The Rag Blog

Nir Rosen, author of In the Belly of the Green Bird: The Triumph of the Martyrs in Iraq, has spent more than two years in Iraq reporting on the American occupation, the relationship between Americans and Iraqis, the development of postwar Iraqi religious and political movements, interethnic and sectarian relations, and the Iraqi civil war. His reporting and research also focused on the origins and development of Islamist resistance, insurgency, and terrorist organizations. He has also reported from Somalia, where he investigated Islamist movements; Jordan, where he investigated the origins and future of the Zarqawi movement; and Pakistan, where he investigated the madrassas and pro-Taliban movements.

Is the “surge” working as Bush claims or is the sudden lull in the violence due to other factors like demographic changes in Baghdad?

Nir Rosen: I think that even calling it a surge is misleading. A surge is fast; this took months. It was more like an ooze. The US barely increased the troop numbers. It mostly just forced beleaguered American soldiers to stay longer. At the same time, the US doubled their enemies because, now, they’re not just fighting the Sunni militias but the Shiite Mahdi army also. No, I don’t think the surge worked. Objectively speaking, the violence is down in Baghdad, but that’s mainly due to the failure of the US to establish security. That’s not success.

Sure, less people are being killed but that’s because there are less people to kill.

The violence in Iraq was not senseless or crazy, it was logical and teleological. Shiite militias were trying to remove Sunnis from Baghdad and other parts of the country, while Sunni militias were trying to remove Shiites, Kurds and Christians from their areas. This has been a great success. So you have millions of refugees and millions more internally displaced, not to mention hundreds of thousands dead. There are just less people to kill.

Moreover, the militias have consolidated their control over some areas. The US never thought that Muqtada al Sadr would order his Mahdi Army to halt operations (against Sunnis, rival Shiites and Americans) so that he could put his house in order and remove unruly militiamen. And, the US never expected that Sunnis would see that they were losing the civil war so they might as well work with the Americans to prepare for the next battle. More importantly, violence fluctuates during a civil war, so people try to maintain as much normalcy in their lives as possible. It’s the same in Sarajevo, Beirut or Baghdad-people marry, party, go to school when they Can-and hide at home or fight when they must.

The euphoria we see in the American media reminds me of the other so-called milestones that came and went while the overall trend in Iraq stayed the same. Now Iraq doesn’t exist anymore. That’s the most important thing to remember. There is no Iraq. There is no Iraqi government and none of the underlying causes for the violence have been addressed, such as the mutually exclusive aspirations of the rival factions and communities in Iraq.

Are we likely to see a “Phase 2” in the Iraq war? In other words, will we see the Shia eventually turn their guns on US occupation forces once they’re confident that the Ba’athist-led resistance has been defeated and has no chance of regaining power?

Shiite militias have been fighting the Americans on and off since 2004 but there’s been a steady increase in the past couple of years. That’s not just because the Americans saw the Mahdi army as one of the main obstacles to fulfilling their objectives in Iraq, but also because Iraq’s Shiites-especially the Mahdi army-are very skeptical of US motives. They view the Americans as the main obstacle to achieving their goals in Iraq. Ever since Zalmay Khalilzad took over as ambassador; Iraq’s Shiites have worried that the Americans would turn on them and throw their support behind the Sunnis. That’s easy to understand given that Khalilzad’s mandate was to get the Sunnis on board for the constitutional referendum. Khalilzad is also a Sunni himself.

But, yes, to answer your question; we could see a “Phase 2” if the Americans try to stay in Iraq longer or, of course, if the US attacks Iran. Then you’ll see more Shiite attacks on the Americans.

Hundreds of Iraqi scientists, professors, intellectuals and other professionals have been killed during the war. Also, there seems to have been a plan to target Iraq’s cultural icons—museums, monuments, mosques, palaces etc. Do you think that there was a deliberate effort to destroy the symbols of Iraqi identity-to wipe the slate clean-so that the society could be rebuilt according to a neoliberal, “free market” model?

The main reason that things have gone so horribly wrong in Iraq is there was no plan for anything; good or bad. The looting was not “deliberate” American policy. It was simply incompetence. The destruction of Iraq’s cultural icons was incompetence, also – as well as stupidity, ignorance and criminal neglect. I don’t believe that there was really any deliberate malice in the American policy; regardless of the malice with which it may have been implemented by the troops on the ground. The destruction of much of Iraq was the result of Islamic and sectarian militias-both Sunni and Shiite-seeking to wipe out hated symbols. The Americans didn’t know enough about Iraq to intentionally execute such a plan even if it did exist. And, I don’t think it did.

The media rarely mention the 4 million refugees created by the Iraq war. What do you think the long-term effects of this humanitarian crisis will be?

The smartest Iraqis-the best educated, the professionals, the middle and upper classes-have all left or been killed. So the society is destroyed. So there is no hope for a non-sectarian Iraq now. The refugees are getting poorer and more embittered. Their children cannot get an education and their resources are limited. Look at the Palestinian refugee crisis. In 1948 you had about 800,000 Palestinians expelled from their homes and driven into Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and elsewhere in the Middle East. Over time, they were politicized, mobilized and militarized. The militias they formed to liberate their homeland were manipulated by the governments in the region and they became embroiled in regional conflicts, internal conflicts and, tragically, conflicts with each other. They were massacred in Lebanon and Jordan. And, contributed to instability in those countries.

Now you have camps in Lebanon producing jihadists who go to fight in Iraq or who fight the Lebanese Army. And this is all from a population of just 800,000 mostly rural, religiously-homogeneous (Sunni) refugees. Now, you have 2 million Iraqi refugees in Syria, a million in Jordan and many more in other parts of the Middle East. The Sunnis and Shiites already have ties to the militias. They are often better educated, urban, and have accumulated some material wealth. These refugees are increasingly sectarian and are presently living in countries with a delicate sectarian balance and very fragile regimes. Many of the refugees will probably link up with Islamic groups and threaten the regimes of Syria and Jordan. They’re also likely to exacerbate sectarian tensions in Lebanon. They’re also bound to face greater persecution as they “wear out their welcome” and put a strain on the country’s resources. They’ll probably form into militias and either try go home or attempt to overthrow the regimes in the region. Borders will change and governments will fall. A new generation of fighters will emerge and there’ll be more attacks on Americans.

You have compared Iraq to Mogadishu. Could you elaborate?

Somalia hasn’t had a government since 1991. I’ve been to Mogadishu twice. It’s ruled by warlords who control their own fiefdoms. Those who have money can live reasonably well. That’s what it’s like in Iraq now, a bunch of independent city-states ruled by various militias including the American militia and British militias. Of course, Somalia is not very important beyond the Horn of Africa. It’s bordered by the sea, Kenya and Ethiopia. There’s no chance of the fighting in Somalia spreading into a regional war. Iraq is much more dangerous in that respect.

Is the immediate withdrawal of all US troops really the best option for Iraq?

It really doesn’t matter whether the Americans stay or leave. There are no good options for Iraq; no solutions. The best we can hope for is that the conflict won’t spread. The best thing we can say about the American occupation is that it may soften the transition for the ultimate break up of Iraq into smaller fragments. A couple of years ago, I said that the Americans should leave to prevent a civil war and to allow the (Sunni) rejectionists to join the government once the occupation ended. Turns out, I was right; but, obviously, it’s too late now. The civil war has already been fought and won in many places, mainly by the Shiite militias. The Americans are still the occupying force, which means that they must continue to repress people that didn’t want them there in the first place. But, then, if you were to ask a Sunni in Baghdad today what would happen if the Americans picked up and left, he’d probably tell you that the remaining Sunnis would be massacred. So, there’s no “right answer” to your question about immediate withdrawal.

November is the 3rd anniversary of the US siege of Falluja. Could you explain what happened in Falluja and what it means to Iraqis and the people in the Middle East?

Falluja was a poor industrial town known only for its kabob which Iraqis stopped to get on the way to picnic at lake Habbaniya. There were no attacks on the Americans from Falluja during the combat-phase of the US invasion. When Saddam’s regime fell, the Fallujans began administering their own affairs until the Americans arrived. The US military leaders saw the Sunnis as the “bad guys”, so they treated them harshly. At first, the Fallujans ignored the rough treatment because the tribal leaders leaders wanted to give the Americans a chance.

Then there was a incident, in April 2003, where US troops fired on a peaceful demonstration and killed over a dozen unarmed civilians. This, more than anything else, radicalized the people and turned them against the Americans.
In the spring of 2004, four (Blackwater) American security contractors were killed in Falluja. Their bodies were burned and dismembered by an angry crowd. It was an insult to America’s pride. In retaliation, the military launched a massive attack which destroyed much of the city and killed hundreds of civilians. The US justified the siege by saying that it was an attack on foreign fighters that (they claimed) were hiding out in terrorist strongholds. In truth, the townspeople were just fighting to defend their homes, their city, their country and their religion against a foreign occupier. Some Shiite militiamen actually fought with the Sunnis as a sign of solidarity.

In late 2004, the Americans completely destroyed Falluja forcing tens of thousands of Sunnis to seek refuge in western Baghdad. This is when the sectarian clashes between the Sunnis and Shiites actually began. The hostilities between the two groups escalated into civil war. Falluja has now become a symbol throughout the Muslim world of the growing resistance to American oppression.

The political turmoil in Lebanon continues even though the war with Israel has been over for more than a year. Tensions are escalating because of the upcoming presidential elections which are being closely monitored by France, Israel and the United States. Do you see Hizballah’s role in the political process as basically constructive or destructive? Is Hizballah really a “terrorist organization” as the Bush administration claims or a legitimate resistance militia that is necessary for deterring future Israeli attacks?

Hizballah is not a terrorist organization. It is a widely popular and legitimate political and resistance movement. It has protected Lebanon’s sovereignty and resisted American and Israeli plans for a New Middle East. It’s also among the most democratic of Lebanon’s political movements and one of the few groups with a message of social justice and anti imperialism. The Bush Administration is telling its proxies in the Lebanese government not to compromise on the selection of the next president. This is pushing Lebanon towards another civil war, which appears to be the plan. The US also started civil wars in Iraq, Gaza and Somalia.

The humanitarian situation in Somalia is steadily worsening. The UN reports that nearly 500,000 Somalis have fled Mogadishu and are living in makeshift tent cities with little food or water. The resistance-backed by the former government-the Islamic Courts Union-is gaining strength and fighting has broken out in 70 per cent of the neighborhoods in Mogadishu. Why is the US backing the invading Ethiopian army? Is Somalia now facing another bloody decades-long war or is there hope that the warring parties can resolve their differences?

After a decade and a half without a government and the endless fighting of clan-based militias; clan leaders decided to establish the Islamic Courts (Somalis are moderate Shaafi Muslims) to police their own people and to prevent their men provoking new conflicts. Islam was the only force powerful enough to unite the Somalis; and it worked. There have only been a half-dozen or so Al Qaida suspects who have-at one time or another—entered or exited through Somalia. But the Islamic Courts is not an al Qaida organization. Still, US policy in the Muslim world is predicated on the “War on Terror”, so there’s an effort to undermine any successful Islamic model, whether it’s Hamas in Gaza, or Hizballah in Lebanon.

