the rich extract unusually high fractions of global wealth. When the rich get richer, the powerful get stronger. Does some economic prosperity trickles down to the poorest people? Perversely, the middle class is moved into the lower class. In this new physics of evil, wealth transfer is not from the rich to the poor, but from the middle class in wealthier countries to the poor in developing nations, where a few new billionaires join the global plutocracy.

Some data on economic inequality: The after-tax income of the top 1 percent of Americans rose 228 percent from 1979 through 2005, while middle class income remained flat over the last 4 decades. The richest 0.01 percent of earners made 5.1 percent of all income in 2005, up more than 300 percent from just 1.2 percent in 1960. Bad economic times like the present just exacerbate inequality. Even as most Wall Street companies lost billions in the sub-prime mortgage debacle after they had already made billions, they gave obscene bonuses to their employees: the average topped $180,000 for 2007, tripling the $61,000 in 2002. Scholars used to predict that high levels of economic inequality like we have today would lead to rebellion. But there are now insufficient tools and paths for rebellion, because the plutocracy has eliminated them. Instead, citizens are offered elections whose outcomes can be controlled and subverted by the ruling class.

The New World Order is getting what it wants: a stable two-class system, with the lower class serving the elitist upper class. The paradox is that along with rising economic inequality and apartheid is mounting consumerism and materialism that is used to pacify, distract and control the masses. That’s where easy credit and cheap products from low-wage nations are critical. The poor can have cell phones, 24-7 Internet access and increasingly cars, while the bejeweled upper class travel in private jets and yachts, vacation on private islands, and have several gated mansions maintained by servants and guarded by private police. We have a technologically advanced form of medieval society. It is working in the US and China and most other places. Elections just mask economic tyranny and slavery.

The ruling class knows how to maintain stability. Keep the masses distracted, fearful, brainwashed, insecure, and dependent on government and business sectors for survival. Train people to see themselves as relatively free consumers. Maintain the myth that ordinary people can become wealthy and join the ruling class, which theoretically is not impossible, but of no statistical significance for the masses.

There are no easy paths to restore power to the people. But here are three strategies worth considering. First, the real power of the masses is as consumers, not as voters, workers, activists, or Internet users. Weakened unions, globalization, technology, and illegal immigration have sapped the power of workers. National economies, especially the US, depend on consumers. Suspensions in discretionary consumer spending used as a political weapon could force reforms. But curbing personal spending and saving money has become a rare form of civil disobedience. Consumers buy stuff when they want it, not when they can afford it. Rulers have replaced chains with debt and no political leader in a very long time has championed economic rebellion.

Second, because they are more a tool of tyranny than rebellion, the masses should stop giving credibility and legitimacy to faux democracies by boycotting elections. Plutocrats cleverly equate patriotism and good citizenship with voting while at the same time ensuring that no genuine change agents can succeed even if elected. All election results can be subverted by the forces of corruption. Those promising change, like Barack Obama, do not pose a lethal threat to forces of evil and corruption. Sadly, refusing to vote in corrupt political systems is another worthy but unpopular form of civil disobedience. The compulsion to vote is a political narcotic that sustains democratic tyranny.

The 2008 Republican race has left a bitter legacy of sloganeering against Muslims. It may well haunt the party this November.

Feb. 1, 2008 | For much of January, one might have thought that the Republican candidates for president were already competing against a single opponent. Not one called Hillary or Barack, but with a moniker even more chilling in the eyes of hard-line Republicans: Islamic fascism.

The American public, worried about mortgages, recession and a seemingly interminable war in Iraq, was unimpressed — those who fear-mongered the most about Muslim terrorists have faltered at the polls. Even the remaining front-runners, John McCain and Mitt Romney, have said bigoted things about Muslims and their religion. But Islamophobia as a campaign strategy has failed, and it may well come back to haunt the Republicans in the general election.

Back when the GOP presidential field was still flush with tough-talking right-wingers, no one was more outrageous in targeting Muslims than Rep. Tom Tancredo of Colorado, who suggested that Muslim terrorists inside America were plotting the imminent detonation of an atomic bomb on U.S. soil. How to prevent this Tom Clancy scenario? “If it is up to me, we are going to explain that an attack on this homeland of that nature would be followed by an attack on the holy sites in Mecca and Medina,” Tancredo declared. “Because that’s the only thing I can think of that might deter somebody from doing what they otherwise might do.”

That sort of wild-eyed bigotry only fuels the cycle of mistrust and vengeance. One can only imagine how much more difficulty Tancredo generated for U.S. diplomats attempting to explain to America’s Muslim allies why a presidential candidate was talking about nuking Islam’s holiest cities, the larger with a population nearly that of Houston.

But the failure of Islamophobia as a campaign strategy is no better illustrated than by the spectacular flame-out of Rudy Giuliani. Throughout his campaign (deep-sixed after his dismal showing in Tuesday’s Florida primary), the former New York mayor evoked the Sept. 11 attacks at an absurd rate. Giuliani and his advisors appeared to revel in demonizing Muslims. They also reveled in their own ignorance — never learning the difference between “Islamic” and “Muslim.”

“Islamic” has to do with the religion founded by the prophet Mohammed. We speak of Islamic ethics or Islamic art, as things that derive from the religion. “Muslim,” on the contrary, describes the believer. It would be perfectly all right to talk about Muslim terrorists, but calling them Islamic terrorists or Islamic fascists implies that the religion of Islam is somehow essentially connected to those extremist movements.

Giuliani complained that during their debates, Democratic rivals “never mentioned the word ‘Islamic terrorist,’ ‘Islamic extremist,’ ‘Islamic fascist,’ ‘terrorist,’ whatever combination of those words you want to use, [the] words never came up.” He added, “I can’t imagine who you insult if you say ‘Islamic terrorist.’ You don’t insult anyone who is Islamic who isn’t a terrorist.”

