The Rag Blog

Advocates of a U.S. nuclear weapons buildup received a significant setback on December 16, when Congressional negotiators agreed on an omnibus spending bill that omitted funding for development of a new nuclear weapon championed by the Bush administration: the Reliable Replacement Warhead (RRW). Coming on the heels of Congressional action in recent years that stymied administration schemes for the nuclear “bunker buster” and the “mini-nuke,” it was the third–and perhaps final–defeat of George W. Bush and his hawkish allies in their attempt to upgrade the U.S. nuclear weapons arsenal.

The administration’s case for building the RRW–a newly-designed hydrogen bomb–pivoted around the contention that the current U.S. nuclear stockpile is deteriorating and needs to be replaced by new weaponry.

But studies by scientific experts revealed that this stockpile would remain reliable for at least another fifty years. In addition, critics of the RRW scheme pointed to the fact that building new nuclear weapons violates the U.S. commitment under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) to pursue nuclear disarmament and that such a violation would encourage other nations to flout their NPT commitments.

Naturally, peace and disarmament organizations were among the fiercest opponents of the RRW, arguing that it was both unnecessary and provocative. Groups like the Council for a Livable World, Friends Committee on National Legislation, Peace Action, and Physicians for Social Responsibility published critiques of the administration plan, mobilized their members against it, and lobbied in Congress to secure its defeat. Activists staged anti-RRW demonstrations and, despite the nation’s focus on the war in Iraq, managed to draw headlines with protests at the University of California and elsewhere.

Members of Congress also were skeptical of the value of the RRW, particularly its utility in safeguarding U.S. security in today’s world, where the Soviet Union–once the major nuclear competitor to the United States–no longer exists. “Moving forward on a new nuclear weapon is not something this nation should do without great consideration,” noted U.S. Representative Peter Visclosky (D-IN), chair of the House subcommittee handling nuclear weapons appropriations. With the end of the Cold War and the rise of terrorism, the U.S. government needed “a revised stockpile plan to guide the transformation and downsizing of the [nuclear weapons] complex . . . to reflect the new realities of the world.”

But is the defeat of the RRW a momentous victory for nuclear disarmers? After all, the U.S. government still possesses some 10,000 nuclear weapons, with thousands of them on launch-ready alert. Moreover, the Bush administration is promoting a plan to rebuild the entire U.S. nuclear weapons complex. Called Complex 2030 and intended to provide for U.S. nuclear arsenals well into the future, this administration scheme is supposed to cost $150 billion, although the Government Accountability Office maintains that this figure is a significant underestimate.

Also, the RRW development plan might be revived in the future. Brooding over the Congressional decision to block funding for the new nuclear weapon, U.S. Senator Pete Domenici (R-NM) — a keen supporter of the venture–remarked hopefully that he expected the RRW or something like it to re-emerge “sooner rather than later.”

This situation, of course, falls short of the 1968 pledge by the United States and other nuclear powers, under article VI of the NPT, “to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to . . . nuclear disarmament.” It falls even farther short of their subsequent pledge, made at the NPT review conference of 2000, to “an unequivocal undertaking . . . to accomplish the total elimination of their nuclear arsenals.”

Thus, this December’s Congressional decision to zero out funding for the RRW is only a small, symbolic step in the direction of honoring U.S. commitments and fostering nuclear sanity. If the United States and other nations are serious about confronting the menace of nuclear annihilation that has hung over the planet since 1945, it will require not only the scrapping of plans for new nuclear weapons, but the abolition of the 27,000 nuclear weapons that already exist in government arsenals, ready to destroy the world. Until that action occurs, we will continue to default on past promises and to live on the brink of catastrophe.

12/20/07 “ZNet” — — The findings of the US National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) which state “with high confidence” that Iran halted its nuclear weapons programme in 2003 clearly represent a major set-back to those arguing for military intervention against Iran in the coming months. However, if unchallenged, it is possible that the report might strengthen the case for military action against Iran in the coming years. By recognising that Iran has no current nuclear weapons programme the findings undermine the central argument of those arguing for tougher sanctions and precipitant military strikes. But the claim that Iran had a nuclear weapons programme in the past not only allows that Iran has breached its obligations under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, but also that it could restart its weaponisation programme at any moment. To welcome this intelligence as wholly accurate is to concede the much disputed question of whether Iran has ever had a nuclear weapons programme.

Whilst the culminative findings of 16 intelligence agencies cannot be ignored, it is difficult to treat the findings with full confidence after the failings of these same agencies that preceded the invasion of Iraq. The report is also compromised by the fact that the 2005 NIE found “with high confidence” that Iran was intent on developing nuclear weapons. A more reliable source of intelligence would surely be the International Atomic Energy Association (IAEA), the only international authority qualified to study Iran’s nuclear dossier. The IAEA were accurate in their assessment of Iraq’s WDM capacity in 2003 and they are continuing to conduct exhaustive inspections on all of Iran’s nuclear enrichment sites. Despite nearly 3,000 person-hours of inspections, the IAEA have found no evidence, past or present, that Iran has diverted its nuclear programme to military purposes.

Whilst we should be glad that this intelligence on the absence of WMDs in Iran has surfaced now rather than being discovering it in the aftermath of a military attack as was the case with Iraq, we should not think that this alone will stall those intent on military intervention against Iran. Although weakened, the neo-Conservative case for military strikes on Iran is not dependent on the existence of a nuclear weapons programme. The concept that Iran might develop weapons at some point in the future, combined with accusations that Tehran is supporting terrorists in Iraq, Syria and Lebanon, and has threatened Israel could yet be used to establish a causis belli.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guard has recently been put on the US list of “terrorist organisations” and Iran has been accused repeatedly of supplying weapons and intelligence to terrorists in Iran. Despite these accusations, no evidence has been produced to demonstrate a definite link between the Iranian government and insurgent or terrorist groups. Indeed General Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, admitted at a Pentagon news conference this year that he had no evidence of the Iranian government sending any military equipment into Iraq and US commanders in Iraq suggest Iran is now limiting the flow of weapons to Shia militias.

The claim that Iran has threatened “to wipe Israel off the face of the map” has been repeated so often that it has almost become received wisdom. However the much mistranslated Farsi phrase used by President Amadinejad was “Imam ghoft een rezhim-e ishghalgar-e qods bayad az safheh-ye ruzgar mahv shavad.” This translates directly as “The Imam said this regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time. This statement is very wise”. Whatever the interpretation of this translation, “a regime vanishing from the page of time” is very different from a threat to wipe a nation off the map.

Much of the debate is now centering on how long it might take for Iran to produce a nuclear weapon should she be intent to do so. The NIE suggests if she were to ‘restart’ her weaponisation programme, Iran might be able to produce warheads by 2010 or 2015. There is little dispute that Iran’s current low-level uranium enrichment is barely adequate for reactor fuel, let alone the highly enriched uranium necessary for a nuclear weapon. It is also agreed that Iran’s 3,000 centrifuges are running far below capacity and there are problems with contaminated feedstock. But arguments about the possible timeline for Iran to acquire a nuclear weapons capacity become academic if we ensure the continued Iranian cooperation with the IAEA and their inspections regime. Novembers’ report by the IAEA states that all of the enriched uranium produced to date “remains under Agency containment and surveillance” and there is no suggestion of a covert weaponisation programme.

Whilst the NIE report does not fit neatly into the Bush/Cheney plan for building a case for military intervention against Iran, it might still be used to their advantage. A consensus of opinion that Iran had a secret nuclear weaponisation programme in the past which could be restarted at any time, combined with predictions that Iran could manufacture a nuclear warhead within the space of 2 years could be used to justify attacks. The NIE reports suggestions that Iran had a nuclear weapons programme should be treated with a degree of scepticism and debates around hypothetical timelines should not be allowed to distract us from the important task of diffusing this dangerous standoff between those intent on military intervention and an Iranian government determined not to back down from its legitimate enrichment activities.