The US backed the brutal Somali warlords and created a counter-terrorism coalition which the Somalis saw as anti-Islamic. The Islamic Court militias organized a popular uprising that overthrew the warlords and restored peace and stability to much of Somalia for the first time in more than a decade. The streets were safe again, and exiled Somali businessmen returned home to help rebuild. I was there during this time. The Americans and Ethiopians would not tolerate the new arrangement. The Bush administration sees al Qaeda everywhere. So, they joined forces with the Ethiopians because Ethiopia’s proxies were overthrown in Mogadishu and because they feel threatened by Somali nationalism. With the help of the US, the Ethiopian army deposed the Islamic Courts and radicalized the population in the process. Now Somalia is more violent than ever and jihadi-type groups are beginning to emerge where none had previously existed.

The US-led war in Afghanistan is not going well. The countryside is controlled by the warlords, the drug trade is flourishing, and America’s man in Kabul, Hamid Karzai, has little power beyond the capital. The Taliban has regrouped and is methodically capturing city after city in the south. Their base of support, among disenchanted Pashtuns, continues to grow. How important is it for the US to succeed in Afghanistan? Would failure threaten the future of NATO or the Transatlantic Alliance?

Although the US has lost in Afghanistan; what really matters is Pakistan. That’s where the Taliban and al Qaeda are actually located. No, I’m NOT saying that the US should take the war into Pakistan. The US has already done enough damage. But as long as America oppresses and alienates Muslims, they will continue to fight back.

The Gaza Strip has been under Israeli sanctions for more than a year. Despite the harsh treatment—the lack of food, water and medical supplies (as well as the soaring unemployment and the random attacks in civilian areas)—there have been no retaliatory suicide attacks on Israeli civilians or IDF soldiers. Isn’t this proof that Hamas is serious about abandoning the armed struggle and joining the political process? Should Israel negotiate directly with the “democratically elected” Hamas or continue its present strategy of shoring up Mahmoud Abbas and the PA?

Hamas won democratic elections that were widely recognized as free and fair; that is, as free and as fair as you can expect when Israel and America are backing one side while trying to shackle the other. Israel and the US never accepted the election results. That’s because Hamas refuses to capitulate. Also, Hamas is an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood which is active in Egypt and Jordan and both those countries fear an example of a Muslim brothers in government, and they fear an example of a movement successfully defying the Americans and Israelis, so they backed Fatah. Everyone fears that these Islamic groups will become a successful model of resistance to American imperialism and hegemony. The regional dictators are especially afraid of these groups, so they work with the Americans to keep the pressure on their political rivals. Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah collaborates with the US and Israel to undermine Hamas and force the government to collapse. Although they have failed so far; the US and Israel continue to support the same Fatah gangs that attempted the coup to oust Hamas. The plan backfired, and Hamas gunmen managed to drive Fatah out of Gaza after a number of violent skirmishes.

Israel should stop secretly supporting Fatah and adopt the “One State” solution. It should grant Palestinians and other non-Jews equal rights, abandon Zionism, allow Palestinian refugees to return, compensate them, and dismantle the settlements. If Israel doesn’t voluntarily adopt the One State solution and work for a peaceful transition, (like South Africa) then eventually it will be face expulsion by the non Jewish majority in Greater Palestine, just like the French colonists in Algeria.This is not a question of being “pro” or “anti” Israel; that’s irrelevant when predicting the future, and for any rational observer of the region it’s clear that Israel is not a viable state in the Middle East as long as it is Zionist.

The US military is seriously over-stretched. Still, many political analysts believe that Bush will order an aerial assault on Iran. Do you think the US will carry out a “Lebanon-type” attack on Iran; bombing roads, bridges, factories, government buildings, oil depots, Army bases, munitions dumps, airports and nuclear sites? Will Iran retaliate or simply lend their support to resistance fighters in Afghanistan and Iraq?

I think it’s quite likely that Bush will attack Iran; not because he has a good reason to, but because Jesus or God told him to and because Iran is part of the front-line resistance (along with Hizballah, Syria and Hamas) to American hegemony in the region. Bush believes nobody will have the guts to go after the Iranians after him. He believes that history will vindicate him and he’ll be looked up to as a hero, like Reagan. There is also a racist element in this. Bush thinks that Iran is a culture based on honor and shame. He believes that if you humiliate the Iranian regime, then the people will rise up and overthrow it. Of course, in reality, when you bomb a country the people end up hating you and rally around the regime. Just look at the reaction of the Serbs after the bombing by NATO, or the Americans after September 11.

Iran is more stable than Iraq and has a stronger military. Also, the US is very vulnerable in the region, both in Iraq and Afghanistan. America’s allies are even more vulnerable. An attack on Iran could ignite a regional war that would spiral out of control. Nothing good would come of it. The Bush administration needs to negotiate with Iran and pressure Israel to abandon its nuclear weapons.

Bush’s war on terror now extends from the southern border of Somalia to the northern tip of Afghanistan—from Africa, through the Middle East into Central Asia. The US has not yet proven—in any of these conflicts – that it can enforce its will through military means alone. In fact, in every case, the military appears to be losing ground.

Given the current state of the military and the economy, do you see any way that the Bush administration can prevail in the war on terror or is US power in a state of irreversible decline?

Terror is a tactic; so you can’t go to war with it in the first place. You can only go to war with people or nations. To many people it seems like the US is at war with Muslims. This is just radicalizing more people and eroding America’s power and influence in the world. But, then, maybe that’s not such a bad thing.

Nir Rosen’s book on postwar Iraq, In the Belly of the Green Bird: The Triumph of the Martyrs in Iraq, was published by Free Press in 2006.

Politicians here still parrot Nancy Reagan’s “Just Say No” campaign against teen drug use. Barrack Obama’s in trouble for supposedly having told teens as part of his counseling that he too used bad drugs including heroin. But the needle and the increasingly potent joint don’t hold a candle to simple booze in which the current cohort, stretching from mid-teen high schoolers through to college age kids, is marinating itself into weekly oblivion. Though there are those who deprecate claims that youth is drinking more than earlier cohorts, it seems a new lost generation is in the making, emblem of the Bush Age.

One big concern touted in the press endlessly used to be date-rape, with the girl-victim laid out by drugs. Now it’s binge-drinking. High schoolers, and in particular high school girls, drink hard liquor in large quantities as fast as they can and pass out. Sometimes they get gang-raped and wake up pregnant.

This is the culture. Even meth addiction looks better. Much of it started with the Girls Gone Wild home videos, which were largely filmed during Spring Break. Now it’s spring break all year round. Google tries to strip these off Youtube and such as soon as they go up. But there are undergound sites that may be searchable.

For fun at frat or sorority Parties, the pledges–that is, those who have been accepted for membership — are made to drink until they throw up and pass out. Then they are stripped by the slightly less drunken contingent and have swastikas and racist epithets written on their bodies in permanent magic marker, are posed in indecent positions and the whole affair is filmed and posted on Facebook/My Space websites.

If parents really want to know what they’re kids are up to they should read the Facebook entries–but it’s probably better not to know. A friend of mine with a frat boy son returned shaken from one weekend visit to the frat house having witnessed a lad who vomited on the sleeping fathers during “dads’ weekend”. This was after he had drained a bottle of Grey Goose vodka, following a day of nonstop drinking. “I don’t know how he survived,” my friend concluded in some perplexity.

A recent survey done in Montana, admittedly a heavy drinking state across all age groups, had 38 percent of high schoolers admitting binge drinking within the past 30 days, above the national average of 28 percent. Binge drinking is defined in these stats as having five or more drinks in one session. Over a third of these young boozers said they’d been in a car whose driver was also busy getting loaded. You trip over reports of the resultant auto disasters all the time, in any local paper.

Teen and college drinkers include here returning vets from Iraq, mostly in their mid-20s. For example Portland State University in Oregon, had 800 vets enrolling this fall, and many other colleges across the country experienced a similarly huge inrush. These include a predictable complement of people with severe problems of post traumatic stress syndrome likely to produce sociopathic behavior.

Parents worried that some drunk will drive their own drunken child into a wall or another car, or that that their own drunken child will be behind the wheel, now encourage the parties to take place in their own homes. This carries its own risks, in the form of “social hosting” laws in many states, where the householder — even if away on holiday or on business — can get nailed for allowing the party. This includes liability for damages if any death or injury stems from the revelry, either on site or in some carload of party-goers on their way home.

The Republicans, led by George W. Bush, Rudy Giuliani and their hard-core neoconservative hit squads, have spent millions on television messages supporting the military surge in Iraq. They mounted a major campaign to demonize MoveOn.org in order to derail the group’s proven ability to raise funds for antiwar messages and Democratic candidates. During the election year, pro-war Republicans are poised to promote staying the course in Iraq while threatening or even instigating a war on Iran. The Democrats will have to respond with more than an echo.

But at this point the leading Democratic contenders are reluctant to say they would pull out all the troops from a war they claim to oppose. In sharp contrast to Republicans, Democrats at least support withdrawing most or all American combat troops on a twelve- to eighteen-month deadline. Asked for exact timelines, however, the top contenders indicate that they would put off the withdrawal of all troops until sometime in their second term. The platform of “out by 2013″ may be a sufficient difference from the Republicans for some, but it won’t satisfy the most committed antiwar voters. Asked about the five-year estimate, Senator Hillary Clinton’s spokesman on Iraq policy, Philippe Reines, expressed surprise, but his formulation of her views did not conflict with the idea of a long US presence: that she wants substantial troop reductions starting immediately, without a deadline for completion, and with a smaller American force left behind dedicated to training Iraqis and counter-terrorism.

“It’s beginning to feel like 2004,” says one Washington insider at the Center for American Progress, a think tank led by former Clinton Chief of Staff John Podesta. CAP issued a key memo on October 31 complaining about a “strategic drift” setting in among security strategists and the Democratic leaders they advise. The schizophrenia consists of wanting to end the war as painlessly as possible while running away from their anti-Vietnam past. In the triangulating phrase of Barack Obama, one can’t be seen as a “Tom Hayden Democrat” on Iraq.

The leading Democratic contenders buy the line of a more hawkish think tank, the Center for a New American Security, a mostly Democratic cast of auditioning future national security advisers. They propose the gradual, multiyear withdrawal of combat troops and an increase in the number of Special Forces and trainers, who are somehow supposed to train the Iraqi army and chase Al Qaeda from Iraq. A similar proposal was made at the beginning of this year by the Iraq Study Group, based on a December 2006 report. The dangerous, even irrational, assumption of this thinking is that a small number of American trainers and Special Forces can accomplish what 160,000 troops have failed to do.

Nevertheless, the proposal has understandable appeal. Bush plans to withdraw 25,000 to 30,000 troops this spring to salvage an army at the breaking point. If the next President withdraws another 75,000 troops in 2009, the peace movement will face the challenge of opposing a war that appears to be slowly ending. Iraq would then likely evolve into either an Algerian- or Salvadoran-style dirty war or tumble toward a South Vietnam-style fiasco with American advisers trapped in the cross-fire. But it would be mostly invisible until the endgame if managed successfully, with American casualties declining in a low-profile war.