But people are not “Islamic,” they are Muslim. And one most certainly does insult Muslims by tying their religion to movements such as terrorism or fascism. Muslims perceive a double standard in this regard: Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols would never be called “Christian terrorists” even though they were in close contact with the Christian Identity Movement. No one would speak of Christofascism or Judeofascism as the Republican candidates speak of Islamofascism. Muslims point out that persons of Christian heritage invented fascism, not Muslims, and deny that Muslim movements have any link to the mass politics of the 1930s in Europe.

Giuliani’s pledge to take the United States on an offensive against Islamic fascism, which he also said would be a long-term battle, failed to excite the imagination of voters. It may well have alarmed them in a way different from what Giuliani intended: If, by Giuliani’s logic, the United States is only on the “defensive” now, with wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, what would being on the offensive look like? Would Giuliani have started four wars? Interestingly, Giuliani did especially poorly in Florida among retired and active-duty military personnel.

Giuliani was also hurt when the co-chair of his veterans’ campaign in New Hampshire, John Deady praised Giuliani for being able to stop “the rise of the Muslims,” an effort necessary to continue, he said, until “we defeat them or chase them back to their caves, or, in other words, get rid of them.” When asked if he was really condemning all members of the religion, Deady replied, “I don’t subscribe to the principle that there are good Muslims and bad Muslims. They’re all Muslims.” Deady was forced to resign after a video of his remarks was put on the web by the Guardian. Other Giuliani advisors have had some bigoted things to say about Muslims as well. Rep. Peter King of New York complained that “unfortunately we have too many mosques in this country.” Daniel Pipes, a professional Islamophobe advising Giuliani, once said it would be dangerous to let American Muslims vote.

Meanwhile, Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, who has done well among evangelicals but has had difficulty attracting votes from other segments of the Republican Party, had a revealing response to the assassination of Pakistani politician Benazir Bhutto. “I am making the observation that we have more Pakistani illegals coming across our border than all other nationalities except those immediately south of the border,” he said. He added, “And in light of what is happening in Pakistan it ought to give us pause as to why are so many illegals coming across these borders.” In fact, there are almost no Pakistani illegal aliens to speak of in the United States. Only 13 percent of the estimated 12 million persons in the United States illegally are estimated to be Asian, but almost all of them are East Asian. Pakistani and Indian immigrants, moreover, are among the wealthiest immigrants in the country.

Current GOP front-runner John McCain has been prone to hyperbole and has let some bigoted statements escape his lips as well. He has said that the threat from Islamic extremism is greater than the one presented by the Soviet Union. Recently, McCain proclaimed, “I’m not interested in trading with al-Qaida. All they want to trade is burqas… ” The senator seemed to be relating the Muslim custom of veiling to terrorism. The Detroit Free Press, whose city has one of the largest Muslim populations, reported on Jan. 12 that McCain’s remarks were hurtful to American Muslims. “Local Muslims say that criticizing al-Qaida is legitimate, but wonder why he would make a snide remark about a dress? The remark was especially bothersome, some said, considering that McCain’s adopted daughter, Bridget McCain, is from one of the biggest Muslim countries, Bangladesh.” One would think that raising a daughter from the Muslim world in the United States today would be difficult enough, even without the adoptive father’s denigrating the customs of the women from that culture.

On another occasion, asked whether a Muslim candidate for president would be acceptable, McCain replied, “I just have to say in all candor that since this nation was founded primarily on Christian principles … personally, I prefer someone who I know who has a solid grounding in my faith. But that doesn’t mean that I’m sure that someone who is Muslim would not make a good president. I don’t say that we would rule out under any circumstances someone of a different faith. I just would — I just feel that that’s an important part of our qualifications to lead.”

But according to Article IV of the U.S. Constitution, “no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.” Secularists and Jews joined American Muslims in condemning McCain’s assertion that the United States was founded on Christian principles, and that Christian faith could be a key determinate for taking the Oval Office.

McCain’s misconceptions about Muslims and perceived hostility toward them predates his 2008 presidential campaign. In 2005, he said on “The Charlie Rose Show” that a Muslim had killed the Indian political and spiritual figure Mahatma Gandhi. In fact, the assassin belonged to a radical Hindu organization, the RSS.

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney has, like his peers, regularly invoked the dangers of “Islamic fascism.” He allegedly told one Muslim-American he would not put a Muslim in his Cabinet, since there were not enough Muslim-Americans to justify it. (Romney later denied the charge).

Why might all this rhetoric targeting Muslims be unwise? For one thing, allowing the Christian conservative base to set an agenda that demonizes Muslims contains the danger of turning off more moderate segments of the GOP and American voters at large. McCain’s comment on the importance of a president’s being Christian appeared to have backfired on him in precisely that way.

Moreover, Muslim-Americans and Arab-Americans are swing voters in key states such as Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Florida. While they tended to vote for George W. Bush in 2000, by 2004 these groups overwhelmingly supported John Kerry, and the heavy-handed and bigoted rhetoric of the Republican candidates may drive them away from the GOP altogether.

WASHINGTON (Jan. 31) – President Bush’s 2009 budget will virtually freeze most domestic programs and seek nearly $200 billion in savings from federal health care programs, a senior administration official said Thursday. The Bush budget also will likely exceed $3 trillion, this official said.

Bush on Monday will present his proposed budget for the new fiscal year to Congress, where it’s unlikely to gain much traction in the midst of a presidential campaign. The president has promised a plan that would erase the budget deficit by 2012 if his policies are followed.

Attorney General Michael Mukasey sipped his water nervously. It was the first time he was testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee since his controversial confirmation. At issue then and now: torture. Does he consider waterboarding torture? Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., made it personal: “Would waterboarding be torture if it was done to you?” “I would feel that it was,” Mukasey responded. Though he deflected questions, before and after Kennedy’s, his personal answer rang true.

Our attorney general should not have to be waterboarded to know that it is torture. Likewise, Americans should not have to suffer under a brutal dictatorship in order to know that it is wrong to support dictators abroad.