12/21/07 “ICH” — — Every four years the country is swept up in the pomp and pageantry of presidential elections. And every four years loyal Americans flock to the voting booths to select the candidate of their choice. Elections–we are told—are supposed to be the true expression of democratic government. But they aren’t. They’re a sham and most people know it. The balloting creates the illusion of choice where there is none. It’s become a meaningless ritual that has nothing to do with representative government.

The 2008 elections have already been marred by a number of controversies, the worst of which is the report that was published last Friday by Ohio’s top election official, Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner. The report proves that the voting systems that decided the 2004 election in Ohio were rife with “critical security failures”. The election was rigged; pure and simple–stolen by the Bush team and their friends in the establishment media who refuse to report the news. It’s actually funny, in a cynical kind of way. The perpetrators were so cocksure they could pull it off that—according to Democracy Now— “the servers for the computation of the Ohio vote count were in the same basement in Chattanooga, Tennessee that houses servers for the Republican National Committee. The programmers who (worked) for Ken Blackwell, the Republican Secretary of State, were Republicans who did websites for the Bush administration.” (Democracy Now)

What gall. Blackwell’s thugs didn’t even try conceal what they were up to. Why should they care? It’s not like there’s an independent media that’s going to report the details of a stolen election. No way. Blackwell ripped off the election and then thumbed his nose at the public. No investigation. No accountability. No nothing. Just like a banana republic only bigger.

So why do we keep throwing billions of dollars down a black hole just to maintain this pathetic charade that fools no one? Why not just load up the boxcars with pallets of crisp-new hundred dollar bills and ship them off to Crawford where they end up anyway. Let Bush worry about how to distribute the loot. Besides, with Congress’ public approval dithering at 11%; we’d be better off paying them to stay at home and turn the House of Representatives into condos.

This year every one of the leading candidates is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Every one of them is a “dual loyalist” with a globalist agenda. Every one of them accepts the new regime of curtailed civil liberties, endless war, and free trade. There’s not a nationalist or a patriot among them. None. They’re all part of the same corporate effluent that washed into Washington on a wave of special interest payola drowning all visible symbols of a once-vital Republic. Romney pontificates about expanding Guantanamo while Clinton boasts about an attack on Iran. Blah, blah, blah. How can anyone listen to this gibberish? There’s not a dime’s worth of difference between any of them. They’re all lacquer-hair phonies who’ve never had an original thought in their lives. Everything they think or say comes off a cue-card or teleprompter that flashes poll-tested, focus-group mumbo-jumbo which they reiterate roboticly. It’s all rubbish.

If a prospective candidate hasn’t sworn his undying allegiance to the cabal of transnational corporations, or taken a blood-oath to defend the doctrine of unfettered self-aggrandizement, or pledged to carry out a bloodthirsty “economy-busting” global crusade; he is quickly banished to the wilderness.

Just look at Ron Paul, who collected $6 million in donations in a matter of hours but still can’t even get his picture in the papers. Why is that?

It’s because he hasn’t sold his soul to the carpetbagging freebooters who run the system. Apart from Kucinich, he’s the only red-blooded, Constitution-toting American in the race. The rest are just bunko-artists and Pharisees.

Everyone knows what’s going on. The whole campaign extravaganza is a pointless farce. Why continue the deception?

We all watched in 2000 while the five loonies on the Supreme Court suspended the hand counting of ballots, overturned the ruling of the Florida Supreme Court, and awarded the election to their own Party’s candidate. How is that any different than Blackwell’s manipulations in Ohio? It’s all the same. In fact, the 5 justices had so little regard for the intelligence of the American people they invoked the 14th amendment—the “equal protection” clause—which had never been used except in cases of racial discrimination. They didn’t care. Who was going to stop them?

Can you imagine, dear reader, the peals of laughter that must have gone up at the right-wing think tanks after that ruling? Hooray for the oligarchy of racketeers! Pass the brandy.

That was a turning point in American history. It showed that the ruling class really doesn’t care what the people think anymore. This is THEIR country and they’ll run it whatever way they want. To hell with democracy.

The reason there’s more coverage of the campaigns this year is simply because the boardroom Mandarins want to restore the illusion that we actually have a choice. We don’t. They pick the candidates and we pull the lever and go home. End of story. The debates are nothing more than a public relations gambit designed to lend a bit of credibility to a system that is rotten to the core. What part of the body-politic has been spared the cancerous ravages of corporate corruption. The Congress? The Executive? The High Court? The media?

Don’t make me laugh. The entire system is marinated in a culture of violence and dishonesty. Nothing is salvageable. It all stinks.

The real difference between the parties is minuscule but significant. The Democrats have become the party of traditional imperialism spearheaded by Brzezinski, Holbrooke, Albright and the other guardians of Empire. These are the master-puppeteers who operate behind the scenes for their well-heeled benefactors. Their focus is mainly on Central Asia; controlling resources from the Caspian Basin, “pacifying” Afghanistan, rallying the EU to a greater role in NATO, and continuing the apocryphal “war on terror” into infinity. It’s the Great Game redux.

The Republican Party has become the party of neoconservatives. Their operational plan is “A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm”. It aligns the US with the foreign policy objectives of Israel’s Likud Party. The focus is balkanizing the Middle East, undermining Arab nationalism, installing US-Israeli client regimes, and controlling the regions prodigious natural resources. It is a straightforward strategy for regional hegemony.

This is the REAL split between the parties, not the meaningless Democrat-Republican labels. Presently, the traditional imperialists have regained the upper-hand as the Bush bandwagon lurches into the ditch. Of course, there is some cross-pollenizing between the two parties; the differences are not absolute. There’s plenty of gray-area and incestuous intermingling, but this is a pretty accurate overview. What’s important is that neither party has any intention of restoring the Bill of Rights, slowing the outsourcing of jobs, or abandoning the war on terror. No way. That is not in their collective interests at all.

When civil liberties are stripped away; elections become pointless. Freedom has nothing to do with pushing a colored-nob on a touch-screen computer every 4 years. Its about containing the power of the state. Doesn’t anyone grasp that? Freedom has become hollow buzzword that’s sprinkled through presidential speeches or used to defend the latest bloody intervention in some foreign country. It’s lost whatever meaning it had. We’ve forgotten that the Bill of Rights doesn’t give us special, superhuman powers. It was designed to be a straitjacket that would restrict the actions of power-hungry politicians and confine them within the law. That’s all it is; a shackle on government. Now, all that’s been lost. The basic rules of the game have changed; the social contract has been repealed. Even the flag, which once embodied the hopes and aspirations of the nation; has been raised over Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib and countless other black sites spread across the planet like grains of sand. What does the world see when they look at that flag now? Do they see a symbol of liberty and justice or the butcher’s apron flapping lazily above some far-flung torture chamber.

NOLA CITY COUNCIL INCITES BRUTAL POLICE ATTACKS AND TEAR GASING OF PUBLIC HOUSING TENANTS AND THEIR ALLIES

EMERGENCY NATIONAL CALL TO STAND WITH NOLA PUBLIC HOUSING TENANTS TO STOP DEMOLITIONS OF THEIR HOMES

ASSEMBLE FOR CANDLELIGHT VIGIL AT HUD’S OFFICES, 26 FEDERAL PLAZA, NYC (WORTH ST BETWEEN LAFAYETTE & BROADWAY ENTRANCE) THURSDAY, DECEMBER 20, 2007 AT 6:30 PM

Today in the city council chambers in New Orleans, public housing tenants and their allies gathered to exercise their democratic right to speak against the vote to demolish their homes.

The city councils response was to call in the city council security, the NOLA swat teams and police force that began to forcible remove, arrest, beat, drag, brutalize and tear gas those who wanted the to express their opposition to the loss of stable housing stock.

Elderly women with canes were seen dragged across the city council parking lot, media persons, tenants and community supporters were tear gassed by an over zealous NOLA woman cop who tear gassed at rapid fire, as if she was on the battle fields of Iraq.