Can anything be done to avert this scenario? Actually, yes. The peace movement does have an opportunity to solidify public opinion behind a more rapid withdrawal–regardless of what the national security advisers think.

Peace advocates will likely have the best-funded antiwar message in history during the coming election year. Tens of millions of dollars will be raised for voter education and registration and get-out-the-vote campaigns through the 527 committees, which disseminate election messages independent of partisan candidates. The Democrats defaulted on their opportunity to use these independent committees for a peace message in 2004, when they muted and muddled their antiwar position. But this time they will have to contend with the frustration of millions of antiwar voters, and their nominee will be pledged, in rhetoric at least, to end the war.

Backed by real resources, skilled organizers and volunteers across the electoral battlegrounds of 2008 will be able to identify, register and turn out voters through door-to-door work combined with radio and television spots. Already, former MoveOn political director Tom Matzzie is being entrusted with a $100 million fund for independent expenditures during the 2008 electoral cycle, a significant portion of which will go to antiwar messages. The money will come from antiwar unions like the Service Employees International and big-money donors like investor George Soros and Hollywood producer Steve Bing. Podesta is personally involved in the independent campaign as well, through a 527 entity called Fund for America.

This plan poses enormous challenges. Who will make the decisions, what will be the Iraq/Iran message, who will deliver it and by what means? The independence of the 527 committees is based on an organizational separation from the political parties. But the message will likely be consistent with, if not identical to, the candidates’ message, influenced by the same hawkish consultants. Yet the peace movement has an opening to exert its influence: it can demand a role in the independent campaign as a condition of enlisting its legions of local peace activists. The challenge will be to draft an antiwar formula that unites the peace forces and progressive Democrats rather than one that depresses vast numbers of antiwar voters.

Beyond the issue of message, there’s the question of whether the independent campaign is controlled from the top or is open to the thousands of volunteers already devoted to antiwar efforts in their local communities. Matzzie is a brilliant field organizer in his early 30s, trained in the post-1960s staff-driven methods of groups like USAction. Most of these organizers have little knowledge of Iraq, foreign policy or peaceful alternatives to the “war on terror.” Their backgrounds tend to be in labor or consumer organizing or door-to-door canvassing for donations. Typically, they are results-oriented (number of phone calls made, voters identified, “hits,” etc.) rather than community-oriented. Ideally, Matzzie will map out a battle plan calling for cooperation where local groups already have strong track records (like New Hampshire, Iowa and northern Illinois, to take three examples) and new initiatives in areas lacking an active base. A final question to be finessed is whether the independent campaigns will invest in a long-term local strategy, including simple things like leaving contact lists behind with local groups, or whether they will pull up stakes and vanish on election day.

The peace movement can succeed only by applying people pressure against the pillars of the war policy–public opinion, military recruitment and an ample war budget–through marching, confronting military recruiters and civil disobedience. The pillars have been eroding since 2004. The tactics that are most likely to accelerate the process are greater efforts at persuading the ambivalent voters. This is where the interests of the peace movement converge with Matzzie’s operation.

A massively funded voter-identification and -registration drive and a get-out-the vote campaign have enormous potential to tip not only the presidential election but also the scales of public opinion. Rather than merely pounding away at a simplistic message–Republicans dangerous, Democrats better–such an effort would require, as a foundation, resources to educate voters and involve them in house meetings. The house-meeting approach allows for voter education and participation on a scale that cannot be achieved by hit pieces or TV spots. It is also critical for cultivating grassroots leadership capacity for election day turnout and beyond. Voters may be persuaded by a narrow end-the-war message, especially if Giuliani is the Republican candidate, but they will also need the ability to answer questions about the interconnected issues of Iraq, Iran, energy, healthcare and the threat posed by neoconservatives.

Only in this way will the peace movement succeed in expanding and intensifying antiwar feeling to a degree that will compel the politicians to abandon their six-year timetable for a far shorter one. In the worst-case alternatives, Giuliani and the neocons will roll to a narrow victory despite a platform of promising war, or the centrist Democrats will prevail without a mandate for rapid withdrawal of troops from Iraq and negotiations plus containment toward Iran.

The coming war is a political one, to be fought at home. There will be a yearlong showdown that will determine the presidency and the climate of opinion. If the Republicans succeed in electing the next President, the Iraq War will continue and probably expand. If they lose the presidency, they are already positioning themselves to charge the Democrats with “losing” Iraq and ride that theme to a comeback in 2012.

The key dates in this coming domestic war will be:

January 2008 onward: the budget. There will be attempts to limit or reverse Bush’s supplemental demand of $200 billion for a war that has already cost more than $470 billion. CAP recommends a goal of cutting the request in half. Two-thirds of Americans favor a reduction of some kind, and 46 percent favor sharp reductions. It appears that the best that can be hoped for in this battle is to rebuke Bush, reduce funding for the war and make the budget vote so painful that Congress members will never want to cast one again. There is no reason to support $5 billion to $10 billion for the sectarian torturers operating under cover of the Interior Ministry, for example. Already a high-level military commission has called on Congress to scrap the Iraqi police service as hopelessly corrupt, a position reflected in HR 3134 put forward by Representatives Maxine Waters, Barbara Lee and Lynne Woolsey. This simple focus on the Frankenstein monster fostered in Baghdad might generate a movement against using taxes for torture and thus begin to unravel the occupation.

January-February 2008: presidential primaries. The Democratic candidates have been at least shopping for the peace vote in the early primaries, if only to differentiate their brands from the others. Voting for Kucinich, Richardson or Gravel is a legitimate choice to support an important voice–but not a nominee. Joe Biden’s proposal for partitioning Iraq is the most dangerous of any of the Democratic candidates’ positions and should be rejected. John Edwards’s proposal is the best of the front-runners’, though it leaves a gaping loophole for “sufficient” US troops to continue fighting terrorists and training the Iraqi police. Barack Obama has been sharpening and improving his position somewhat, defining a more limited role for trainers and counterterrorism. Obama (and Edwards) also have toughened their stand against bombing Iran. That leaves Hillary Clinton struggling in the center, promising she will “end the war” while leaving a scaled-down force to fight Al Qaeda, train the Iraqis, resist Iranian encroachment and demonstrate her awareness that Iraq is “right in the heart of the oil region.” What she means is anyone’s guess, leaving her with little more than an anti-Bush “trust me” platform. These Democratic positions may underestimate the passionate demands of peace voters, potentially driving a significant fraction of those voters into apathy or toward third-party alternatives. All these candidate positions can be drawn out further in the heat of the early primaries by sharp questioning and selective voting by peace activists. The “bird-dogging” of candidates by New Hampshire Peace Action is an example.

April 2008: the Bush deadline for withdrawing 25,000 troops (by not extending their tours of duty). Unless the Administration has bombed Iran, Bush will use this deadline to promote the Nixon-like theme that the war is “winding down.” The Democratic candidate will have to insist that 25,000 is far too small a number of troops. This risks a Republican attack that the Democratic position is “too extreme”; there is also the risk that Democratic candidates would fall into Bush’s trap by calling a 25,000-troop withdrawal a “positive first step.”

Summer 2008: convention protests and platforms. The time is now for advocates and insiders to write and propose platform language that promises to truly end the war, without the usual ambiguity that drives activists to despair. Both conventions will be held in protest-friendly cities, offering an outside strategy to highlight the differences and deficiencies in the two-party debate.

Fall 2008: House and Senate races. It is perhaps here that groups like MoveOn and Progressive Democrats of America can have the greatest effect, by bolstering the numbers of antiwar senators and representatives who favor terminating the war in 2009. Think: Senator Al Franken.

November 2008-January 2009. This will be a test of whether the peace movement will hit the streets and pressure the incoming Administration to promptly end the war or face four more years of deepening confrontation.

If a one-year campaign seems too long, consider Vietnam for perspective. After the McGovern Democrats took over the Democratic Party in 1972 only to lose the presidency, it took three long years before Nixon’s “Vietnamization” policies ended in debacle and in a cutoff of Congressional funding. Along the way, a young Senate staffer named Tom Daschle spearheaded a campaign to block Nixon’s funding for a secret gulag of “tiger cage” torture chambers. Like Baghdad today, Saigon was a US-backed police state, a hideous system abetted by 10,000 American “civilian contractors.” American activists were arrested outside the US Embassy in Saigon for distributing leaflets against the torturers. Another 1 million educational pamphlets were passed out in fall 1972 by local organizers in a hundred cities. Those local groups demanded that candidates sign a peace pledge or face the loss of critical votes.

It all seemed too little, but the pillars of the policy kept crumbling in Vietnam and at home. In May 1973, in response to Indochina and the Watergate impeachment crises, both houses of Congress voted a deadline of August 15 for further funding of American combat forces. Henry Kissinger refused to comply with any deadlines, and his position was defeated on a tie 204-204 House vote that allowed only a last extension of the bombing until that August. The country was so divided that a small, determined faction was able to tip the scales.

We are approaching a similar chasm in public opinion today. The neoconservatives, conservatives and liberal hawks have been discredited for their foolish 2002 belief in a quick and easy invasion of Iraq. A beleaguered neocon minority is pressing to strike Iran and stay the course in Iraq. Democrats, despite their electoral majority, have not proven to be as tenacious about Iraq as the neocons. Nor are progressive activists always as educated and focused for battle as their adversaries. With a majority of Americans wanting and expecting a withdrawal from Iraq, the outcome of 2008 may depend on who has the greater will to win.

Editors have a mantra, do not look back, move on, write what is current. But sometimes looking back is vital. Those who ignore even the recent past are doomed to understand nothing, sink deeper into quagmires – and bleat again : ‘Why do they hate us’?

Looking through material for the book that has been far too long in the making, I found a copy of a letter which I sent to a prominent (UK) Member of Parliament. It is dated November 1993 and clarifies for ever why the invaders were never going to be greeted with ‘sweets and flowers’.

Near exactly fourteen years ago – three years and three months in to the embargo – I wrote:

” Meridian Hotel, Baghdad, 4th November 1993.

“As you know, when I was here in April/May 1992, I thought things could get no worse. Yet in July this year, the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations note in a Report: ‘..with deep regret’, all the: ‘pre-faminine indicators being in place’. Further that an appreciable proportion of the population now had less calorific intake than the most famine stricken parts of Africa. That was July. This is apocalypse. This is internationally sponsored genocide.

“Food has risen in real terms, one thousand percent. Some most basic of staples have risen eleven hundred times. This morning a breakfast for three, of three black cofees, two orange juices and an omlette cost, what would have been, in 1989, the equivalent of one thousand three hundred US dollars. With US dollars, one can buy stacks of black market Iraqi Dinars, an inches high wad for fifty dollars, chillingly redolent of Germany after the first world war. Most Iraqi people have no dollars.

‘”In the foyer of the Rashid Hotel, is one of the most magnificent display of wonderous artifacts one could ever hope to see: jewellery, paintings, superb, rare antique boxes, chandeliers, crystal, exquisite family treaures, handed down over generations, many also collected from around the globe. They are the belongings of the middle class, for sale in the hope they will be sold for hard currency to the rare visitor. Living for a few more weeks. The poor have no antiques.