Take, for example, the long-reigning dictator of Indonesia, Suharto. He died this week at the age of 86, an age that most of his more than 1 million victims never reached. Suharto ruled Indonesia for more than 30 years, shored up by the most powerful country on Earth, the United States. Suharto rose to power in 1965 in a coup backed by the CIA, which provided him with lists of dissidents whom the Indonesian military then killed, one by one. He was forced from power in 1998, in a pro-democracy uprising.

Throughout Suharto’s reign, U.S. administrations-Democratic and Republican-armed, trained and financed the Indonesian military. In addition to the million Indonesians killed, hundreds of thousands were also killed during Indonesia’s occupation of East Timor, a small country 300 miles above Australia. It is a country I know well, having covered it for years. On Nov. 12, 1991, when I was covering a peaceful Timorese procession in Timor’s capital, Dili, Suharto’s occupying army opened fired on the crowd, killing 270 Timorese. I got off easy: The soldiers beat me with their boots and the butts of their U.S. M-16s. They fractured the skull of my colleague Allan Nairn, who was writing for The New Yorker magazine at the time. And that massacre was one of the smaller ones in Timor. Nevertheless, President George H.W. Bush, followed by Bill Clinton, continued to try to supply Indonesia with weapons. Only a grass-roots movement in the United States stopped the U.S. military sales.

Aside from being unimaginably brutal, Suharto was also corrupt. Transparency International estimated Suharto’s fortune to be between $15 billion and $35 billion. The current U.S. ambassador to Indonesia, Cameron Hume, praised Suharto’s memory this week, saying, “President Suharto led Indonesia for over 30 years, a period during which Indonesia achieved remarkable economic and social development. … Though there may be some controversy over his legacy, President Suharto was a historic figure who left a lasting imprint on Indonesia and the region of Southeast Asia.” Imprint? Yes, if he means pulling out people’s fingernails, disappearing Indonesian dissidents, or wiping out a third of the population of East Timor, one of the great genocides of the 20th century. But clearly, that is not what Hume meant.

Whether it’s waterboarding, waging an illegal war or holding hundreds of prisoners without charge for years at Guantanamo Bay or at CIA black sites around the world, I am reminded of Mahatma Gandhi, one of the world’s greatest nonviolent leaders. “What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless,” he asked, “whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty or democracy?”

The Mukasey hearing happened to take place on the 60th anniversary of Gandhi’s assassination. Also on this day, Rudolph Giuliani and John Edwards dropped out of the presidential race. In his exit speech, Edwards said, “America’s hour of transformation is upon us.” As the race narrows, it is a key moment to reflect: One leading candidate, John McCain, was actually tortured (unlike Mukasey, although McCain supported his confirmation). McCain predicted we may be in Iraq for 100 years. He is up against Mitt Romney, who said he would double the size of Guantanamo. Neither of the remaining leading Democratic candidates calls for the immediate withdrawal of troops from Iraq. Yes, it is a key moment to reflect on the teachings of Gandhi. When asked what he thought of Western civilization, Gandhi responded, “I think it would be a good idea.”

Amy Goodman is the host of “Democracy Now!,” a daily international TV/radio news hour airing on 650 stations in North America.

It’s been a year since Molly Ivins died, leaving us to slog through the political landscape without her sanity-saving blend of insight, humor and outrage. Unlike Maureen Dowd, who delights in snippy wordplay, with Molly you felt the words erupting from her soul, ricocheting off her funny bone and then passing through her brain to be arranged in a way that made sense — an enormous challenge when dealing with the non-sense of the president she called “Shrub.”

As Super Tuesday closes in with the fate of — oh, just about everyone — at stake, I keep wishing I could open my paper and find Molly’s take on it all. What fun she would have had with the entire Republican slate, from the moribund-on-arrival Fred Thompson to the 12th-century worldview of affable Mike Huckabee to the transformation of “America’s Mayor” to America’s meltdown.

And she wouldn’t have let John McCain’s resemblance to an ermine — a short-legged weasel who changes color with the seasons — go unnoticed.

On the other side I imagine she’d have taken a few jabs at Dennis Kucinich for toe-tapping with a UFO and at John Edwards for his pricey girly-man haircuts — yet slapped them a high-five for the truths they dare to speak. She encouraged veracity no matter how eccentric the package; she just couldn’t tolerate “clever straddling,” as she put it.

She would have donned a hazmat suit to deal with the hydra-like beast called Billary that clawed its way to defeat in South Carolina. She was clear on where she stood on the Clintons, calling Bill “as weak as bus-station chili” and writing in January 2006, “I’d like to make it clear to the people who run the Democratic Party that I will not support Hillary Clinton for president. Enough. Enough triangulation, calculation and equivocation.”

So as millions of us trudge off to caucuses and primaries next Tuesday, I’m wondering: What Would Molly Do?

Referring to the death of Gene McCarthy in that same 2006 column, she gave a pretty good idea of where she stood.

“There are times a country is so tired of bull that only the truth can provide relief. If no one in conventional-wisdom politics has the courage to speak up and say what needs to be said, then you go out and find some obscure junior senator from Minnesota [or Illinois — my add] with the guts to do it.”

Well, McCarthy didn’t win, but he also wasn’t much of a candidate. I knew and admired Eugene McCarthy, but I think it’s safe to say he was no Barack Obama. But by coalescing the young and the antiwar voters, he forced those who did win to put an end to America’s other mistake of a war.

So Molly would rail at us not to let Bush Co. — and any lily-livered so-called leader who is up for election — tell us that this war is no longer an issue.

With plans for permanent military bases throughout Iraq and likely Republican candidate John McCain’s comfort with 100 years of occupation — not to mention the obscene daily loss of life and treasure — we are a nation that will continue to bleed out until we die.