A temporary restraining order, was issued that prohibited the NOLA city council from moving forward with the bulldozing of over 4500 public housing units until they voted TO AUTHORIZE THE DEMOLITIONS FOR LAFITTE, ST BERNARD, COOPER, PEETE.

RAISE YOUR VOICE AND STATE YOUR OPPOSITION TO THE DEMOLITION OF THE PUBLIC HOUSING IN NOLA. SAVE THE HOMES OF THE POOREST VICTIMS OF THE BREECHING OF THE LEVEES

CALL:

ALPHONSO JACKSON HUD SECY, 202-708-0417

CHRISTOPHER DOBBS, BANKING COMMITTEE CHAIR, 202-224-7391; FAX: 202-224-5137; 212-688-626

JOIN US FOR A CANDLE LIGHT VIGIL AT 26 FEDERAL PLAZA, NYC – BRING YOUR BANNERS, CULTURAL INSTRUMENTS, CANDLES AND FLASH LIGHTS.

DALLAS, Texas (Dec. 20) — If you turn to the Bible — Isaiah Chapter 35, Verse 8 — you will see a passage that in part says, “A highway shall be there, and a road, and it shall be called the Highway of Holiness.”

Now, is it possible that this “highway” mentioned in Chapter 35 is actually Interstate 35 that runs through six U.S. states, from southern Texas to northern Minnesota? Some Christians have faith that is indeed the case.

It was with that interesting belief in mind that we decided to head to Texas, the southernmost state in the I-35 corridor, to do a story about a prayer campaign called “Light the Highway.”

Churchgoers in all six states recently finished 35 days of praying alongside Interstate 35, but the prayers are still continuing.

Some of the faithful believe that in order to fulfill the prophecy of I-35 being the “holy” highway, it needs some intensive prayer first. So we watched as about 25 fervent and enthusiastic Christians prayed on the the interstate’s shoulder in Dallas.

They chanted loudly and vibrantly, making many people in the neighborhood wonder what was going on. They prayed that adult businesses along the corridor would “see the light” and perhaps close down.

They prayed for safety and freedom from crime for people who lived along the interstate. They prayed that all Americans would accept Jesus into their lives.

The woman who came up with the concept of “Light the Highway” is a Texas minister named Cindy Jacobs.

She says she can’t be sure Interstate 35 really is what is mentioned in the Bible but says she received a revelation to start this campaign after “once again reading Isaiah, Chapter 35.”

Jacobs also points out that perhaps there is a link between the area near this highway and tragedies that have happened in history, such as the bridge collapse on I-35 in Minneapolis last August and the assassination of JFK 44 years ago near I-35 in Dallas. That’s why prayer certainly can’t hurt, she adds.

Now, it’s only fair to say most people, the religious and the non-religious alike, don’t buy any of this, but none more than the owners of some of the adult businesses along I-35.

At an adult go-go club, the owner tells us he resents people trying to impose their will on others. And he says his club holds fundraisers, food drives and toy drives to help the community.

Every hour, Mexico imports $1.5 million dollars worth of agricultural and food products, almost all from the United States.

In that same hour, 30 people-men, women, and children-leave their homes in the Mexican countryside to take up the most dangerous journey of their lives-as migrants to the United States.

No matter what one’s stance on these two fundamental phenomena of our age-economic integration and immigration-one thing is absolutely clear: they are related.

As the final phase of implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) approaches, the debate remains disappointingly stuck in ideologically defined terms. Proponents of the free trade model point, not surprisingly, to increased trade as proof of its success. Opponents cite negative impacts from the point of view of their respective sectors, issues, and interests.

In January 2008 NAFTA enters its last stage of implementation in which all remaining tariffs on corn, beans, and other sensitive agricultural products will be eliminated. With severely negative impacts predicted for Mexican farmers and an accumulation of social problems in all three countries, this phase obliges policymakers to finally take NAFTA to task for how it has affected the daily lives of North American citizens.

Applying the NAFTA model elsewhere in the world, U.S. negotiators have hammered through “free trade agreements” (FTAs) bent on prying open new markets for U.S. products and guaranteeing favorable conditions for investors. These are laudable objectives, but for too long they have ignored the fact that this narrow focus has high social costs in our country and in the partner countries.

There comes a time when we have to determine whether those social costs are worth the benefits and consider a change in course.

To do this, we need comprehensive studies that look at the macroeconomic data and statistics, but also at livelihoods, communities, and families.

Two Towns

The reality reflected in carefully selected numbers too often hides the devastation in human lives. Two towns-El Paso, Texas and Nochixtlan, Oaxaca-illustrate some of the real costs of NAFTA.

Shortly after NAFTA went into effect, companies located in El Paso began an exodus over the border. The textile industry was the hardest hit. The community organization Mujer Obrera reports that between 1994 and 2007 some 50,000 apparel workers lost their jobs. Two-thirds of them were women, mostly of Mexican descent. As companies closed shop, women workers lost their jobs and the county of El Paso, now tied for the third poorest county in the nation, never found a way to compensate.

As a result, poverty has increased by over 30% since 1999 and today nearly one of every three El Paso residents lives in poverty, 57% of them women. Federal money under NAFTA for retraining programs has been insufficient and misdirected, as former workers are either poorly trained or trained for jobs that do not exist in the community. Year after year, El Paso drops down in average income.

What has happened is no longer due primarily to job loss. Most of the poor are working poor, according to the 2005 census. They have lost income because employers are paying less and more people are employed in the informal sector. Under this post-NAFTA scenario, women and children bear the brunt-a full 45% of women-headed households live below the poverty level.

Nochixtlan, Oaxaca also suffered under NAFTA, but in a very different way. In the small Mixteco Indian community of southern Mexico, corn farming supported nearly all the inhabitants in one way or another.

After centuries of misuse, the land suffered from one of the worst erosion rates in the world and chemical farming had depleted the soil. Then, lower yields were combined with the impact of increased imports under NAFTA that drove the domestic price of corn down 59% between 1991 and 2006. Nochixtlan farmers began to abandon their farms, and today the Mixteca region of Oaxaca has one the country’s highest rates of out-migration. Here, too, no government programs came to the rescue or even attempted to soften the blow.

But El Paso and Nochixtlan have something else in common besides tragedy-the tremendous will of the community to pick itself up and move on. In El Paso, the seamstresses have created a community development plan that includes food gardens, a restaurant, an import business, and a daycare service. All are small scale but they are serious attempts to create sustainable jobs that fulfill human needs.

In Nochixtlan, a farmers’ organization has built trenches to stop erosion, started a reforestation program that has planted three million native variety trees to date, and instituted sustainable farming techniques. As they attempt to save their village, they are also contributing to the global battle against global warming and environmental decline.

The efforts of both are slowly reviving their communities. But they need help.

U.S. trade policy sent these communities into deep crises. A new trade policy can help pull them out, and avoid a similar fate for other communities.

The terms of NAFTA must be modified to permit government regulation of basic food production and supply, and provide policy instruments so poor Mexican farmers are not forced to compete with subsidized large companies for their own markets. The petition to withdraw corn and beans from the free trade agreement and support small farmers and food sovereignty is not a blow against free trade precepts but a common-sense demand for public policy that places lives and livelihoods first.

There must be mechanisms of flexibility when the terms of trade threaten livelihoods, food security, or health. This flexibility has been lacking in NAFTA and other FTAs. Negotiations have been inflexible, with developing countries finally giving in to terms they know will harm part of their population. The pound of flesh exacted from poor countries in exchange for access to the U.S. market in the end hurts both partner countries and the United States , since the terms of the agreements exacerbate inequality and close off opportunities, leading to increased immigration.

U.S. negotiators call this success but the long-term price in international relations will be high and the immediate price is the rejection of U.S. trade policy we see in many Latin American countries, accompanied by resentment of the United States for the terms of imposition.