“A friend, a multi-lingual, much travelled novelist and editor, whose great grandfather’s statue graces an area of Baghdad, boils rose petals for a face cleaner, concocts a mixture of boracic and herbs for deodorant and uses an ancient clay for hair conditioner.She and her family, as many Iraqis, now clean their teeth with husks from a plant, a method from a bygone age.Tooth paste and tooth brushes are vetoed. Her last novel is trapped in her computer, for want of a minor, embargoed spare part.If she could release it, it would be anyway useless, there is no paper to print it on. Paper is also veoted by the U.N., Sanctions Committee.

“Car tyres cost sixteen month’s average salary.Yet people have to drive the gruelling, utterly isolated, seven hundred kilometre, desert road to Jordan, to attempt to conduct any business, or for medical help, if they are the few lucky enough to have the money to operate in hard currency.They drive one resewn tyres, often stuffed with just about anything to keep them inflated, in the searing heat. They travel in cars that are now death traps. All spare parts also vetoed.

“The deaths on the Jordan road (and the visible testimony of them) are a bare decimal point in the reality of life here.The U.N., of course, fly in, and loudly demand Nescafe for breakfast, unattainable anywhere. The delicious Turkish coffee which is available for those who can afford it, has become a token of ‘ the enemy’ for them, it seems. I have witnessed this over and over again, in this hotel: ‘ No, no, Nescafe, not Turkish coffee …’ Then something along the lines of : ”What is wrong with you people, do you understand nothing’? Last night, they wanted hot ‘ vegetable soup’. The temperature was Hadean and the Chef had worked miracles with pulses and fresh salads, unattainable for most and now pretty difficult for even the government subsidised hotels.U.N., personnel in Iraq are a million miles from the aspirations expressed on behalf of ‘We the people …’ They are bent on ritual humiliation – utterly shameing ‘We the people’.

“The U.N,. personnel were sporting satelite phones and bleepers.Two months ago the U.N., Sanctions Committee (read US and UK., as ever) vetoed a consignment of bleepers and mobile ‘phones for the doctors, medical staff, ambulance drivers and other emergency units, denying all contact between emergency and life saving personnel.

“Just before I left the U.K., in September, the Sanctions Committee revoked the licence for five hundred tons of shroud material. It is currently stuck in Jordan, having taken since April to get even as far as Aquaba port. Sanctions reach even beyond the grave.

“Earlier this year the U.S., U.K., and France vetoed a consignment of school writing pads, erasers, pencil sharpeners, pencils and consignment of ping pong balls. Childhood is dead in Iraq. There are few birthday parties anymore, for most, neither the food nor the presents are affordable.

“The U.S., and U.K., recently also vetoed a consignment of ‘medical gauze’ (ie: bandages) and refused to allow a Spanish company to assist in rebuilding the syringe factory, bombed in 1991. Doctors are forced to re-use syringes again and again. One lowered his eyes and his voice in shame, as he told me that they re-use the paediatric canulars from babies who have died. He did five years post graduate studies in the United States and spoke better english than you or I. He had believed in the ‘land of the free’. Not any more.

“In a tiny grocery store,very early yesterday morning, a child of perhaps five came in, with that air of pride of children everywhere entrusted to run an errand. He was clutching a five Dinar note, fifteen dollars, just four years ago. It bought one egg, which he carefully carried to the door – and then he dropped it.He was beside himself. He fell to the floor and frantically tried to gather it up in his hands, tears streaming down his small, desparate face. As I searched in my pocket, the shopkeeper shook his head, gently touched him on the shoulder and gave him another egg. Protein is unbuyable for the majority. Families chop one egg into miniscule pieces, so all have a couple of tiny morsels – in a country ‘floating on a sea of oil’, the second largest reserves on earth.

“How many more traumatised children, in our name? How many countless ‘broken eggs’ are there here now in just three years? What would be acceptable to the U.S., and British administrations? What do they expect, perhaps an army of premature babies (a quarter of live births are now premature) rising up from their non-functioning-for-want-of-western-spare-parts-incubators, to overthrow Saddam Hussein?

“People here, broadly, do not care about the government.The struggle to survive day by day is the greater challenge. Further, I went back to a large group who were highly critical of the government a year ago. They are now so furious at what the embago is doing to their families, friends, neighbourhood and the ancient country they love – and of which , it seems to the visitor, all feel that they are honoured custodians – this year they all lit a candle on Saddam Hussein’s birthday.

“As you know, rightly or wrongly, I have no view on politics here, it is none of our business and to collectively punish – U.N., or not, is illegal and beyond shame – twenty five million souls hostage to our Adminstrations’ views of their government.The highest category of victims are the new born, the unborn and the under fives.This is being done, we are told, that Saddam Hussein will be forced to comply with the latest moving goal post and curb the excesses of his regime. Yet in the name of our regimes the ‘mass graves’ are spreading across the country – with our nations’ names on them.

” I do not know when or where this shocking epsisode in history will end. But I know for certain that we will never be forgiven, not alone in Iraq, but across the region and beyond. Putting out the hand of friendship and being big enough to forget about ‘losing face’, might just avert some major tragedy, the spirit of generosity is what embodies this region. Otherwise the silent crimes of the U.S.,-U.K., driven ‘U.N.’ embargo may return to haunt us too.'”

The embargo of course, ground on for a further ten years, then came the criminality of ‘Shock and Awe’ and an invasion where Iraqis can be killed, tortured, stolen from, raped, run over, bombed, blown up, imprisoned without trial, with impunity. If anyone treated a domestic or farm animal in the West, as the Iraqis have been treated for over seventeen years: denied a proper diet, medication, clean water, a safe environment, that person would end up in Court and likely in prison.

It’s the end of the world as we know it. The US Military has officially run out of foreign lands to bomb. Apparently out of desperation to find a place to publicly ejaculate their huge, heavy loads, the US Air Force has chosen the Big Island of Hawaii as its bulls-eye target.

Unfortunately for Hawaiian paradise, however, this time it’s going to take far more than a super size box of Kleenex to tidy up this particular wad containing Uncle Sam’s latest hot, dirty, and unquestionably most slimy mess.

According to a recent Associated Press article, “B-2 Stealth Bombers Hit US Targets”, the United States government is using both Hawaii and Alaska to expand its war games and better train pilots to unload mega-size Uranium bombs on – shhhh – unsuspecting North Koreans. Meanwhile, Uncle Sam, convincingly playing the part of one mighty sick, twisted Santa, is apparently reneging on his promise to make nice and remove North Korea from his Naughty [State Sponsors of Terrorism] List.

How considerate of Uncle Sam to give such a generous warning, months in advance, of his impending blitzkrieg on one more unsuspecting Asian nation! But, for some strange reason, the citizens of Hawaii received no such courtesy prior to being “cursed” with monthly bloody bombings, not even the benefit of predictability enjoyed by women visited every month by their “Auntie Flo.”

What harm would it do, if you really think about it, for the US government to run a small ad in Hawaii’s federal mouthpiece, The Honolulu Advertiser, in which they could announce for Hawaiians the dates during which they should attempt to locate suitable bomb shelters on “that” day of the month? Well, at least it would be a mighty thoughtful touch!

One seriously wonders what horrible things Hawaiians have done to become such bad little boys and girls that their very own authoritarian Uncle Sammy – who they have, after all, permitted for over one hundred years to play soldier upon their land and in their sea – would sadistically “repay” them for their warm Aloha-spirit hospitality by dropping bombs from stealth Air Force B-2 bombers on them… ‘round Christmastime, no less!

No matter what the offense, no matter how bad Hawaiians have been to merit domestic air raids by their own, one certainly suspects that dumping many thousands of pounds of coal atop the Hawaiian Isle would be a far more suitable punishment (not to mention an infinitely better eco-friendly gesture) than being forced into being sitting ducks for bombing practice from the heavens above!

But times they certainly are a ‘changing! Why, once upon a time in an era many US War Presidents ago, it used to be that attacks on Hawaii were staged by other nations – Japan, for example. Now, in this modern post-9/11 age, any nation is fair game for attack … even when the people on the island you’re bombing happen to wave the very same red, white, and blue flag as the other forty nine states!

No, this is no parody you’re reading. This news is so priceless I could not make this stuff up! The United States Air Force has actually started bombing its own country, in order to conduct what they claim is necessary bombing practice for North Korea – or whoever’s up for the next US “hit!”

Courtesy of the AP article, released as a gift to America on Thanksgiving Day (when we were too busy wolfing down turkey and stuffing to notice or even care), we now learn, quite after the fact, that US B-2 “Spirit” Stealth Bombers have started routinely bombing the US state of Hawaii.

According to the US Air Force website, the domestic bombing began this year on October 23. Reportedly, the first Bombs Away event, being called Hawaii’s “October Surprise,” was part of an exercise called “Koa Lightning,” in which B-2s flew from Guam to Hawaii, dropping the bombs on the Big Island’s Pohakuloa Training Area.

At least one dozen of these mega-bombs were dropped the first month, at $1.2 million US Dollars a pop. Called “inert” and “dummy” because they reportedly do not explode, the Air Force tells us, as if from an ad for homemade jam, bombings are conducted, “the old fashioned way too. No laser designating the target and no joint direct attack munitions with global positioning system guidance. It was just the aviators, their instruments, a deadly airframe and some Airmen on the mock battlefield calling in the coordinates.”

As these are not your Air Force standard, computer-guided, “built in, state of the art targeting system” drops, the aviators and their uh, instruments, work on a “deadly timeframe,” relying on nothing but gravity … and the capricious whim of Mother Nature’s tropical winds.

So don those hard hats and heads up, Hawaii, ‘cause where those “old-fashioned ‘dumb bombs’ without precision guidance” land next is anybody’s guess! And a 2,000 lb. bomb – make that a 2,000 lb. anything… released from a point higher than the mountaintops that goes even a wee bit off course is definitely going to cause some poor Hawaiian one mighty colossal headache!

According to the AP article, the Air Force has “only started dropping inert bombs on the Big Island’s Pohakuloa Training Area [PTA] last month.” One can not help wondering if this bombing that “only” started last month is not possibly payback for the work of outspoken activists who recently opposed the permanent stationing of the 2/25th Stryker Brigade Combat Team at PTA? Coincidentally [or maybe not?] Pohakuloa is the same live-fire test training area where mega-bombs are now getting dropped out of B-2 jets onto grounds where Depleted Uranium was discovered in August.

With regard to the “Koa Lightning” bombing of Hawaii exercises, one of the B-2 pilots, Major Tim Hale, stated, “This particular mission covers the full spectrum of what we can do.” With a nation so desperate to practice dropping bombs that it chooses as its Ground Zero the sacred, culturally rich, pristine paradise of Hawaii, there is no question that the full spectrum of what we can do has indeed been achieved … at the very lowest, bottom-of-the-barrel end of the spectrum, that is.