So do what Molly would do. Go to your precinct caucus on Feb. 5, not because your candidate’s political future depends on it, but because your nation’s future depends on the candidate you choose. Go with Molly’s words ringing in your ears: “We want to find solutions other than killing people. Not in our name, not with our money, not with our children’s blood.”

The last time my mother was in a hospital, an essay by Thich Nhat Hanh moved in front of my eyes. “Our mother is the teacher who first teaches us love, the most important subject in life,” he wrote. “Without my mother I could never have known how to love. Thanks to her I can love my neighbors. Thanks to her I can love all living beings. Through her I acquired my first notions of understanding and compassion.”

My mother, Miriam A. Solomon, died on January 20, which happened to be the seventh anniversary of the inauguration of a man and a presidential regime that she loathed. Once, several years ago, when I referred to George W. Bush as “an idiot,” she made a correction by pointing out he’s much worse than that; she used the adjective “evil.”

At my parents’ apartment, taped on the front door for a long time, a little poster said: “The America I Believe In Doesn’t Torture People.” The poster was from Amnesty International USA — an organization that my mom wrote many protest letters to dictators for — and it summed up her devotion to human decency rather than counterfeit versions of American democracy.

On Monday, the day after my mom died, the Washington Post that arrived on the apartment doorstep carried a lead editorial under the headline “Martin Luther King Jr.: His Words Are More Relevant Than Ever This Election Year.” But the editorial did not include the word “war” — even while it grandly commented on “the vision of Dr. King” and, of course, quoted from his “I Have a Dream” speech.

My mother was among the hundreds of thousands of civil-rights supporters who gathered in front of the Lincoln Memorial and heard King’s speech that day in 1963. But unlike the Post’s editorial writers she did not suffer from arrested development in subsequent decades.

She shared in King’s expansive view of essential struggles for human rights during the last few years of his life. And in the decades that followed, she took to heart his denunciations of economic injustice and what he called “the madness of militarism.”

In contrast to the Washington Post — with its fevered editorial support for the war in Vietnam and, a third of a century later, the war in Iraq — my mother was a humanist who cared about human life far more than geopolitical positioning. In October 1967, then a 46-year-old mother of four children, she joined in the large antiwar march to the Pentagon.

She was passionate about the Bill of Rights. In the early 1970s she did extensive volunteer work for the ACLU in defense of the civil liberties of antiwar demonstrators. And for decades she worked to get progressive Democrats elected to office. She was never in the limelight, and she never sought it.

Sometimes she’d tell me about her father, Abe Abramowitz, a socialist who did tireless political work in Brooklyn. As a girl, she went with him to branch meetings of The Workmen’s Circle, where social justice was on the agenda. Once she showed me how he showed her how to quickly seal a lot of envelopes by wetting many flaps all at once with a sponge. Along the way he supported Norman Thomas for president; later on, as circumstances and possibilities shifted, he opted for Franklin Roosevelt.

My mom adored her father, who had a sparkling sense of humor, a love of literature, and — most of all — an overflow of humanistic kindness. He died young, when she was only in her mid-thirties. It must have been a terrible blow to my mother.

My mother did not die young (she was 86), but since then I’ve felt awful waves of sadness. And sometimes I think of people who are mourning loved ones of all ages, due to distinctly unnatural causes. The people dying in Iraq as a consequence of the U.S. war effort. The children in so many countries who lose their lives to the ravages of poverty. The health-care system in the United States that — in the absence of full medical coverage for everyone as a human right — means avoidable death and suffering on a large scale.

In mediaspeak and political discourse, the human toll of corporate domination and the warfare state is routinely abstract. But the results — in true human terms — add rage and more grief on top of grief.

Our own mourning should help us understand and strive to prevent the unspeakable pain of others. And whatever love we have for one person, we should try to apply to the world. I won’t ever be able to talk with my mother again, but I’m sure that she would agree.

After my mother died, I learned about a poem that she wrote long ago — apparently soon after her father passed away. The poem is titled “Bereavement.” Here is how it ends:

More than cherished memories are left
Behind; they leave us — us
To know our duties and our powers
And to carry on without much fuss.

WASHINGTON — The quiet, tree-lined 400 block of New Jersey Avenue, with its expanse of Victorian houses in the shadow of the U.S. Capitol, resembles many residential streets in this part of Washington.

Look closer during the cocktail hour while Congress is in session. Well-coiffed men and women mill about behind the grand windows, glasses in hand. Stand on the sidewalk, and you’re bound to bump into a lawmaker.

Real estate records explain. One newly renovated house is owned by UPS, the global shipping company. Another belongs to Patton Boggs, the city’s top-grossing lobbying firm. There’s former Texas congressman-turned-lobbyist Jack Fields’ place. Down the way is lobbyist Tim Rupli, who moved in about a year ago.

Most of the thousands of lobbyists work across the city, in and around K Street. In the past decade, 18 lobbying firms, corporations and labor unions have purchased town houses or leased office space near the Capitol, joining more than a dozen others that had operated there for years, according to real estate records.

Despite a strict new ban on gifts to lawmakers, lobbyists routinely use these prime locations to legally wine and dine members of Congress while helping them to raise money, campaign records show. The lawmakers get a venue that is often free or low-cost, a short jaunt from the Capitol. The lobbyists get precious uninterrupted moments with lawmakers — the sort of money-fueled proximity the new lobbying law was designed to curtail. The public seldom learns what happens there because the law doesn’t always require fundraising details to be reported.

“It’s a nice added bonus to say, ‘Hey, we’re going to host it at our house,'” said Jeffrey Shoaf, chief lobbyist of the Associated General Contractors of America, which opened its doors for nine fundraisers — and others that he says went undisclosed — last year at its redbrick town house two blocks from the Capitol.

The receptions, which can range from small breakfast meetings of five to large catered parties of 100 or so, are only a sliver of the fundraising universe.

Even so, they illustrate that lawmakers still are allowed to accept valuable favors from special interests willing to pay for access, despite promises by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other lawmakers that the restrictions on gifts and trips would “break the link between lobbyists and legislators.”