There is a false dichotomy presented to us that divides protectionism-seen as an evil of the past-and free trade as the only path to the future. Free trade has even been presented as synonymous with freedom in the political realm and the Western Hemisphere portrayed as divided between the democratic open-market supporters and nations searching to mitigate the polarizing effects of trade and investment liberalization. Until we reject ideological posturing and analyze the real impact of FTAs we will never arrive at more just and viable trade policies for all our countries and a more prosperous and stable hemisphere.

To develop a sustainable and fair trade policy this debate must become less dogmatic and more pragmatic. It’s time to take a close look at what really is happening under these agreements and be open to corrections or creative changes in course. Communities have already begun to do that and a new trade policy can find many pointers in these local experiences.

1) Trade policy should be accompanied by aid for sustainable development:

U.S. aid to Mexico should be used to encourage efforts like Nochixtlan and compensate for damage done by NAFTA by funding new economic initiatives. NAFTA’s extension, the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) has gone off in the complete opposite direction. Instead of directing aid and programs to regions negatively affected by the agreement, it has facilitated terms for transnational corporations-the only sector of society directly represented in its negotiations. Most recently, the SPP process has led to Plan Mexico and a tenfold leap in proposed U.S. aid to Mexico-but for enforcement, intelligence, and military equipment. This creates a grave danger of militarizing a politically polarized Mexico and increasing the possibility of conflict. Creating healthy employment in the United States and Mexico would have a far greater impact on reducing the illegal drug trade than surveillance planes.

2) We need comprehensive studies:

For too long we have ignored or sought to patch over the serious problems generated in the United States and Mexico by NAFTA. We have abundant information on trade flows from the USTR, but little on the real consequence on real human lives. It’s past time to call for studies that assess the economic data but also report on changing social indices even when direct cause and effect with NAFTA is difficult to ascertain.

The results then should be heeded. One of the very few studies of NAFTA in Mexico by the General Accounting Office concluded years ago that there was a pressing need for rural compensation funds. Nothing was done. Since then many of the predicted negative impacts have occurred, and there has been no policy response whatsoever.

3) A moratorium should be called on all new FTAs, including the three remaining before the U.S. Congress: South Korea, Panama, and Colombia.

The moratorium should last until new studies of the immediate and long-term impact of FTAs have been thoroughly evaluated so as to determine whether this model works. The three FTAs before congress should be rejected not just for the particular circumstances of each case but because the FTA model is seriously flawed as an instrument of a constructive trade and foreign policy.

What we already know about NAFTA-style Free Trade Agreements is that along with increasing trade, they generate inequality. Adopting a trade policy that widens the gap between rich and poor here and abroad does nobody a service in the long term. Unless we change course, the social costs of our current trade policy will grow over the years and what we already see-unemployment and underemployment in our communities and abroad, environmental degradation, natural resource depletion, and growing gaps between those who benefit and those who are harmed-could develop into more serious problems of instability and widespread poverty.

A new policy would assure predictability and stable markets for U.S. producers, guarantees-not privileges-for U.S. investors, and basic rights for workers everywhere. It will imply a more active role of governments in balancing a competitive open-market system with protection of weaker sectors and the common good.

It will also mean denying some of the demands large corporations make in the name of competitiveness. But that’s healthy. If there is one thing we’ve learned from the growth of inequality under NAFTA, it’s that trickle down doesn’t work unless you squeeze from the top. Companies must recognize responsibility for the communities whose labor and resources go to make the products they sell and the profits they reap.

Powerful interests will complain, but greater fairness for all-between employers and employees, the United States, and its partner nations-will build a more peaceful and stable world for the future.

And that will benefit all of us.

Clinton’s position on Iraq is almost indistinguishable from Bush’s.

Public opinion polls have consistently shown that the majority of Americans — and even a larger majority of Democrats — believe that Iraq is the most important issue of the day, that it was wrong for the United States to have invaded that country, and the United States should completely withdraw its forces in short order. Despite this, the clear front-runner for the Democratic Party nomination for president is Senator Hillary Clinton, a strident backer of the invasion who only recently and opportunistically began to criticize the war and call for a partial withdrawal of American forces.

As a result, it is important to review Senator Clinton’s past and current positions regarding the Iraq War. Indeed, despite her efforts in response to public opinion polls to come across as an opponent of the war, Hillary Clinton has proven to be one of the most hard-line Democratic senators in support of a military response to the challenges posed by Iraq. She has also been less than honest in justifying her militaristic policies, raising concerns that she might support military interventions elsewhere.

Pre-War Militarism

Senator Clinton’s militaristic stance on Iraq predated her support for Bush’s 2003 invasion. For example, in defending the brutal four-day U.S. bombing campaign against Iraq in December 1998 — known as Operation Desert Fox — she claimed that “[T]he so-called presidential palaces … in reality were huge compounds well suited to hold weapons labs, stocks, and records which Saddam Hussein was required by UN resolution to turn over. When Saddam blocked the inspection process, the inspectors left.” In reality, as became apparent when UN inspectors returned in 2002 as well as in the aftermath of the invasion and occupation, there were no weapons labs, stocks of weapons or missing records in these presidential palaces. In addition, Saddam was still allowing for virtually all inspections to go forward at the time of the 1998 U.S. attacks. The inspectors were withdrawn for their own safety at the encouragement of President Clinton in anticipation of the imminent U.S.-led assault.

Senator Clinton also took credit for strengthening U.S. ties with Ahmad Chalabi, the convicted embezzler who played a major role in convincing key segments of the administration, Congress, the CIA, and the American public that Iraq still had proscribed weapons, weapons systems, and weapons labs. She has expressed pride that her husband’s administration changed underlying U.S. policy toward Iraq from “containment” — which had been quite successful in defending Iraq’s neighbors and protecting its Kurdish minority — to “regime change,” which has resulted in tragic warfare, chaos, dislocation, and instability.

Prior to the 2003 invasion, Clinton insisted that Iraq still had a nuclear program, despite a detailed 1998 report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), subsequent studies that indicated that Iraq’s nuclear program appeared to have been completely dismantled a full decade earlier, and a 2002 U.S. National Intelligence Estimate that made no mention of any reconstituted nuclear development effort. Similarly, even though Iraq’s chemical and biological weapons programs had been dismantled years earlier, she also insisted that Iraq had rebuilt its biological and chemical weapons stockpiles. And, even though the limited shelf life of such chemical and biological agents and the strict embargo against imports of any additional banned materials that had been in place since 1990 made it physically impossible for Iraq to have reconstituted such weapons, she insisted that “It is clear … that if left unchecked, Saddam Hussein will continue to increase his capacity to wage biological and chemical warfare, and will keep trying to develop nuclear weapons.”

In the fall of 2002, Senator Clinton sought to discredit those questioning Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Vice-President Dick Cheney, and others who were making hyperbolic statements about Iraq’s supposed military prowess by insisting that Iraq’s possession of such weapons “are not in doubt” and was “undisputed.” Similarly, Clinton insisted that Secretary of State Colin Powell’s February 2005 speech at the UN was “compelling” although UN officials and arms control experts roundly denounced its false claims that Iraq had reconstituted these proscribed weapons, weapons programs, and delivery systems. In addition, although top strategic analysts correctly informed her that there were no links between Saddam Hussein’s secular nationalist regime and the radical Islamist al-Qaeda, Senator Clinton insisted that Saddam “has also given aid, comfort, and sanctuary to terrorists, including al Qaeda members.”

The Lead-Up to War

Though the 2003 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iraq was inaccurate in a number of respects, it did challenge the notion of any operational ties between the Iraqi government and Al-Qaeda and questioned some of the more categorical claims by President Bush about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction (WMD). However, Senator Clinton didn’t even bother to read it. She now claims that it wasn’t necessary for her to have actually read the 92-page document herself because she was briefed on the contents of the report. However, since no one on her staff was authorized to read the report, it’s unclear who could have actually briefed her.