With the bombing of Hawaii a jolly old ho (ho, ho) hum affair, not just the United States but the international community, too, now gets to witness the utter depths of just how low the United States will go in order to wage its aggressive wars. For to depraved Uncle Sam in the role of Santa-Gone-Bad this holiday season, not even Hawaii – considered by many to be the world’s favorite tropical vacation spot – is sacred.

On its own website, the US Air Force reminds us that the capability of the B-2 bombers (apparently considered the pinnacle of Air Force prowess) must not be underestimated. “Strategic bombers in and of themselves are huge force multipliers,” according to Tech. Sgt. Richard Setlock, a JTAC from the 25th Air Support Operations Squadron. Furthermore, according to Sgt. Setlock, “Fighter attack aircraft can stay on station for 45-minutes and provide six to eight bombs. We can have a bomber overhead for two to four hours and provide four times the firepower that a fighter attack aircraft could.”

The military’s orgiastic thrills and chills of “force multiplier” capabilities aside, one wonders how the local Hawaiian school children are coping? What must it be like for these precious young ones, learning their A, B, C’s, numbers, and colors, too, with not merely jets overhead, but stealth bombers that provide four times the firepower of fighter attack aircraft?

Distant memories of 1960s bomb drills hiding underneath kindergarten desks suddenly come to mind. One wonders how Hawaiian teachers go about explaining to tiny tots that the bombs, each weighing about as much as four classroom pianos… are being dropped by their own country, that is [gulp] by the “good guys”.

In correspondence with Bob Nichols, Project Censored Award winner and weapons expert of The San Francisco Bay View, Nichols wrote of the B-2 bombs,, “It is just a matter of time till the 376,000 lb heavy bombers hit a school playground or someone’s house with the equivalent of a small car at 160 mph and kill no telling how many people. Just chalk it up to the annual required human sacrifice to keep the big Military payroll in Hawaii. The city fathers made a bad deal with the devil for a few dollars more.”

The devil may have made them do it, but do the local officials even know? According to Mayor of the County of Hawaii, Harry Kim, this is apparently not the case. “I was not aware that they were dropping bombs up there.”

Mayor Kim also added that the public has a right to know about what’s going on – and when Hawaiians can expect the 2,000 pound drops gracing them from up above. “They really need to be proactive about informing us so we can inform the public,” he said. “The public needs to know when these types of exercises are going on, especially those who drive Saddle Road.”

Yes, there’s no doubt about it. These bombs are a threat to Hawaii, and when even the local government’s top official is not made aware of the mortal danger his citizens face on a regular basis, one suspects that Uncle Sam does a mighty lousy job as Federal Duck-and-Cover Communicator for the oblivious residing in Pacific paradise.

As explained by the Air Force on its website, “The global reach and long loiter time over a target is a unique capability of America’s bomber force. This makes the B-2 especially lethal to America’s enemies.”

Furthermore, as Col. Damian McCarthy, 36th Operations Group commander, elaborates, “Having the ability to stay over a target for extended periods, especially in a stealth airframe, gives the combatant commander the option to strike the bad guys at a time and place of their choosing.”

What none of these military load-dropping, macho-types explain, however, is just whose bright idea it was to use the Big Island of Hawaii for their bombing target practice fun. The island of Hawaii is, after all, a place where 160,000 citizens live and work, and 1.5 million tourists from around the globe come each year to sun, fun, and play.

Can someone please tell me exactly when did the gentle, peace-loving people from the Aloha state get placed on the list as America’s declared “enemies” and “bad guys” in order to merit humongous, lethal bomb drops by B2 stealth bombers?

One can understand why Hawaiians are a tad more than concerned about the very real possibility of stray, off-course bombs being dropped on their heads. What is even more disturbing, however, is the fact that these bombs – weighing roughly the same as a Honda CRX model car – are being dropped from altitudes 18,000 feet above the mountains … onto grounds contaminated with deadly toxic and radioactive Depleted Uranium from years of live-fire training.

Can you just imagine how 2,000 pounds of concentrated dead weight, dropped from the skies, will rustle up and render airborne the Depleted Uranium in the soils on the Pohakuloa Training Area? And just how safe can this be, in terms of air quality, with lethal Depleted Uranium being re-suspended in the air by these bomb drops … particularly for those living in nearby towns?

According to the Army’s 2000 health fact sheet on Depleted Uranium, “DU can also be inhaled when DU particles in the environment are resuspended into the atmosphere by wind or other disturbances.” Is there any question in anyone’s mind that such a heavy bomb, dropped from the heavens and landing in radioactive soils, creates one hell of a “disturbance?”

Jim Albertini, of the Malu ‘Aina Center for Non-Violent Education & Action says of the bombings, “This, along with other training at PTA, is an outrage given the presence of Depleted Uranium (DU) confirmed at PTA. The full extent of the contamination is not yet known but the military is taking action that risks spreading the stuff around. It shows the complete disregard for the health and safety of Hawaii residents and the military people who train on the ground there.”

Wouldn’t it make sense to remediate the contaminated soils at Pohakuloa, as is required by Army Regulation 700-48 before even thinking about dropping mega-bombs there? Is the Army in such a hurry to “practice” bombing the hell out of North Korea that it simply cannot wait another few months till it cleans up the mess it created in Hawaii by playing around there with its nuke weapons (and God-only-knows-what-other Uranium munitions)?

Has this grand US imperial Empire, in its zealous myopic dream of waging wars at any cost, decided to totally waste the once pristine, lush, exotic Hawaiian island – and its very own citizens to boot? Does anyone know precisely when our nation made the decision to condemn Hawaii for billions of years as a radioactive “national sacrifice zone,” the “payoff” being the ability to wage continuous wars against innocent civilians … in both Hawaii as well as in far-off lands?

Perhaps in lieu of being greeted in the future with flowered leis, future visitors to Hawaii’s airport should, by all rights, be appropriately welcomed with Army-issued gas masks and radioactive MOPP gear suits instead. While the Hawaiian tourist industry admittedly may tank once photos get out depicting the rather, um, encumbered manner in which Hawaiian tourists will now be outfitted, on the plus side, US troops would then be able to invade, occupy, and take as their own private playground vacant Hawaiian hotels and resorts where tourists and vacationers, fearing radioactive contamination, will no longer venture.

So say goodbye, all ye citizens of the world, to the former tropical paradise of the Aloha state! Please know you have been forewarned and travel to Hawaii now at your own risk.

Vacation now on the Big Island and prepare to be greeted with the US military’s own uniquely gracious brand of hospitality … the invisible “gift” of inhaled Uranium aerosol blowing in the warm tropical winds, bestowed upon unsuspecting residents and tourists alike, for all eternity.

To learn more and find out what you can do to help keep Hawaii safe from domestic bombing and further radioactive contamination, visit the folks at Protect Hawaii and say Aloha to them for me.

Cathy Garger is a freelance writer, public speaker, activist, and a certified personal coach who specializes in Uranium weapons. Living in the shadow of the national District of Crime, Cathy is constantly nauseated by the stench emanating from the nation’s capital during the Washington, DC, federal work week. Cathy may be contacted at savorsuccesslady3@yahoo.com.

11/30/07 “ICH” — — What has changed in the way we see the world? For as long as I can remember, the relationship of journalists with power has been hidden behind a bogus objectivity and notions of an “apathetic public” that justify a mantra of “giving the public what they want.” What has changed is the public’s perception and knowledge. No longer trusting what they read and see and hear, people in western democracies are questioning as never before, particularly via the internet. Why, they ask, is the great majority of news sourced to authority and its vested interests? Why are many journalists the agents of power, not people?

Much of this bracing new thinking can be traced to a remarkable UK website, MediaLens. The creators of Media Lens, David Edwards and David Cromwell, assisted by their webmaster, Olly Maw, have had such an extraordinary influence since they set up the site in 2001 that, without their meticulous and humane analysis, the full gravity of the debacles of Iraq and Afghanistan might have been consigned to bad journalism’s first draft of bad history. Peter Wilby put it well in his review of Guardians of Power: the Myth of the Liberal Media, a drawing-together of Media Lens essays published by Pluto Press, which he described as “mercifully free of academic or political jargon and awesomely well researched. All journalists should read it, because the Davids make a case that demands to be answered.”

That appeared in the New Statesman. Not a single major newspaper reviewed the most important book about journalism I can remember. Take the latest Media Lens essay, “Invasion – a Comparison of Soviet and Western Media Performance.” Written with Nikolai Lanine, who served in the Soviet army during its 1979-89 occupation of Afghanistan, it draws on Soviet-era newspaper archives, comparing the propaganda of that time with current western media performance. They are revealed as almost identical.

Like the reported “success” of the US “surge” in Iraq, the Soviet equivalent allowed “poor peasants [to work] the land peacefully.” Like the Americans and British in Iraq and Afghanistan, Soviet troops were liberators who became peacekeepers and always acted in “self-defense.” The BBC’s Mark Urban’s revelation of the “first real evidence that President Bush’s grand design of toppling a dictator and forcing a democracy into the heart of the Middle East could work” (Newsnight, 12 April 2005) is almost word for word that of Soviet commentators claiming benign and noble intent behind Moscow’s actions in Afghanistan. The BBC’s Paul Wood, in thrall to the 101st Airborne, reported that the Americans “must win here if they are to leave Iraq . . . There is much still to do.” That precisely was the Soviet line.

The tone of Media Lens’s questions to journalists is so respectful that personal honesty is never questioned. Perhaps that explains a reaction that can be both outraged and comic. The BBC presenter Gavin Esler, champion of Princess Diana and Ronald Reagan, ranted at Media Lens emailers as “fascistic” and “beyond redemption.” Roger Alton, editor of the London Observer and champion of the invasion of Iraq, replied to one ultra-polite member of the public: “Have you been told to write in by those c*nts at Media Lens?” When questioned about her environmental reporting, Fiona Harvey, of the Financial Times, replied: “You’re pathetic . . . Who are you?”

The message is: how dare you challenge us in such a way that might expose us? How dare you do the job of true journalism and keep the record straight? Peter Barron, the editor of the BBC’s Newsnight, took a different approach. “I rather like them. David Edwards and David Cromwell are unfailingly polite, their points are well argued and sometimes they’re plain right.”

Over the last week or so Western Bloc corporate media wrapped their clammy, information-choking tendrils mostly around the latest fake Middle East peace talks, continuing grief for the corporate financial sector and assorted disorders for Nicolas Sarkozy in France and Gordon Brown over there at No. 10 Gin Lane. Next week, one of the big corporate news efforts will be to suffocate the electoral victory supporters of President Chavez are likely to win on December 2nd for the Venezuelan government’s proposed constitutional reforms. To realise what is at stake one needs to check out a few headlines the Western Bloc corporate Thing will never release from its media maw.

The following have appeared in Latin American and other news sites over the last several weeks. They give a very different perspective on the Venezuelan government from the one generally marketed in the hopelessly biased mainstream corporate media.

“Mission Miracle cares for more than 1000 from Peru” (Prensa MinCI, Aporrea.org, 25/11/07 ) “The solidarity programme the Bolvarian Republic of Venezuela is carrying out in different parts of the Americas, known as Mission Miracle has also been happening in Peru where more than 1000 people have benefited since assistance to the Peruvian people began in 2006.”