The role of lobbyists in fundraisers wasn’t addressed in the lobbying law signed last September. As long as they don’t exceed the federal cap on campaign donations — $10,000 per two-year election cycle for political action committees — lobbyists can underwrite an event for a favored senator or representative at a resort, on a golf trip or at their town house.

USA TODAY counted more than 400 congressional fundraisers at lobbyist-, corporate- or labor-owned Capitol Hill facilities last year through November, benefiting 214 lawmakers — 40% of Congress. Those numbers, based on invitations, interviews and Federal Election Commission records, capture only part of the total because many events go undisclosed. The figures don’t include fundraisers hosted by lobbyists at their K Street offices, which are subject to the same rules but don’t offer similarly convenient geography. USA TODAY also found examples of lawmakers helping the interests of the lobbyists who hosted them.

“This is business as usual,” said Malcolm Berkley, a spokesman for UPS, which opened its doors for lawmakers 57 times during the first 11 months of last year. “We are participating in the system that is established, and we do it by the rules and guidelines.”

‘A quality opportunity’

Lobbyists have long sponsored fundraisers for Congress members at Capitol Hill restaurants and clubs. When Congress is in session and venues on the Hill book up, those with a well-located private facility have a distinct advantage.

“It’s location, location, location,” said former Pennsylvania congressman Bob Edgar, a Democrat who heads Common Cause, a citizen watchdog group.

Congress members prefer a fundraiser on the Hill because it affords “more time with their donors and less time in transit,” said health care lobbyist Frederick Graefe, who launched a solo practice last year from his million-dollar town house.

He estimates he hosted two dozen events there last year, but only two of them were reported.

The lobbyists offer lawmakers access to a larger donor network, fundraising consultant Tom Hammond said. “Sometimes if you do an event at, say, the UPS town house, other folks in the transportation industry will attend,” he said. “Or if it’s a Patton Boggs town house event, sometimes some of their clients will show up.”

Kate Smith, who hosted at least 29 fundraisers last year near the Capitol as the PAC director for the American Council of Life Insurers, said the gatherings present “a quality opportunity to be able to discuss your issues.”

Convenient access doesn’t come cheap. The general contractors association, whose headquarters is in suburban Arlington, Va., spent $3 million in 2001 to buy and outfit a town house on D Street near the House office buildings, including $23,000 for artwork, according to its federal tax filings.

“These houses are tangible proof of how big a business the pay-to-play system has become,” said Meredith McGehee of the non-partisan Campaign Legal Center. When lawmakers pay to rent the houses for fundraisers, records show, they often get cut-rate deals, despite FEC rules that say campaigns must pay fair-market value for goods and services.

Brett Kappel, a campaign-finance lawyer who advises trade associations, said he tells would-be fundraising hosts to compare what nearby hotels charge to rent a room of similar square footage. The Hyatt Regency Washington, two blocks from the Capitol, charges $500 to rent a room for 25 people for two hours, said Steve Baughan, senior catering manager.

A small event at the Sewall-Belmont House, a historic Capitol Hill town house, costs $800 for a room, according to its website. Records show UPS charges $200.

The Associated General Contractors recently raised its fee from $75 to $100. Shoaf and Berkley said hotels are not an apt comparison. “We’ve looked at other similarly situated properties in the Capitol Hill area, and we’ve made the determination with outside counsel” that the company is charging “a fair cost,” Berkley said. Shoaf said the contractors open their facilities to non-political groups, and therefore come under an FEC exemption that allows “community rooms” to be used for fundraisers for a nominal fee.

‘More transparency’ needed

On a recent chilly autumn night on New Jersey Avenue, Rep. Bill Sali sat in on the drums with a band at Rupli’s house.

The party was to raise money to retire some of the Idaho Republican’s campaign debt, and among the attendees were lobbyists from the Carmen Group, whose slogan is “proven results.”

A few weeks later, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer’s driver double-parked his black SUV in front of the town house owned by partners in the lobbying firm Williams & Jensen while the Maryland Democrat stopped into a fundraiser for Rep. Nydia Velázquez, D-N.Y. That was two months after the enactment of a bill designed to curb the influence of lobbyists.

Congress passed the law largely in response to the crimes of convicted former lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who pleaded guilty to corrupting then-representative Bob Ney, R-Ohio, and other government officials with gifts. Under the new rules, members of Congress no longer are allowed to accept even small gifts or meals from lobbyists or their clients. They no longer may take subsidized trips in private jets. Lobbyist-funded travel has been curtailed to no more than two nights.

Some things haven’t changed. Some lawmakers have advocated freeing Washington from the grip of lobbyists by day while continuing to take their campaign money by night. Last year through October, Democratic lawmakers outraised Republicans among business interests by $324 million to $253 million, and among registered lobbyists by $6.9 million to $5.3 million, according to the non-partisan Center for Responsive Politics.

Asked about lobbyist fundraising last spring, Hoyer said, “If you look at all the convictions and the people who are serving in jail, it’s not about campaign money. It’s about taking money directly from special interests for travel, meals, in your pocket. The beauty of campaign finance is there is disclosure. People can see.”

Not always.

Under federal election rules, groups can provide lawmakers free food, drink and a fundraising venue if they disclose that spending as contributions, usually through their political action committees. Those count against the limits of $10,000 per two-year election cycle for PACs and $4,600 for individuals.

Or they can charge the lawmaker, in which case the expense should show up in election records if it exceeds $200.

In theory, this should mean nearly all events are disclosed, allowing the public to learn which special interests have hosted fundraisers for which legislators. In practice, a list of exemptions prevents that.

The FEC allows lobbyists to give their space to federal candidates, or charge a nominal fee, if they also make it available at little or no cost to charities and civic groups.

FedEx provides its town house free to members of Congress and charities, spokesman Maury Lane said, so there is no public record of the fundraisers. Lane said he didn’t know how many events were held.