During the floor debate over the resolution authorizing the invasion of Iraq, Clinton was the only Democratic senator to have categorically accepted the Bush administration’s claims regarding Iraq’s alleged chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programs, Iraq’s alleged long-range missile capabilities, and alleged ties to al-Qaeda. (Some Democratic senators accepted some of those claims, but not all of them.)

In the months leading up the war, Senator Clinton chose to ignore the pleas of the hundreds of thousands of people demonstrating in her state and across the country against the war and similarly brushed off calls by religious leaders, scholars, community activists, and others to oppose it. Perhaps most significant was her refusal to consider the anti-war appeals by leaders of the Catholic Church and virtually every mainline Protestant denomination, which noted that it did not meet the traditional criteria in the Christian tradition for a just war. Instead, Senator Clinton embraced the arguments of the right-wing fundamentalist leadership who supported the war. This categorical rejection of the perspective of the mainstream Christian community raises concerns about her theological perspectives on issues of war and peace.

In March 2003, well after UN weapons inspectors had been allowed to return and engage in unfettered inspections and were not finding any WMDs, Senator Clinton made clear that the United States should invade that Iraq anyway. Indeed, she asserted that the only way to avoid war would be for Saddam Hussein to abide by President Bush’s ultimatum to resign as president and leave the country, in the apparent belief that the United States had the right to unilaterally make such demands of foreign leaders and to invade and occupy their countries if they refused. Said Senator Clinton, “The president gave Saddam Hussein one last chance to avoid war and the world hopes that Saddam Hussein will finally hear this ultimatum, understand the severity of those words, and act accordingly.”

When President Bush launched the invasion soon thereafter and spontaneous protests broke out across the country, Senator Clinton voted in favor of a Republican-sponsored resolution that “commends and supports the efforts and leadership of the President . . . in the conflict against Iraq.”

Aftermath of invasion

Even after the U.S. forces invaded and occupied Iraq and confirmed that — contrary to Senator Clinton’s initial justification for the war — Iraq did not have WMDs, WMD programs, offensive delivery systems, or ties to al-Qaeda, she defended her vote to authorize the invasion anyway. Speaking at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York that December, she declared, “I was one who supported giving President Bush the authority, if necessary, to use force against Saddam Hussein. I believe that that was the right vote” and was one that “I stand by.”

In the face of growing doubts about American forces involved in a deepening counter-insurgency war, she urged “patience” and expressed her concern about the lack of will “to stay the course” among some Americans. “Failure is not an option” in Iraq, she insisted. “We have no option but to stay involved and committed.” Indeed, long before President Bush announced his “surge,” Senator Clinton called for the United States to send more troops.

During a trip to Iraq in February 2005, she insisted that the U.S. occupation was “functioning quite well,” although the security situation had deteriorated so badly that the four-lane divided highway on flat open terrain connecting the airport with the capital could not be secured at the time of her arrival and a helicopter had to transport her to the Green Zone. Though 55 Iraqis and one American soldier were killed during her brief visit, she insisted — in a manner remarkably similar to Vice President Cheney — that the rise in suicide bombings was evidence that the insurgency was failing.

Many of the refugees are from the white collar middle class, and are the people Iraq can least afford to lose. Most of them are only 3 months or less from exhausting all their saving and being thrown into complete destitution. Children are not being educated, and literacy is falling dramatically in the next generation. Many girls are forced into ‘survival sex,’ i.e. prostitution.

CAIRO, Egypt — One in five Iraqi refugees in Syria has been tortured or suffered from other violence, and more than a third fled their homeland between July and October, at the height of the U.S. troop buildup that was intended to quell sectarian violence in Baghdad, preliminary data from a new United Nations study show.

The survey also found that the refugee population is highly educated — nearly a third have university degrees, including master’s and doctorates — and that many refugees are only weeks away from exhausting their savings.

The survey, which the IPSOS market research firm conducted in October and November, is the most comprehensive study to date of the 1.5 million Iraqis who’ve sought safety in Syria from the sectarian violence at home. The results are based on interviews with 754 refugees, who were asked detailed questions that ranged from whether they’d been hit by grenades to how they treat their children’s illnesses. Full results are expected in early January.

The U.N. survey includes special questions about trauma that researchers from Harvard University and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention hope will help them determine for the first time the extent to which the violence in Iraq has damaged the mental health and stability of the war’s survivors.

The survey may provide some insight into the impact of U.S. actions. The preliminary results suggest that as American forces moved into Baghdad’s neighborhoods to establish security, large numbers of Iraqis moved out.

Of the refugees polled, 78 percent said they’d come from Baghdad, which has been the focus of military operations since the U.S. troop buildup began last February. Thirty-five percent said they’d fled between July and October, when U.S. troop strength peaked. Another 30 percent said they’d fled to Syria last year, as violence between Sunni and Shiite Muslims intensified.

More than half the survey’s participants said they’d received direct threats or had lived through bombings. Eleven percent had been assaulted and 6 percent had been kidnapped.

The number of refugees with missing or dead relatives has risen steadily in the past four years; 54 percent had dead or missing family members this year, up from 22 percent last year. Murder was cited as the No. 1 cause of death, listed in 78 percent of the cases in the U.N. survey. A majority of respondents, 62 percent, blamed sectarian militias for the deaths. Twenty-eight percent listed “unknown” and 2 percent listed “al Qaida.”

Sybella Wilkes, the Damascus-based U.N. spokeswoman on refugee issues, said the survey’s results on financial instability confirmed the observations of field workers, who’d noticed new levels of desperation among the most recent Iraqi refugees. Forty percent have been living in Syria for less than a year, according to the survey, and they’re finding it increasingly difficult to make ends meet.

“We’ve seen the poorest of the poor here,” Wilkes said. “We’re seeing more homelessness, child labor, survival sex, early marriage and temporary marriage. The floodgates opened in 2006, and the Iraqis who’ve come since then have been much poorer” than earlier waves of refugees.

Thirty-three percent of the Iraqis surveyed predicted that they’d run out of money within three months, while a quarter of the refugees depend on remittances from relatives in Iraq or abroad. Nearly all refugees are renters, and 71 percent of them live with other family members in apartments with two to four rooms. Nearly a quarter of respondents lived in one-room housing.

Groceries are a top expense, and most respondents said they hadn’t received any food assistance from the U.N. or other agencies. Rice and lentils were listed as the most-needed staples. As of November, 51,000 Iraqis in Syria receive monthly food baskets from the U.N.’s World Food Program.

Education is another troubling issue. Less than 3 percent of the Iraqi adults surveyed were illiterate, and 35 percent of them had attended universities. But dropout rates among school-aged refugees have more than doubled since May, from 21 percent to 46 percent. Of those who’ve dropped out, 19 percent are working.

Health care also is precarious. Although an estimated 19,000 refugees registered with the U.N. have chronic illnesses, 19 percent aren’t taking medication because they can’t afford it.

12/19/07 “ICH” — – The November 19 New York Times announces, “Baghdad’s Weary Start to Exhale as Security Improves.”

The Washington Post on November 23 reports, “Returnees Find a Capital Transformed.”

People in the US are willing to believe the establishment media telling them that refugees are returning to their homes in Baghdad in an environment of improved security and new hope.

It is true that there have been fewer American soldiers killed in Baghdad and the number of Iraqis fleeing to Syria has declined. However, this relatively quieter security situation needs to be placed in its proper context, something the Western media steadfastly refuses to do.

We are proudly informed that buying off Sunni militias and resistance fighters at $300 per month is among the latest U.S. military tactics, but we are conscientiously kept uninformed about the implications of such a move. Nor is there any mention of the growing antagonism it has generated in the US-backed Iraqi Government under Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. By its own admission, the U.S. military has paid over $17 million, so far, to recruit 77,000 Sunni fighters, many of whom were launching attacks against the Americans a few weeks ago (International Herald Tribune).

Post purchase, the US military has rechristened them “Concerned Local Citizens,” or “Awakening Forces.” The target is to procure another 10,000.