“Venezuelan shipment of 16,000 barrels of gas/diesel averts Guyana fuel crisis”, (Stabroek News of Guyana, VHeadline.com, 21/11/2007) The Venezuelan embassy in Guyana noted, “With this delivery of fuel, Venezuela ratifies its politics of cooperation and solidarity to guarantee direct benefits for the people of Guyana and the other Caribbean countries. Likewise, it shows its disposition to work for the economic and social integration of the people of Latin America and the Caribbean.”

“Honduras will import Venezuelan fuel on preferential terms”, (Prensa Latina, Rebelion.org, 26-11-2007 ) “Honduras will import Venezuelan fuels on preferential terms allowing a better use of financial resources for social policies, Presidency Minister Yani Rosenthal reported today. She announced that the authorities of the PETROCARIBE company will be contacted tomorrow to speed up talks. The purchase of these fuels, she said, will be for two years in the amount of US$750 million with half of that amount paid via a credit line extended by the government of Hugo Chavez. Rosenthal stressed the benefits of PETROCARIBE as a development initiative aimed at helping countries like Honduras in a vulnerable financial situation get access to fuels on preferential terms. The official emphasised this will contribute to a more efficient use of cash resources for mainly socially-oriented activities and will help relieve the impact of the high price of crude oil in the world market.”

“Venezuela donates US$16 million for massive purchase of rice and beans”, (La Gente, RadioPrimerisima.com, 23/11/2007) “Venezuela donated the funds to alleviate the effects of Hurricane Felix and heavy rains lasting two weeks which affected farming. Roger Romero, Director of the National Food Supply company told AFP, “Part of these funds are being used to cope with the rising price spiral in basic foods…..We are working on a campaign to supply direct to the population via the creation of solidarity-based fair trade networks that will work temporarily until the market stabilizes” Romero added.”

In his “Brief comments on Venezuela’s 2007 Q3 macro-economic results” (Rebelion.org, 24/11/2007) economics professor Alexis Mujica Martínez reviews Venezuela’s economic performance. The facts he cites are notably absent from almost all mainstream corporate reporting on Venezuela outside the specialist press – for good reason. Mujica Martinez points out that Venezuela has had unprecedented growth averaging over 12% for 16 consecutive quarters, among the highest in the world.

Mujica Martinez reckons some current shortages can be explained by the 3% gap between aggregate demand (growing over 18% so far in 2007) and aggregate supply (growing at 15%). Corporate media reports stress shortages in supermarkets without noting deliberate attempts by opposition business federation FEDECAMERAS members to deliberately cause those shortages, just as price-gouging anti-government business people have done in Nicaragua (hence the need for Venezuelan support). Nor do critics note the incovenient fact that some shortages seem to be caused by rising living standards with greater numbers of Venezuelans consuming more.

Mujica Martinez points out how anti-government commentators fail to report that capital investment in Venezuela has increased over 17% this year. Private sector industrial manufactuing increased 8% with the private sector in general contributing over 60% of gross domestic product. As Mujica Martinez notes, this is the country anti-Chavez media around the world accuse of strangling private enterprise.

“Venezuela will provide a third of the oil Portugal needs” (TeleSUR, Aporrea.org 20/11/07 ) “”Venezuela and Portugal will become strategic partners with the signing of an energy policy agreement which will allow the South American country to supply a third of the Portugal’s oil needs, during a visit this Tuesday by the Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez.”” Venezuela’s ambassador in Lisbon made the announcement concerning the upcoming signing of the agreement in question and also indicated that a Memorandum of Understanding exists between Portugal’s GALP oil company and Venezuela’s PdVSA oil company. The agreement will make possible “the supply of a third of Portugal’s oil needs while Galp will carry out exploration and subsequent exploitation in the Orinoco Oil Belt.”

With oil prices now almost touching US$100 the barrel, commentator Hedelberto López Blanch notes in “The Caribbean and the ALBA lifeline” (Rebelion.org, 20-11-2007) , ” On April 29th in 2007 the 5th ALBA Summit took place in Barquisimeto on the first anniversary of the Peoples’ Trade Treaty. Member countries Venezuela, Bolivia, Cuba and Nicaragua participated along with invited observers like Haiti, Ecuador, Dominica, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines and Uruguay to assess ALBA’s first strategic plan and work on cooperation and integration evolved during 2006.

The meeting also agreed to reinforce the creation of businesses, strategies and Supra-National programmes with all countries in education, healthcare, energy, communications, transport, housing, highways, food supply, mining and others to help diminish aggressive action by multinational companies and international financial organizations to the detriment of the majority of the population.

Thus, 18 programmes are in progress covering food supply, medicine production, metal-mechanical production, telecommunications, tourism, various manufactures and iron mining in Bolivia, as well as setting up gasification plants in Bolivia and Cuba. For its part PETROCARIBE, set up in 2005, permits the supply of crude oil and its derivatives from Venezuela to Caribbean countries via mixed (State-private) distribution companies.”

“ECLAC report states poverty in Venezuela fell to 18.4%” (Vive TV, Aporrea.org, 19/11/07) “The Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean released in Santiago, Chile the report “Latin America Social Panorama 2007″ in which it confirms the progress of social and economic policies of the Bolivarian government of President Hugo Chavez Frias. According to the report levels of poverty in Venezuela fell to 18.4% while the number of people living in extreme poverty fell 12.3%.”

In “The Chavez Bank” (Sin permiso, Rebelion.org, 16-11-2007) Javier Diez Canseco notes, “That’s the name the US government and press and various Peruvian communications media defending neoliberal policies have given the Bank of the South which should formally be set up on December 5th…..The Bank of the South is a Development Bank, giving credit for regional development and integration projects for countries in South America. It is an initiative proposed by Hugo Chavez almost a year ago which has become a reality with the participation of Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Ecuador, Paraguay, Uruguay, Venezuela ….even the Colombian government of the same Uribe who is a trusted partner of the US made known its interest a couple of weeks ago.”

“Guatemalan President elect will visit Venezuela to sign oil agreements” (Agencia Bolivariana de Noticias, Aporrea.org, 11/11/07) “Recently elected President of Guatemala, Alvaro Colom, will visit Caracas on December 11th and 12th to sign a series of agreements between that country and Venezuela, reported President Hugo Chavez Frias. The Venezuelan President added that Guatemala’s possible incorporation into the PETROCARIBE oil cooperation initiative may also be expected.”

“Venezuela, Syria and Iran to sign agreement to construct 140,000 bpd refinery” (Xinhuanet, VHeadline.com, 29/10/ 2007) “China’s Xinhua: Syria, Iran and Venezuela are to sign a partnership agreement tomorrow, Tuesday, to construct a crude oil refinery near the midland city of Homs, with a capacity of 140,000 barrels per day the official SANA news agency reported.

The signing of the agreement would be followed by establishing a joint company for carrying out studies and implementing the project, said the report. In addition to the three countries, the Malaysian al-Bukhari Group will participate in the construction of the refinery, it added.”

As Alberto Cruz has reported in “Venezuela’s bad example” (Ceprid, ZNet, 27/11/2007) “Venezuela launched an internal campaign within OPEC to democratize the Development and Cooperation Fund (worth US$40bn) and to see that the fund did not depend exclusively on Saudi Arabia, which consistently put the management of that fund in the hands of US and European businesses. Venezuela won that battle, so now not only US and European firms manage the fund, but the OPEC countries themselves and other non-Western bloc companies from outside the oil cartel.”

And “….without Petrocaribe, the 16 member countries – impoverished, lacking infrastructure and dependent on international aid – would today, with the exception of Cuba and Venezuela, face a tragic, dead-end outlook with astronomical prices for oil and its derivatives, along with increased world food prices as a result of production geared to bio-fuels. The extent of the savings on these countries’ oil bills is already around US$450 million since they freed themselves from oil market intermediaries and speculators.”

And “With barter (oil for Cuban doctors, for Argentine meat and ships, for Uruguayan milk and cheese etc.), Venezuela has started a direct exchange of goods that breaks World Trade Organization norms and hands weaker countries a bigger role when it comes to selling their produce and raw materials.”

In his article “The murder of a Chavez supporter in Venezuela : what happened and what El Mundo reported” (Rebelion.org, 28-11-2007) Pascual Serrano nailed the corporate zombie-media modus operandi in his analysis of reporting on recent violent opposition demonstrations in Caracas. While his detailed breakdown of the incident in which anti-Chavez rioters murdered Jose Oliveros Yepez catches out El Mundo’s editors specifically, the same unethical behaviour can be found consistently in Western corporate media reporting of events in Venezuela. The opposition are constantly given the benefit of the doubt. The Chavez government and their supporters are consistently vilified.

“In 31 countries: Cuba reaches the million mark of impoverished people given free eye operations” (AP, Rebelion.org, 29-11-2007) Almost a million people from 31 impoverished countries recovered their sight after being surgically operatted on by Cuban doctors under the auspices of Operation Miracle, a cooperation programme led by Cuba and Venezuela.” (Worth noting the absence of this clear and factual AP wire service report from output of the major corporate news outlets.)

Conclusion

The reason people in Western Bloc countries are seldom if ever able to read this kind of information in their corporate mainstream media is because those media clearly and deliberately serve the interests of corporate capitalism and support the here-today-gone-tomorrow political factotums in the promotion and defence of that destructive, unsustainable anti-humanitarian system against those who resist it. The continuing corporate media onslaught on the government of President Chavez will most likely intensify over the weekend and for most of next week.

They will do their usual thing-from-the-crypt-as-reporter, shlock-horror charade. That Venezuela is in economic crisis when its economy is in better shape than almost any of its South American neighbours. That Venezuela threatens regional stability when Venezuela’s foreign policy ensures weaker more vulnerable economies are better able than ever to resist the chaos resulting from insatiably greedy “free market” corporate monopoly capitalism. That Chavez is aiming for dictatorship in proposing indefinite re-election as enjoyed by Margaret Thatcher, Tony Blair, John Howard, and other neoliberal mascots of the global corporate Thing. It slithers unendingly down and around the world’s phone and dinner networks via company boardrooms, government offices and editorial conference tables.

The reporting it regurgitates is an integral part of the relentless campaign of intervention throughout Latin America by Western Bloc powers desperate to maintain their centuries-old stranglehold on the continent’s natural resources. Around the world, peoples suffering under corporate capitalism’s inhumanity hope the Chavez government will win the December 2nd vote. In the aftermath, the Venezuelan authorities will need to be more alert than ever to defeat aggressive efforts by Western Bloc governments to deny the Venezuelan people their fundamental right to self-determination.

When will the US and the UK tell the truth about Israel’s nuclear weapons?

George Bush and UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown are right: there should be no nuclear weapons in the Middle East. The risk of a nuclear conflagration could be greater there than anywhere else. Any nation developing them should expect a firm diplomatic response. So when will they impose sanctions on Israel?