Another exemption allows an individual to spend up to $1,000 hosting a fundraiser in his home without reporting it or having it count against contribution limits, a provision Graefe said allows most of his events to go undisclosed.

Because some lobbyists charge less than $200 for rent, campaigns don’t have to itemize those payments — leaving no record connecting the lawmaker to the lobbyist-hosted event. Hoyer declined to answer questions for this story. His spokeswoman, Stacey Bernards, said, “This may be an area where there could be more transparency.”

A little more sunlight is coming. The new law requires disclosure of “bundling” of contributions by lobbyists — long a hidden fixture of fundraising.

The measure, which awaits FEC enforcement rules, requires lawmakers to list the name of any lobbyist who raises at least $15,000 for them in a six-month period, along with the amount raised. Some lobbyists are confident their fundraisers will not be covered.

“Most of our events are under that threshold,” said Doyle Bartlett, a former congressional staffer whose firm, Bartlett Bendall, hosted at least 18 Hill fundraisers last year, campaign records show.

Donations, then earmarks

Some observers say the new gift and trip restrictions have put more emphasis on helping Congress members raise money as a way of gaining access to lawmakers.

“A very unfortunate effect of the gift rule changes is that it has definitely forced more of the substantive interaction between members and constituents into a fundraising context,” said Stewart Van Scoyoc of Van Scoyoc Associates, the fourth-highest grossing lobbying firm in the first half of last year.

Van Scoyoc’s firm maintains a PAC that spent $70,000 during the first 11 months of last year to underwrite 47 fundraisers.

The firm resides in one of the city’s most desirable locations for lobbyists, at 101 Constitution Ave. NW, a sleek building that opened in 2002 with a boast on its website of “unparalleled access to leaders.”

Hors d’oeuvres served by Van Scoyoc’s caterer, Ridgewells of Bethesda, Md., include Peking duck pancake wraps and mini-crab cakes with key lime tartar sauce. Individually, Van Scoyoc and his employees gave $429,500 to federal candidates last year through October, and $812,000 in 2005 and 2006, according to a USA TODAY analysis of FEC records compiled by CQ MoneyLine.

After working with a member of Congress to help a client, Van Scoyoc said, “you’re almost ungracious” if you turn down a request for fundraising help.

Trading contributions for official action is illegal, and lobbyists say they don’t give with the expectation of achieving a specific policy result. “It’s frankly insulting for these so-called consumer groups to say that a member can be bought for $1,000, or that I expect something in return,” Graefe said.

Even so, correlations between lobbyist-hosted fundraisers and official actions that please the lobbyists are not hard to find:

• UPS hosted a breakfast fundraiser at its town house for Rep. Jim Oberstar, D-Minn., head of the House transportation committee, on June 28. Later that day, Oberstar won committee adoption of an amendment he authored, with UPS’ support, that would make it easier for workers at rival FedEx to unionize. Many UPS workers are unionized.

Besides the $728 cost of the breakfast and room, UPS’ political action committee contributed $4,772 to Oberstar’s campaign this campaign cycle. UPS hosted another town house fundraiser for Oberstar’s leadership PAC on Jan. 15. “It just happened that the (committee vote) was the same day,” Oberstar said. “It wouldn’t have made any difference if we’d had (the fundraiser) the month before or the month afterward. I wasn’t thinking about it at all.”

He said his amendment would fix a disparity in the law he’s long wanted to change. UPS spokesman Berkley also said the timing was a coincidence and UPS was not the driving force behind the FedEx-related proposal.

• On Dec. 19, Rep. Nancy Boyda, a freshman Democrat from Kansas, issued a news release taking credit for a $485,000 grant for a wastewater treatment project in Iola, a town in her district. On Oct. 15, the Van Scoyoc firm had registered to lobby for Iola. On Nov. 1, the firm hosted a fundraiser for Boyda at its offices. The cost for catering, beverages, room rental and incidentals: $1,203, paid for by the firm’s PAC.

On the day the House of Representatives passed the lobbying law in July, Boyda said that the ban on gifts and meals was important to her constituents because “they want to know that I’m not sitting someplace in Washington, D.C., with somebody that gets my attention for two solid hours.”

On Jan. 18, Boyda said, “If the good people of Kansas want to ask if this passes the smell test, I think that it does,” because benefits flowed to her district.

Is the decline of the status of the United States a result of its heavy ecological footprint? A strong argument can be made that the fading of the American empire is fundamentally an environmental issue.

In his book The Upside of Down, Canadian political scientist Thomas Homer-Dixon devotes a lot of space to an environmental analysis of the decline and fall of the Roman Empire. Interesting in itself, it is also meant as a cautionary tale, not only for the U.S., but also for all industrialized nations.

The main source of energy for Rome was biomass — grain for people, fodder for oxen and fuels like wood and olive oil. Indirectly, all are forms of solar energy. As the city of Rome expanded, more and more energy was needed to support the growing urban population and build infrastructure. (The book includes a particularly fascinating study of the embodied energy in the Coliseum.) Thus, Rome had to expand its empire in order to control enough land to produce all the biomass energy it needed for its capital.

In order to build an empire, soldiers were needed, more and more as the empire expanded. All had to be fed and provisioned. The empire also needed tax gatherers and civil servants. These armies and bureaucrats had to be supported by the empire. Expansion was also necessary to get booty and other forms of wealth, such as gold, to pay for the Roman lifestyle and the costs of expansion itself.

All this supported a vicious cycle of expansion to gain land followed by a build-up of soldiers, civil servants and debt, then more expansion.

Meanwhile, the intensive farming and forestry resulted in a deterioration of the environment, particularly through erosion and salination, meaning lower productivity. Once again, the land base had to be expanded to make up for lost productivity. This meant more soldiers and longer supply lines. Gradually, the whole environmental-military-political-financial system became exhausted and the barbarians had their day.