The current recruitment has indeed contributed to a de-escalation of violence in the capital city, and across much of al-Anbar province, which comprises one third of the geographic area of Iraq.

Reiterated Strategy

We are proudly informed that buying off Sunni militias and resistance fighters at $300 per month is among the latest U.S. military tactics, but kept uninformed about the implications of such a move.

After it failed to take control of Fallujah during the April 2004 assault, the US employed a similar tactic. It was a presidential election year in the US (as is 2008) and in order to save face, the U.S. military “handed” over security operations in Fallujah to the very people it had fought in April. Money and weapons flooded the city and strengthened the mujahedeen.

At the time a much larger battle was in the offing, the November 2004 U.S. siege of Fallujah, which left thousands dead, and destroyed approximately 70 percent of the city. It is worth noting that the attack was launched on November 8, 2004, just days after it was determined that George W. Bush would remain in office.

Under the “new and improved” conditions, consider the following:

* the fragility of the political balance in Iraq;

* the Middle Eastern regional instability;

* the ever intensifying U.S. threats of an attack against Iran;

* the likelihood of the “Concerned Local Citizens” staying loyal to their new masters;
and then let us consider what calamity awaits the occupied country.

Political Capital

Both the Maliki government and the Bush administration are using the return of refugees as political capital. This projection bears little relation to the ground reality.

To place an inconsequential fact on record, since the beginning of the US “surge” earlier this year, the number of people displaced from their homes in Iraq has quadrupled, and the number of detentions carried out by both Iraqi and U.S. security forces has escalated astronomically. On November 13, the International Committee for the Red Cross estimated there are around 60,000 people detained in U.S. and Iraqi prisons around Iraq.

Refugees returning to Baghdad have been projected in the West as evidence of the “surge” having brought security to Baghdad. Both the Maliki government and the Bush administration are using them as political capital. This projection bears little relation to the ground reality which indicates a steep decline in the number of returnees.

A recent UN survey, revealing the modest number of families returning to Baghdad, shows that “46 percent were leaving [Syria] because they could not afford to stay; 25 percent said they fell victim to a stricter Syrian visa policy; and only 14 percent said they were returning because they had heard about improved security” (The New York Times).

It crucial to consider, but evidently not by the western media, that as of October 1st the Syrian government has imposed new visa restrictions whereby Iraqis who can prove they need medical treatment or intend to conduct business alone are permitted entry into Syria.

Iraqis who are barred entrance have the option of staying in a refugee camp on the border in the middle of the desert, or returning home.

Not More is Not Less

“It is true that hundreds of fighters were killed or detained by the so-called Awakening Forces, but there are thousands who will never quit fighting until this occupation is ended.”

Let us not discount the fact that the “lower violence rate” being reported by the Western media establishments imply that violence in Iraq is now down to 2005 levels, which at the time was considered catastrophic. A recent Pew Research Center poll found that “nearly 90 percent of US journalists in Iraq say much of Baghdad is still too dangerous to visit.” Those surveyed have admitted that the “coverage has painted too rosy a picture of the conflict” (Reuters).

The not-so-rosy reality is that the resistance has merely shifted location. As Ali Khamees, a former major of the Iraqi army, recently told my Iraqi colleague in Ramadi, Ali al-Fadhily, “it is true that hundreds of fighters were killed or detained by the so-called Awakening Forces, but there are thousands who will never quit fighting until this occupation is ended. I believe it is a new strategy employed by the resistance to reduce the suffering of people in al-Anbar and move somewhere else to fight.”

Attacks against U.S. forces have increased notably in other Iraqi provinces like Diyala, Saladin and Mosul.

On November 28, a female suicide bomber wounded seven US soldiers in Baquba, the capital city of the volatile Diyala province, northeast of Baghdad. The previous day in the same city, another suicide bomber detonated his explosives filled vest in front of the police headquarters, killing six people and wounding seven, according to Iraqi police reports.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, a 32 year old Ramadi resident cautioned my Iraqi colleague, al-Fadhily, “those Americans thought they would decrease the resistance attacks by separating the people of Iraq into sects and tribes. They are going deeper into the shifting sand. The collaborators are fooling the Americans right now, and will in the end use this strategy against them.”

Provinces like Saladin, Diyala and the Kurdish controlled north, now under regular bombardment from the Turkish military which is threatening invasion, have become more volatile than ever.

The Bush administration talks of withdrawing up to 5,000 troops from Diyala province, but on November 24 US military officials revealed that the overall number of American troops in Diyala will actually increase since the replacement brigade for the one being removed is larger and will mean more boots on the ground.

Crafting Political Chaos

“Those Americans . . . are going deeper into the shifting sand. The collaborators are fooling the Americans right now, and will in the end use this strategy against them”

The U.S. policy of propping up the Sunni militias whilst backing the Shia government has heightened the volatility of an already precarious political situation. Deep fissures are one fall out of this classic divide and rule tactic.

On November 29, legislators blocked Prime Minister Maliki’s attempts to get approval for nominees to fill the vacant portfolios of justice and communications in the cabinet. This was done by getting legislators from several parties to boycott the session and ensure that parliament did not have the requisite quorum to vote on the nominations.

The cabinet and parliament in Baghdad remain paralyzed thereby effectively derailing US efforts to push legislation for privatization of Iraq’s oil. Over a dozen ministers have quit Maliki’s government this year. These include members of the Accordance Front, the largest Sunni block in the parliament, which withdrew its support in August. The cabinet is presently composed primarily of Shia and Kurds which only underscores the sectarian and ethnic battle lines that the U.S. policies have drawn in Iraq.

Before swallowing the Bush administration rhetoric of things getting better in Iraq today, we would do well to cast a glance at the real picture of the calamitous occupation.

The Just Foreign Policy group in the US places over 1.1 million Iraqis dead as a direct result of the US led invasion and occupation. A conservative estimate of the wounded would be 3 million.

The UNHCR enlists an approximate 2.2 million Iraqis that have fled the country altogether, and another 2.4 million that have been internally displaced. An Oxfam International report released in July found another 4 million Iraqis who were in need of emergency assistance.

Iraq’s population at the time of the US invasion in March 2003 was roughly 27 million, and today it is approximately 23 million. Elementary arithmetic indicates that currently over half the population of Iraq are either refugees, in need of emergency aid, wounded, or dead.

While the US establishment media proffers us the assurance of “Baghdad’s Weary Start to Exhale as Security Improves,” for most Iraqis safe and secure survival remains a distant dream. For Americans it is perhaps time to act on the words of Carl Schurz and “cling to the watchword of true patriotism: ‘Our country — when right to be kept right; when wrong to be put right.’”

It’s tomato season in Immokalee, Florida. Today, like every other day, the tomato pickers will emerge from their trailers in the dark before dawn, and twelve hours later, they will return in the dark of the Florida night.

In the interval, the pickers will be picked up in battered trucks and shipped off to the fields. They will stoop and sweat to fill buckets with tomatoes, thirty-two pounds of them, for forty-five cents a bucket (the same piece rate, in real dollars, as in 1980). They will have to work fast and pick two tons today if they want to take home minimum wage.

The tomatoes will make their way to the growers, then to the vendors, then on to Whoppers and Happy Meals at fast food joints across the country. The money saved by paying poverty wages–or in extreme cases, nothing at all–will find its way into the profit margins of corporations like Burger King.

On November 30, the King’s corporate castle was under siege as the tomato pickers, most of them immigrant workers organized through the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW), surged from the fields of Immokalee into the streets of Miami on a nine-mile march.

Their demands were simple: Pay a penny more per pound. Work with the CIW to end the abuse of workers. Zero tolerance for modern-day slavery in the fields.

And the farm workers weren’t alone. Hundreds of students, workers, clergy and allied activists marched with them, as they have since the birth of the Campaign for Fair Food in 2001–to “penny-per-pound” victories at Taco Bell in 2005 and McDonald’s last spring.