Like them, I believe that Iran is trying to acquire the bomb. I also believe it should be discouraged, by a combination of economic pressure and bribery, from doing so (a military response would, of course, be disastrous). I believe that Bush and Brown – who maintain their nuclear arsenals in defiance of the non-proliferation treaty – are in no position to lecture anyone else. But if, as Bush claims, the proliferation of such weapons “would be a dangerous threat to world peace”, why does neither man mention the fact that Israel, according to a secret briefing by the US Defence Intelligence Agency, possesses between 60 and 80 of them?

Officially, the Israeli government maintains a position of “nuclear ambiguity”: neither confirming nor denying its possession of nuclear weapons. But everyone who has studied the issue knows that this is a formula with a simple purpose: to give the United States an excuse to keep breaking its own laws, which forbid it to grant aid to a country with unauthorised weapons of mass destruction. The fiction of ambiguity is fiercely guarded. In 1986, when the nuclear technician Mordechai Vanunu handed photographs of Israel’s bomb factory to the Sunday Times, he was lured from Britain to Rome, drugged and kidnapped by Mossad agents, tried in secret, and sentenced to 18 years in prison. He served 12 of them in solitary confinement and was banged up again – for six months – soon after he was released.

However, in December last year, the Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert, accidentally let slip that Israel, like “America, France and Russia”, had nuclear weapons. Opposition politicians were furious. They attacked Olmert for “a lack of caution bordering on irresponsibility”. But US aid continues to flow without impediment.

As the fascinating papers released last year by the National Security Archive show, the US government was aware in 1968 that Israel was developing a nuclear device (what it didn’t know is that the first one had already been built by then). The contrast to the efforts now being made to prevent Iran from acquiring the bomb could scarcely be starker.

At first, US diplomats urged Washington to make its sale of 50 F4 Phantom jets conditional on Israel’s abandonment of its nuclear programme. As a note sent from the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs to the secretary of state in October 1968 reveals, the order would make the US “the principal supplier of Israel’s military needs” for the first time. In return, it should require “commitments that would make it more difficult for Israel to take the critical decision to go nuclear”. Such pressure, the memo suggested, was urgently required: France had just delivered the first of a consignment of medium range missiles, and Israel intended to equip them with nuclear warheads.

Twenty days later, on November 4 1968, when the assistant defence secretary met Yitzhak Rabin (then the Israeli ambassador to Washington), Rabin “did not dispute in any way our information on Israel’s nuclear or missile capability”. He simply refused to discuss it. Four days after that, Rabin announced that the proposal was “completely unacceptable to us”. On November 27, Lyndon Johnson’s administration accepted Israel’s assurance that “it will not be the first power in the Middle East to introduce nuclear weapons”.

Actually, I did have a little bit more to do with the case. John J. McAvoy — a conservative, Wall Street Republican, according to Maury — was also an ACLU attorney on the case. After reading some of the changes made in the brief, I insisted on filing a supplemental statement of my own with the Court. Maury said the ACLU was afraid the case might be thrown out if I insisted on filing a separate statement. I was very careful with what I said, and the case was not thrown out.

I appreciate what Laura Codina and the Coordinadoras of Fuerza Unida, Petra Mata and Viola Cásares, said about me. But in all honesty I have to say that whatever I’ve been able to accomplish has been built on the legacy of Communists here in San Antonio before me.

In October of last year there was a symposium held at the Tamiment Library of New York University on “James and Esther Jackson, the American Left and the Origins of the Modern Civil Rights Movement.” James Jackson was a big influence in my life. At that symposium Percy Sutton, former Manhattan borough president, took the floor and spoke of his long association with and appreciation of the Jacksons. This began in San Antonio where Sutton grew up in a family of twelve, half of whom became Communists.

The six Suttons; Emma Tenayuca and John Inman, both of whom were chairs of the Communist Party of Texas; Hattie Mae Inman, who raised a family and was an inspiration to others while bedridden with five types of cancer; Manuela Soliz Sager and her husband James Sager; Luisa Moreno, and many more — these are people to whom I’m indebted. I think this honor belongs to them also. And to my wife, Jo, whose support enabled me to be involved in struggles for peace and justice.

I consider the Esperanza Peace and Justice Center one of the most important promoters of art, culture, peace and social justice in our country.

The vision statement of the Esperanza starts off with the words: “The people of Esperanza dream of a world where everyone has civil rights and economic justice, where the environment is cared for, where cultures are honored and communities are safe.” Many of you may not agree with me, but if you take the words literally, I think the world these people of Hope — we people of Hope — are dreaming of is Communism. It is not a world that can be achieved under today’s capitalism.

When Dr. William Edward Burghardt Du Bois joined the Communist Party in October, 1961, he stated: “Capitalism cannot reform itself; it is doomed to self-destruction. No universal selfishness can bring social good for all.”

The people’s forces are gaining strength, and reasons for hope abound. Yet here in the USA we have Jena in Louisiana; racial profiling, an increase in police brutality and even killings by police here in San Antonio; continued attacks on Roe v. Wade; continued neglect of the needs of the victims of Katrina; attacks on the rights of lesbians, gays, bisexual and transgendered people; increasing raids on immigrants and the breakup of families; degradation of the environment; children behind bars at the Hutto Prison (renamed the T. Don Hutto Family Residential Facility) in Taylor, Texas; attacks on Palestinians, Arabs, and others. And on a world scale continued waste of billions of dollars monthly on wars; increased inequality between rich and poor nations; dangers of nuclear warfare; inaction in the face of global warming.

What stands in the way of building the unity of working people and of the many groups oppressed by modern capitalism, imperialism — the unity that’s needed to put an end to this madness?

Racism

Xenophobia (including anti-Mexican, anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim, anti-Arab and anti-Palestinian movements and sentiments)

Homophobia

Dogmatic religion (Here I’m speaking of the religion of the far Right, not the religion that calls on people to unite in the struggle for peace and social justice.)

Failure to see the role of the individual in history, which results in a lack of involvement.

How do we fight these roadblocks to progress?

We need to use every means at our disposal. I hand out the People’s Weekly World, with its weekly appeals for solidarity in the building of a better world, a world of peace and brotherhood. If you don’t have the most recent issue, you can pick up a copy on the table downstairs on your way out. Others use calaveras (like those in the new Voz de Esperanza) , song, music, dance, art, poetry, telling stories, writing novels, making movies. All forms of sembrando conciencia, spreading awareness and understanding — concientización, to use an old term — are important.

Hugo Chávez said: “Hagamos el socialismo, con amor y con pasión, y estaremos salvando a la humanidad del imperialismo, del capitalismo, de la destrucción de la especie humana.

“Let’s build socialism, with love and passion, and by doing so we will be saving humanity from imperialism, capitalism, and the destruction of the human species.”

When he applied for admission to membership in the Communist Party, Dr. Du Bois said: “I have been long and slow in coming to this conclusion, but at last my mind in settled.”

If you are not yet ready to join the Communist Party, take your time. Study The Communist Manifesto. It’s old but still good.

The world wide credit crisis started in the heart of America suburbia itself, and primarily through the politics of suburban development that radiated from South Florida. The story of subprime mortgage mess has not yet meshed with the campaign finance supply chain that wrapped up Florida production home builders, lawyers and lobbyists. But from the perspective of Miami and South Florida, it is clear that supply chain was managed by Jeb Bush, the former two-term governor.

Yesterday Bloomberg reported that $700 million in defaulted debt, representing sprawl (asset-backed commercial paper– the exact details have not been disclosed) has vanished from the trust funds invested by the Jeb Bush team, adding to losses that will change American politics in 2008 and beyond.

The world-wide credit crisis is too big to contain in one frame. It still has not come home to roost, how the hundreds of billions of losses reported by the world’s largest financial institutions from Hong Kong to Frankfurt to London to Beijing and Tokyo, have anything to do with politics.

But the most accurate frame to tell this story is the money trail from Jeb’s loss in 1994 governor’s race, to his victory in 1998, and subsequently, the presidential election stolen in Florida by George W. Bush in 2000. Both Jeb and W. were fully engaged in the policies of growth that spurred the hyperventilated housing boom that is now in flames. (for further detail, see eyeonmiami.blogspot.com under the archive feature, “housing crash”)

Their programs and policies were grounded by a strategy to win Republican victories in the fastest growing suburbs in the nation. Today the massive leverage that supported suburbia has deflated, bringing hard currency consequences to taxpayers and voters whether they are Republican or not.

Although the news is now filled with the housing market crash (in Miami, it’s the worst in a century), it is not being told in terms of politics. There are news segments on liar loans, reports on mortgage fraud and stories about hastily convened task forces, there are editorials on poor judgment by consumers and investors and efforts to bail them out, or millions of homeowners at risk of foreclosure, or who have been foreclosed.

These are the bits and pieces, and still, even if you laid them side-by-side, they would fail to capture the connections between the so-called fiscal conservatives and ordinary people now paying for the failure of the suburban dream.

How are Americans really hurt by suburbia?

Here is how.

Bloomberg reports today, “School districts and local governments in Florida have pulled $8 billion out of a state-run investment pool, or 30 percent of its assets, after learning that the money market fund contained more than $700 million of defaulted debt.”

The State Board of Administration, that manages about $42 billion of short-term investments, including the pool, as well as Florida’s $137 billion pension fund, is run by Coleman Stipanovich, brother of “Mac” Stipanovich, a Republican consultant and Bush family loyalist. In 2002, the fund lost $334 million on Enron, investing in the stock as the company was swirling down the drain – three times the loss of any other pension fund. A few years later, the same fund invested in Edison Schools whose stock value had collapsed from $37 to as little as 14 cents.

“Pardon the sarcasm,” the St. Petersburg Times editorialized after the Edison deal, “but was there no Enron stock left to buy?”

Enron – through its water subsidiary, Azurix – and Edison represented two areas of policy related to manias of the Jeb Bush years: socializing risk and privatizing profits. Jeb had been quietly encouraging the privatization of Florida’s water supply, administered by a network of state water management districts.

Enron’s collapse put a quick end to that, although stalking horses have not given up on the dream of privatizing water resources in Florida. And of course, Jeb’s acolytes, seeded through the Florida legislature, are still promoting charter schools as an answer to the teacher’s and other unions.

Now, to the $500 million plus that Governor Jeb Bush lost in the empowerment of private corporations, it is necessary to add an additional $700 million of defaulted debt tied to the housing market crash.

This is not some abstract penalty imposed by bad leadership on taxpayers.

The suburbs are restless and with good reason: suburbia and its costs are a Ponzi scheme for which no political leader will go to jail.

The scheme starts with local elected officials in control of zoning, up the ladder through lobbyists, land speculators developers and local bankers, all the way to Wall Street where lawyers and financial engineers, from investment bankers to hedge funds, who already spent billions in bonuses and fees for originating debt that has no value on the secondary market.

One reason the mainstream media has a hard time focusing on the heart of the problem, is that so many Americans call suburbia, home.

The mainstream media, in large part supported by the suburban supply chain, has either ignored or lambasted critics as elitists insensitive to the millions of Americans for whom glue gun, pod housing in bland and anonymous housing tracts (in order to conform to the requirements of mortgage backed securities) is an unassailable dream.

No longer. Not when people’s pensions are affected. And not even in Florida, where a Republican legislature still holds firm. For now.