The U.S. is the modern equivalent to Rome, though its energy sources are mainly coal, oil and natural gas. National reserves of oil and gas began to decline decades ago and the U.S. became increasingly dependent on foreign oil. This dependence required a foreign presence with a military backing that is unparalleled in the history of the world. As everyone knows, and former chair of the U.S. Federal Reserve Alan Greenspan finally stated once out of office, wars like Iraq are oil wars, just as Roman conquests were — in large measure — about access to biomass energy.

All this oil is needed to support the most lavish lifestyle the world has ever known. The American lifestyle has a very heavy ecological footprint indeed, sucking resources from throughout the world and sending fewer and fewer products out to the world. Consumption is built on a mountain of personal and national debt. The U.S. national debt is a staggering $9 trillion, about $30,000 per person. Much of this is held in foreign countries, mainly China. Meanwhile personal debt is also soaring, yet Americans won’t stop spending.

As U.S. Comptroller General David Walker describes it, the numbers on debt just don’t hold up. America may not have a “heart attack” in the next few years, but it’s been diagnosed with “fiscal cancer.” What lies ahead will be worse than any recession, and strains in the American economy will have ripple effects worldwide, as is currently evident.

To maintain its extravagant lifestyle, America is relying on the world’s reserves of limited and non-renewable fossil fuels and running on debt. This is a recipe for collapse, very similar to that of Rome’s.

Benefiting from history, America should be able to see where this is going and do something different. The solution, of course, is to build a sustainable society. America, and everyone else, will have to convert to an economy based on renewable resources and learn to limit consumption to amounts that can be supplied sustainably by ecosystems. To achieve this, we must switch to a concept of growth that is qualitative rather than quantitative.

BRATTLEBORO, Vt. (Jan. 30) – A town petition making President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney subject to arrest for crimes against the Constitution has triggered a barrage of criticism from people who say residents are “wackjobs” and “nuts.”

Residents of Brattleboro, Vt., will get to vote on a measure that calls for the arrest of President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney for “crimes against our Constitution.” Dozens of people have contacted the town to criticize the ballot question, calling residents “wackjobs” and “nuts.”

In e-mail messages, voicemail messages and telephone calls, outraged people are calling the measure the equivalent of treason and vowing never to visit Vermont.

“Has everyone up there been out in the cold too long?” said one.

“I would like to know how I could get some water from your town,” said another. “It’s obvious that there is something special in it.”

The petition – with more than 436 signatures, or at least the 5 percent of voters necessary to be considered – was submitted Thursday and the town Select Board voted 3-2 Friday to put it on the ballot. It goes to a town-wide vote March 4.

It reads: “Shall the Selectboard instruct the Town Attorney to draft indictments against President Bush and Vice President Cheney for crimes against our Constitution, and publish said indictments for consideration by other authorities and shall it be the law of the Town of Brattleboro that the Brattleboro Police, pursuant to the above-mentioned indictments, arrest and detain George Bush and Richard Cheney in Brattleboro if they are not duly impeached, and prosecute or extradite them to other authorities that may reasonably contend to prosecute them?”

News of the measure made the rounds on the Internet, and soon people started calling and writing. The Brattleboro Area Chamber of Commerce got about 60 e-mails Monday, all of them negative, said Executive Director Jerry Goldberg.

A day later, he said, “we had three or four calls in a row that were very positive. One even volunteered to help.”

The petition has no legal standing, since the town attorney has no authority to write an indictment and the police have no authority to arrest Bush or Cheney if either visits Brattleboro.

Anger at the Bush administration is hardly new in Vermont. The state Senate voted last year to support impeaching the president. Anti-war rallies are regular occurrences, and “Impeach Bush” bumper stickers are common.

The petition prompted Brent Caflisch to go to his computer in Rosemount, Minn. “Maybe the terrorists will do us all a favor and attack your town next, our country would be much safer with several thousand dead wackjobs in Vermont,” he wrote.

It went on to say terrorists could kidnap the three Select Board members who voted in favor, “cut their heads off, video tape it and put it on the internet.”

Caflisch, who confirmed sending the e-mail, said Tuesday he did it out of disgust after reading about the measure on The Drudge Report.

A few messages were positive (“Arrest Bush and Cheney? You go, Brattleboro!” wrote one man) but most were critical.

“Be American, not a sniffeling liberal town that sleeps under the shield of safety provided to you by your President,” said another e-mail. “Vacation to VT CANCELLED!”

The reaction caught town officials off guard, and left some workers on edge.

“We have some concerns about safety,” said Town Clerk Annette Cappy. “After reading some of these e-mails, you can’t help it.”

Acting Police Chief Eugene Wrinn said any threats would be taken seriously and possibly prosecuted. So far, no threats have been made, he said.

“If someone is concerned for their safety, if there’s a threat of harm, we will look at that seriously,” he said.

Resident Kurt Daims, who submitted the petition, said late Tuesday he was chagrined that the town and its employees were subject to ridicule.

“I feel bad for people who are loyal to Bush who have lost a son or had one in the service and it’s hard for them to admit the utter waste of it, and that it was caused by this man in the White House,” he said.

30/01/08 “ICH” — — Ali Khan argues that the internationally recognized crime of genocide applies to the intentional killings that NATO troops commit on a weekly basis in the poor villages and mute mountains of Afghanistan to destroy the Taliban.

Sloganeers, propagandists and politicians often use the word “genocide” in ways that the law does not permit. But rarely is the crime of genocide invoked when Western militaries murder Muslim groups. This essay argues that the internationally recognized crime of genocide applies to the intentional killings that NATO troops commit on a weekly basis in the poor villages and mute mountains of Afghanistan to destroy the Taliban, a puritanical Islamic group. NATO combat troops bombard and kill people in Taliban enclaves and meeting places. They also murder defenseless Afghan civilians. The dehumanized label of “Taliban” is used to cloak the nameless victims of NATO operations. Some political opposition to this practice is building in NATO countries, such as Canada, where calls are heard to withdraw troops from Afghanistan or divert them to non-combat tasks.