Marching, dancing, singing, shouting, pushing strollers, banging drums, bearing puppets of “the King” and cut-out buckets of tomatoes and flags inscribed with “Respect” and “Hope,” the 1,500-strong pageant against poverty paraded from the offices of BK co-owner Goldman Sachs to the King’s own 1 Whopper Way.

There, they delivered hundreds of worn work boots belonging to farmworkers who could not make it out of the fields that day. “Doubt our poverty?” they asked. “Walk in our shoes.”

Were BK executives to walk in their shoes, workers say, they would know that a penny more per pound–which would cost the company all of $250,000 a year–could mean the difference between their families getting fed or going hungry, getting care or going sick. It could mean the difference between the 1980 piece rate and a living wage for 2007, effectively doubling their daily pay,

The workers hold BK responsible for the difference: “Burger King has an active hand in creating these unconscionable conditions,” says CIW spokesman Lucas Benitez, “as its enormous purchasing power allows it to demand lower and lower prices, resulting in lower and lower wages.” Reports from Florida’s growers confirm the corporate connection.

A code of conduct and an independent monitoring system, as the CIW is also demanding, could in turn mean the difference between slavery and freedom for Florida’s most exploited workers, over 1,000 of whom have been found held against their will–often at gunpoint–in cases uncovered by the CIW and prosecuted over the last decade.

But instead of working with the CIW, the King has launched a public relations blitz and teamed up with a notorious agribusiness lobby, the Florida Tomato Growers’ Exchange, in its own penny-pinching counter-operation.

With BK’s backing, the Exchange has set out not only to sabotage the new campaign, but to dismantle the penny-per-pound agreements won by the CIW at Yum! Brands and McDonald’s. Calling the demand “pretty much near un-American,” the Exchange now threatens $100,000 fines against growers who pass on the extra penny.

As Lucas Benitez sees it, “Burger King has allied itself with the tomato industry … to push us back, back toward the same abuse and exploitation we have experienced for decades. But we will not be turned back.”

Burger King counters that “Florida growers have a right to run their business how they see fit.” To some farmworkers, whose own rights don’t bear so much as a mention, this statement echoes the words of Florida’s slaveholders and sweatshop farmers.

Francisca Cortez, another worker in the CIW, tells the story of two growers who were overheard saying of the tomato pickers, “A tractor can’t tell its boss how to run it.” As Cortez explains, “They were saying that as if the workers were like tractors. And for us, our response is that we’re not tractors, we’re human beings who need to be respected, who have rights.”

The farmworkers’ campaign to be treated like human beings, not tractors, has struck a deep chord among students across the country, who have rallied to the workers’ side through the Student-Farmworker Alliance (SFA). This alliance is flipping the script on corporate Goliaths like the King, combining the power of those who produce the food and those who consume it.

It is here, among its youthful target audience, that Burger King may learn the real price of intransigence, which could amount to much more than a penny per pound. It could cost the King his crown jewel–his brand image for a generation.

“We use our strategic place as the target consumers of these corporations,” says SFA organizer Marc Rodrigues, “organizing a coordinated rejection of and protest campaign against the corporations until they agree to the workers’ demands.”

The recent past is a prologue. Between 2001 and 2005, the Taco Bell boycott led students to “boot the Bell” off dozens of campuses nationwide. Last year’s McDonald’s campaign sparked student solidarity from Austin to Boston, yielding victory with the threat of a boycott. Last month’s “Kingdoom Days of Action” saw more than thirty protests ripple across the country in a single week.

On November 30, the march on Burger King reverberated all the way to Wall Street, as student activists dressed as penny-pinching financiers showed up at Goldman Sachs’s headquarters in New York City, pointing out that the bonuses of twelve of its executives exceeded $200 million last year–twice what Florida’s 10,000 tomato pickers took home.

Students see a direct connection to their own lives, too. “For students, it’s an issue of being cynically targeted and manipulated by this corporation,” explains Rodrigues, “trying to buy our loyalty and suck the money out our pockets…. So it’s a question of us standing alongside farmworkers and making sure that all of us are having our dignity, rights and lives respected.”

The campaign has tapped into a deepening disaffection with corporate power and profit amid poverty. To some, it looks like the new wave of the anti-sweatshop and global justice movements first seen in the 1990s–only the sweatshops are closer to home. To others, it looks like a new labor movement, a new student movement, a new immigrants’ movement.

The Campaign for Fair Food is all of these things, and at its core, it is a movement concerning some of the most basic struggles in American life: slavery versus freedom, fast food versus fair food, community versus corporate control, dehumanization versus human dignity.

“As poor people, part of a poor community here in the US, the dignity of our community is the most valuable thing,” insists tomato picker Gerardo Reyes. “And we must defend that dignity. We cannot let [corporations like Burger King] step on the most valuable thing for us, our dignity. That’s why we must keep on going with the struggle.”

To all intents and purposes, the Wahabi religious establishment of Saudi Arabia has just issued a fatwa against the US dollar. This bears watching.

A message issued by 26 leading clerics warns that inflation has reached intolerable levels in the Gulf kingdom.

While it does not vilify the dollar explicitly, the apparent political aim is to undermine the country’s dollar peg.

“The rulers should seek to try to remedy this crisis in a way that would ease people’s suffering.”

“We direct this message to the rulers and officials: we remind you of Prophet Mohammad’s words that you are shepherds who are responsible for your flock,” it said.

The statement was posted across the Islamic world. The background to this has been a raging debate in Gulf religious and economic circles about the destructive effects of the sliding dollar.

Among the lead-authors is Sheikh Nasser al-Omar, known for his fatwa against US-led forces in Iraq.

He has long preached the collapse of American-led capitalism, and now sees a perfect moment to plunge the knife. We can guess that al-Qaeda Inc is thinking along the same lines.

My own hunch is that the next al-Qaeda strike will not be a symbolic blow to a great building or city, but rather a carefully-timed economic blow: either by cutting – or trying to cut – the oil jugular, or by trying to precipitate a run on the dollar.

The Gulf pegs are preventing the region from taking action to stop the oil boom spiralling out of control.

Half the Mid-East is now overheating. Property booms have reached unstable extremes in almost all the oil states. Construction has become maniacal.

CPI inflation is 5.35pc in Saudi Arabia, the highest in over ten years. It has reached 10.1pc in the United Arab Emirates and 12.2pc in Qatar.

The dollar pegs – designed to anchor the currencies – are now forcing the Petrodollar economies to import US devaluation and monetary stimulus.

What has been a simmering problem for over a year, has become untenable since the Federal Reserve began slashing interest rates.

The Gulf has roughly $3.5trn under management in wealth funds and central banks, so a dollar shift makes waves.

Qatar has already slashed the dollar holding of its future generation fund from 40pc to 98pc.

Stephen Lewis, global strategist at Insinger de Beaufort, said the Fatwa was ominous.

“The Saudi government has been the one institution in the region battling to preserve the oil link with the dollar. If these clerics are able to wear down Saudi resistance, this could breach the bulwark. The dollar would quite likely be abandoned as the chief currency for pricing oil in world markets,” he said.

If the Mid-East breaks the pegs, a chain reaction threatens to follow across Asia. China now has 6.9pc inflation. It may have to ditch its cheap yuan policy soon enough anyway, or face the sort of double digit rises that destroy regimes.

The Saudi royal family rules by a delicate compromise. Although pro-Western in military and economic alliances, it relies on the endorsement of the Wahabi clerics as a key source of legitimacy.

Reluctance to confront this menacing bloc is the main reason why Riyadh tolerated – and helped – the Bin Laden network for so long.

The statement called on the Saudis to take action to stop food price soaring to fresh highs, if necessary with subsidies on key staples.

For now, the dollar is bouncing back. Speculative flows have swung back from euros to dollars after America’s CPI inflation shock of 4.3pc released last week.

One week’s data mean nothing. As the Fed cuts rates ever further to the cushion US property crash bites, Mid-East inflation will go from bad to seriously ugly with the policies now in place.