Every Saturday, the president of the United States gives a radio address to the nation. It is followed by the Democratic response, usually given by a senator or representative. This past Saturday the Democrats chose retired Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez to give their response, the same general accused in at least three lawsuits in the U.S. and Europe of authorizing torture and cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment of prisoners in Iraq. This, combined with the Democrats’ endorsement of Attorney General Michael Mukasey despite his unwillingness to label waterboarding as torture, indicates that the Democrats are increasingly aligned with President Bush’s torture policies.

Sanchez headed the Army’s operations in Iraq from June 2003 to June 2004. In September 2003, Sanchez issued a memo authorizing numerous techniques, including “stress positions” and the use of “military working dogs” to exploit “Arab fear of dogs” during interrogations. He was in charge when the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison occurred.

Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, who headed Abu Ghraib at the time, worked under Gen. Sanchez. She was demoted to colonel, the only military officer to be punished. She told me about another illegal practice, holding prisoners as so-called ghost detainees: “We were directed on several occasions through Gen. [Barbara] Fast or Gen. Sanchez. The instructions were originating at the Pentagon from Secretary Rumsfeld, and we were instructed to hold prisoners without assigning a prisoner number or putting them on the database, and that is contrary to the Geneva Conventions. We all knew it was contrary to the Geneva Conventions.” In addition to keeping prisoners off the database there were other abuses, she said, like prison temperatures reaching 120 to 140 degrees, dehydration and the order from Gen. Geoffrey Miller to treat prisoners “like dogs.”

And it’s not just about treatment of prisoners. In 2006, Karpinski testified at a mock trial, called the Bush Crimes Commission. She revealed that several female U.S. soldiers had died of dehydration by denying themselves water. They were afraid to go to the latrine at night to urinate, for fear of being raped by fellow soldiers: “Because the women, in fear of getting up in the hours of darkness to go out to the portolets or the latrines, were not drinking liquids after 3:00 or 4:00 in the afternoon. And in 120-degree heat or warmer, because there was no air conditioning at most of the facilities, they were dying from dehydration in their sleep. What [Sanchez’s deputy commanding general, Walter Wojdakowski] told the surgeon to do was, ‘Don’t brief those details anymore. And don’t say specifically that they’re women. You can provide that in a written report, but don’t brief it in the open anymore.’” Karpinski said Sanchez was at that briefing.

Former military interrogator Tony Lagouranis, author of “Fear Up Harsh,” described the use of dogs: “We were using dogs in the Mosul detention facility, which was at the Mosul airport. We would put the prisoner in a shipping container. We would keep him up all night with music and strobe lights, stress positions, and then we would bring in dogs. The prisoner was blindfolded, so he didn’t really understand what was going on, but we had the dog controlled. The dog would be barking and jumping on the prisoner, and the prisoner wouldn’t really understand what was going on.”

Reed Brody of Human Rights Watch elaborated on Sanchez: “For those three months of mayhem that were occurring right under his nose, he never stepped in. And, also, he misled Congress about it. He was asked twice at a congressional hearing whether he ever approved the use of guard dogs. This was before the memo came out. And both times he said he never approved it. [W]e finally got the actual memo, in which he approves ‘exploiting Arab fear of dogs.’ ” Brody dismissed the military report clearing Sanchez of any wrongdoing: “It’s just not credible for the Army to keep investigating itself and keep finding itself innocent.”

This is not about politics. This is about the moral compass of the nation. The Democrats may be celebrating a retired general who has turned on his commander in chief. But the public should take pause.

The Democrats had a chance to draw a line in the sand, to absolutely require Mukasey to denounce waterboarding before his elevation to attorney general. Now they have chosen as their spokesman a discredited general, linked to the most egregious abuses in Iraq. The Bush administration passed Sanchez over for a promotion, worried about reliving the Abu Ghraib scandal during the 2006 election year. Now it’s the Democrats who have resuscitated him. Have they no shame?

One month ago a bill passed almost unanimously in the House. This bill has received no mainstream news coverage. So it must not be that big of a deal, right? It’s just a bill that will soon to go to Capitol Hill and since the Democrats are in control we are all safe from further infringements up on our civil rights, right? Well, maybe that is not totally correct since this bill is a lot more than meets the eye. But indicator number one should be the title, and indicator number two should be how fast it is moving through Congress.

On October 23rd of this year, the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007 passed 404 to 6 in the House. This bill is proposing an expansion of Homeland Security with the objective of spying on citizens whose political or religious beliefs might lead them to commit violent acts. And we are not referring to the attack of Megan Williams or the numerous police murders of non threatening civilians. No this is solely about spying on political dissidents whose politics were shaped through a critical analysis of US Foreign or Domestic policies.

The stated purpose of this bill is to first assemble a National Commission on the Prevention of Violent Radicalization and Ideologically Based Violence. Secondly, they will create a university-based Center of Excellence to study radicalization and homegrown terrorism.

Their definition of what defines radical and terrorism are very vague, and can be manipulated to serve several purposes. In the bill itself, it says homegrown terrorism means “the use, planned use, or threatened use, of force or violence” by a native citizen of the United States. It is this definition that is leaves so much of this bills purpose, open to interpretation. Unfortunately, the interpretation by the same ole “powers that be” is the only one that really matters because it is them who will have the use of this bill at their disposal.

It is far too easy to point the finger at an individual or a group of individuals, and claim that they are “planning” or “threatening” the use of violence to achieve their objectives. For instance, if a group of PETA or the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, decide protest a rodeo, could it be claimed that they are “threatening” the use of violence? Or if activists and concerned citizens congregate at a building to protest or demonstrate, could it be claimed that they are “planning” the use of violence or getting ready to riot?

Let’s take it one step further. If there is an act of civil disobedience, in the form of blocking the entrance to that building (a non-federal building) during the political protest, and that blocking is done with the use of a minimal amount of force (people physically locking arms), will this new bill turn a simple misdemeanor trespassing into a felony punishable through the federal court system? And who has the discretion to make that determination?

“Planned” or “threatened” use of violence is a vague term, and we have seen it used before. How many times have you heard of a cop beating, shooting, or killing an individual because in the officers opinion they “posed a threat” or were “planning” harm towards the officer? This situation is no different, yet now it decriminalizes police actions at a time when we are experiencing more police killings of unarmed civilians.

What is feared by the activist community is a general crack down on social justice activism and civil disobedience, or any dissent for that matter, because it now takes on a new and legal form. Being that it is so easy to point the finger, anybody willing to speak out will be in the scope of this proposed commission. Including many Hip Hop artists who have been the most critical of the government and its agencies. In J. Edgar Hoover’s time, this type of spying and repression was illegal and later became known as the Counter Intelligence Program (COINTELPRO). Currently these and similar practices are legal in regards to non-citizens under the heading of the “Patriot Act.” Did you really think that the government was only after those who sneak into the country to commit acts of violence?

To it’s defense it is claimed that this bill will not “violate the constitutional rights, civil rights, or civil liberties of United States citizens or lawful permanent residents.” It is also claimed that this bill will be racial, ethnically, and religiously neutral when carrying out its’ study. With such claims, it is interesting that the criteria for members of this commission are individuals with expertise in “juvenile justice”, “local law enforcement”, and “Islam and other world religions.” As if that knowledge and expertise will have any relevance to what makes “citizens” look toward other means of confronting social injustices. I would think that sociologists, social workers, academics and social justice advocates have a better grasp on why individuals or organizations gave up on working “within” the system to seek other alternatives to achieve justice and equality? Why is it that social critics are not the primary targets for this commission membership? Is it because these social critics are the primary targets of this commission?

This bill, and its ‘provisions, looks like ideological profiling of potential “trouble makers” national, and especially on the university campuses. This commission and its’ “studies” will be used to begin surveillance on suspected dissidents and those who might associate with them, but it will not end there. The commission’s purpose is to not analyzes the critics of the government policy and suggest reforming the policies to avoid the development of “homegrown terrorists” but rather to identify and neutralize those critics.

For those that know their history, this bill should sound familiar. Back in the 50’s J. Edgar Hoover, Head of the F.B.I., started the Counter Intelligence Program (known as COINTELPRO). This program was meant to, in Hoover’s words, “neutralize political dissidents”, and used thousands of illegal and covert operations to achieve its’ means.

Though COINTELPRO claimed to watch the actions of all potentials threats, it seemed to focus all of its efforts on leftist and liberal political activists. They focused on everybody from John Lennon to Jane Fonda to keep tabs on dissidents. The other stated purpose was to “prevent the rise of the black messiah”. They kept their eyes on the likes of Malcolm X, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Fred Hampton and many others in order to quell the Civil Rights and Black Power Movements.

This new bill that is being fast tracked through Congress is nothing but a legalized COINTELPRO. And anybody that cherishes the right to speak out for their rights should keep an eye on this. If violence is already against every law of every state in the union, why exactly does there need to be a group that will spy on citizens and then possibly take actions against those whose “threat of violence” have a political undertone? And who is to be the targets? Well if history is any indicator, we know that the FBI did not use its resources to eliminate the KKK and other White Supremacy organizations, but they did do everything they could to eliminate, kill or jail the leadership of Black, Brown, Red, Yellow and White left organizations.

One of the most disturbing aspects of this bill is how fast it is moving through Congress. You would think such a monumental bill would be debated and discussed to no end. At least by the few progressives left in the House of Representatives. But the actions of the House show anything but concern. (Where are you at Barbara Lee?) We saw this happen right after the attack on the World Trade Center when the congress passed the “Patriot Act” but then later complained that if they had read the text of the bill they would had more reservations because of the power it gives to the government and the rights it strips from the citizens. So I guess we can say that the House of Representatives have not learned from that past and are thus doomed to repeat it, and are repeating it.

When this bill came to House it was given certain provisions specifically to reduce debate time. Such an important bill as this was given little serious debate time, and was rushed to be passed. And it did pass. It was passed with a 404 to 6 vote. Of the notable votes, Presidential Candidate Dennis Kucinich did vote against the bill, whereas Presidential Candidate Ron Paul was not present to vote on the issue. This bill was hardly debated, it was passed almost unanimously, and now it is on its way to the Senate, and then the President.

There is no doubt that this bill will have the same results in the Senate, and will be signed by the President. At the speed it is moving, this bill may be a law by February, just in time for the primaries. And all of this is happening with almost nobody noticing. The news outlets are not mentioning it. It is slipping right in under our noses, like most laws of this nature do. And chances are, if you were not reading this you would still think that you had the right to defend yourself against government oppression (as stated in the Declaration of Independence) or at least the right to demonstrate at the next Democratic and Republican national conventions.

As for those of us who are concerned about our individual civil liberties, what more can we do besides sit back and shake my head in disgust. Looks like protesting will lead to federal charges. 2008 is an election year, and every candidate promises change for the future and to correct the abuses of the current administration. Yet read their congressional voting records and you will see where some of these candidates actually stand. Most are for the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, and keep funding it with billions of our tax dollars. And as evident in this new bill almost all of the House or Representatives are for the war against your civil and political rights. It kind of makes you wonder, why these fear mongers and ideologues run around saying, “they hate of for our freedoms” what exactly are those freedoms that we are hated for?