Dehumanization

In almost all NATO nations, the Taliban have been completely dehumanized — a historically-tested signal that perpetrators of the crime of genocide carry unmitigated intentions to eradicate the dehumanized group. Politicians, the armed forces, the media, and even the general public associate in the West the Taliban with irrational fanatics, intolerant fundamentalists, brutal assassins, beheaders of women, bearded extremists, and terrorists. This luminescent negativity paves the way for aggression, military operations, and genocide. Promoting the predatory doctrine of collective self-defense, killing the Taliban is celebrated as a legal virtue. To leave the Taliban in control of Afghanistan, says NATO, is to leave a haven for terrorism.

A similar dehumanization took place in the 16th and 17th centuries when NATO precursors occupied the Americas to purloin land and resources. The killings of native inhabitants were extensive and heartless. Thomas Jefferson, the noble author of the Declaration of Independence, labeled Indians as “merciless savages.” President Andrew Jackson pontificated: “What good man would prefer a country covered with forests and ranged by a few thousand savages to our extensive Republic, studded with cities, towns, and prosperous farms.” Promoting the predatory doctrine of discovery, the United States Supreme Court later ratified the pilgrims’ crimes, holding that “discovery gave an exclusive right to extinguish the Indian title (to land). ([T]he Indians were fierce savages…To leave them in possession of their country was to leave the country a wilderness.”

The predators have not changed their stripes a bit. They come, they demonize, they obliterate. They do all this in the name of superior civilization.

The Facts

The NATO website lists its killings in Afghanistan. These killings are also reported in the world media, often with a shameless tone of gratitude as if NATO forces are engaged in wiping out cannibals. In 2007 alone, NATO helicopters and precision guided munitions bombed and killed over six thousand “Taliban.” Read the following recent attacks, which the NATO itself reports, and smell the scent of genocide:

• On January 19, 2008, NATO launched a preemptive strike relying on “credible intelligence” that the Taliban were planning to mass on a NATO base. The attack killed two dozen “insurgents” in the Watapoor District of Kunar Province, though the exact number of casualties could not be confirmed because of the rough mountainous region. The world media reported that numerous civilians were killed and 25 bodies were buried in just one mass grave.

• On January 12, 2008, NATO forces conducted what it calls a “precise strike” on a compound in Kapsia Province targeting Taliban leaders. NATO claimed that the civilians were cleared from the compound before the attack. The claim is absurd because any removal of civilians from the compound would have alerted the battle-hardened Taliban that an enemy attack was imminent.

• On September 20, 2007, NATO forces launched “Operation Palk Wahel” to kill and remove the Taliban from an area in the Upper Gereshk Valley. Numerous civilians were killed. The evidence of the genocide was so obvious that NATO admitted that it “was unaware of civilians in the vicinity of the target and unfortunately it appears that a number of non-combatants were caught in the attack and killed.”

The Law

The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (entered into force, 1951) is binding on all states including the 26 member states of NATO. The Genocide Convention is jus cogens, the law from which no derogation is allowed. It provides no exceptions for any nation or any organization of nations, such as the United Nations or NATO, to commit genocide. Nor does the Convention allow any exceptions to genocide “whether committed in time of peace or in time of war.” Even traditional self-defense – let alone preemptive self-defense, a deceptive name for aggression – cannot be invoked to justify or excuse the crime of genocide.

In murdering the Taliban, NATO armed forces systematically practice on a continual basis the crime of genocide that consists of three constituent elements – act, intent to destroy, and religious group. The crime, as defined in the Convention, is analyzed below:

1. Act. The Convention lists five acts, each of which qualifies as genocide. NATO forces in Afghanistan are committing three of the five acts. They are killing members of the Taliban. They are causing serious bodily harm to members of the Taliban. They are deliberately inflicting on the Taliban conditions of life calculated to bring about their physical destruction in whole or in part. Any of these three acts committed one time constitutes the crime of genocide. NATO combat troops have been committing, and continue to commit, these acts through multiple means and weapons.

2. Intent to Destroy. The crime of genocide is a crime of intent. It must be shown that NATO combat troops and the high command ordering these troops carry the requisite intent to destroy the Taliban. Mere negligent killings do not qualify as genocide. The statements of NATO’s Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer and those of NATO spokesmen leave no doubt that the NATO conducts military operations to “hunt and destroy” the Taliban. Preemptive strikes to kill the Taliban are sufficient proof that NATO troops and commanding generals have specific intent to destroy as many Taliban members as they can find. The weekly murderous planning and intelligence gathering to locate and eliminate the Taliban leaders and members further demonstrate that the killings in Afghanistan are not negligent, accidental, or by mistake. For all legal purposes, NATO’s incessant and deliberate killings of the Taliban are powered with the specific intent to destroy a religious group.

3. Religious Group. The Genocide Convention is far from universal in that it does not protect all groups from genocide. Its protection covers only four groups: national, ethnic, racial and religious. (Political groups are not protected). The Convention does not require the complete eradication of a protected group as a necessary condition for the crime of genocide. Even part destruction of a protected group constitutes the crime. It is no secret that the Taliban are a religious group. (They may also qualify as a national (Afghan) or ethnic (Pushtun) group). The Taliban advocate and practice a puritanical version of Islam. The Convention does not demand that the protected group advocate and practice a form of religion acceptable to the West or the world. The questionable beliefs and practices of a religious group are no reasons to destroy the group. That the Taliban are armed or support terrorism or oppress women are unlawful excuses to commit genocide. (All reasons that Hitler had to murder Jews would be simply irrelevant under the Convention).

The Holding

It may, therefore, be safely concluded that NATO combat troops and NATO commanders are engaged in murdering the Taliban, a protected group under the Genocide Convention, with the specific intent to physically and mentally destroy the group in whole or in part. This is the crime of genocide.