“Look, Iran was dangerous, Iran is dangerous and Iran will be dangerous, if they have the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon.” – George Bush, Dec. 4, 2007

“We have no clear understanding of what bullshit is, why there is so much of it, or what functions it serves. . . . Bullshitters seek to convey a certain impression of themselves without being concerned about whether anything at all is true. They quietly change the rules governing their end of the conversation so that claims about truth and falsity are irrelevant.” – Prof. Harry Frankfurt (1986)

In early December, an intelligence report served as the instrument to disgrace Bush and Cheney. Behind this apparently benign act stood the relieved super rich and their government guardian who saw the reckless policies of Bush and Cheney as a threat to their power and fortunes.

In the early 1970s, the Establishment worried about Nixon. He brought a California crowd into the White House who didn’t consult the bastions of old power and wealth. Then, “Deep Throat” serendipitously emerged to reveal to Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein details of Nixon’s involvement in a criminal break- in at Democratic Party Headquarters in Washington’s Watergate complex, and of a subsequent White House cover up. In August 1974, Nixon ­ facing impeachment — resigned. The power structure breathed a collective sigh of relief.

In December 2007, intelligence boss Mike McConnell released a National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) report that humiliated Bush and Cheney. By making facts about the non-functioning of Iran’s nuke program public, the NIE removed the Bush zealots’ ostensible reason for starting another war. The “experts” concluded “with high confidence” that Iran had shut down its nuclear weapons program in 2003, thus nullifying the Bush’s pretext for bombing that country. The spooks also deduced that Iran might make a weapon by 2015 ­ if it reactivated its dormant program.

Compare that report with Bush’s September claim that Iran’s nuclear program could ignite World War III; reminiscent of Cheney’s 2002 rhetoric to show why Iraq needed invading that Saddam Hussein had tried to buy yellowcake uranium in Niger to make a nuclear WMD. Bush and Cheney also scoffed at intelligence reports that cast major doubt on these allegations. Bush still rejects the conclusion that Iran shut down its nuclear weapons production. (He also rejects evolution.)

By making this NIE public, the CIA further weakened Bush’s already damaged credibility. He no longer intimidates and stands exposed as a fraud.

The CIA informed Bush in August of its benign findings, but he shrugged off the facts and continued to insist on war as his answer to a non-existent threat. So, McConnell released the report which, for Bush compares with his twins making the centerfold of Playboy–on the humiliation scale.

The intelligence community sucker punched Great Intimidator — in public. Their NIE averred implicitly that Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the hated Holocaust denier and only remaining axis of evil personage, had told the truth about Iran not developing nuclear weapons. Conversely, Bush and Cheney, leaders of the World Alliance for God and Good (WAGG) prevaricated through their proverbial teeth.

The NIE derailed the White House policy of bombing of Iran and led to a prolonged scream from neo con heavies like Norman Podhoretz, editor of Commentary, and Frank Gaffney of the Center for Security Policy. They now bleat on TV about “treason” in high places (CIA) and the nation’s desperate need to bomb Iran immediately.

Douglas Feith, Bush’s former Under Secretary of Defense for Policy from July 2001 until he resigned in August, 2005 spoke to the American Enterprise Institue in Washington in December and defended his own failed policies in Iraq. Some neo cons demand a “Team B” report to invalidate the NIE, an equivalent of former CIA Chief William Casey’s ploy to resurrect the Soviet threat.

In 1980, after US intelligence concluded the USSR posed less of a threat to the West than in previous decades, Casey handpicked another team of “experts” who predictably found the declining Soviet Union more dangerous than ever. Team B thgus backed Reagan’s aggressive posture to build more missiles and a Star Wars defense.

Bush and Cheney, like Reagan and Casey, disregard their intelligence services ­ for which taxpayers pay $40 billion per year — and instead relied on Israel’s Mossad, whose spies rejected the CIA findings. Israeli intelligence clings to its claim that Iran will soon build a nuke.

For Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak publicizing the NIE report meant a “blow to the groin” of Israel. (Truth is a kick in the balls? Bombing is good for Israeli manhood?) Will Bush now secretly encourage Israel to use some its own nuclear stockpile to launch a “preemptive strike” against Iran?

For Bush, good nations behave obediently. England and now France, for example, should possess nuclear weapons. Sort-of-good Pakistan still rates approval (obedient by mouth, which is good enough); and of course, beloved Israel ­ with 200 or more nukes.

Iran, the only remaining member of Bush’s “axis of evil,” began punching the United States in the fist with its face in 1953 when Iranians brazenly elected a democratic government. The CIA and their British equivalent in the name of anti-communism and in the interest of the oil companies overthrew that government and set up a puppet Shah, who ruled despotically until 1979 when militant Muslims dumped him and established a theocracy. In 1980, Iranian militants held CIA and other US officials hostage for more than a year ­thus humiliating numero uno.

The President and most presidential aspirants follow the U.S. axiom. To keep its status, Washington without casus belli invades and occupies other countries. Those who dare challenge such blatantly illegal behavior now become Islamofascists.

Acting in the Lord’s name, US presidents took revenge for Iran’s insolent behavior. After failing to revive the Shah’s rule, the US backed the now hated but then useful Saddam Hussein who dutifully, and with US aid, invaded Iran in 1980.

After almost a decade of Iraq-Iran slaughter, the United States punished Iran with sanctions ­ while covertly selling it missiles to support anti-Sandinista rebels in Nicaragua.

9/11 allowed Bush to declare a permanent and perpetual war against terrorism, thus undermining traditional foreign policy methods for unabashed aggression. His neo con advisers usurped power from the traditional Establishment, much as Nixon did with his California outsiders. The neo cons invaded the intelligence apparatus, much as Nixon’s Plumbers assumed FBI and CIA tasks. (Plumbers sealed “leaks” — to the press.) CREEP (Committee and Finance Committee to Re-elect the President) allowed Nixon his own private budget as well as a White House intelligence and police operation. Such behavior made the traditional agency heads seriously pissed off.

Bush and Cheney’s war-loving intellectuals like Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz and Feith manipulated intelligence in order to use 9/11 to generate fear. They pushed the country into war with Iraq ­ which had nothing to do with 9/11. Even after the invasion turned sour, the neo cons pursued their plan to attack Iran. Now discredited, these men writhe from the NIE’s kick to their cerebral groins.

The repercussions from the revelation will play out in Europe as well. Bush’s plan to place missiles in Poland and the Czech Republic as a defensive shield against Iran’s “nuclear threat” has drawn the ire of Russian President Putin. Russia’s leader sees Bush repeating Truman and Churchill’s Cold War policies of 60 years ago, using a non-existent threat (Iran) as a pretext to militarily encircle Russia. In 1947, Truman declared the USSR an imminent threat to attack Western Europe while the Soviets still licked their wounds after losing more than 20 million people in World War II.

Repetition of history with a new metaphor! The groin kick ­ an intelligence report to the balls ­ should help abate the “hate Iran” fever that replaced the 2001-2003 “hate Iraq” zeal. The NIE revealed to the US public that Bush and Cheney were dangerous bullshitters who spread malicious lies about Iran. Previously, they had accused Teheran with providing Iraqi insurgents bombs to kill US military personnel, a line that remains in Bush’s verbal arsenal.

Sadly, presidential hopefuls from both Parties, excepting Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich, still buy into the anti-Iran axiom. They agree with Bush that the United States should not permit other nations to help anti-US insurgents albeit Washington feels duty bound ­ by God? — to help pro-US insurgents fight bad countries, like the Soviet Union in Afghanistan in the 1980s. Sound like bullshit?

The imperial bullshit level has surpassed the feeble imaginations of Cheney, Bush and even the presidential candidates. It emanates from the $700 billon smelly military budget pile, passed by Congress even though no nation poses a threat.

The NIE served to discredit Bush, which reduces chances of an imminent war with Iran, but don’t fool yourself: it doesn’t change fundamental US policy.