The Rag Blog

12/03/07 “ICH” — – The form of government we have is anything but the democratic republic it purports to be. The more access to wealth a person has the more responsive to his or her needs the government is. Justice and equality cannot follow where access is denied or restricted. Far from a government of the people, for the people and by the people, we now have a government that is the exclusive domain of the rich and powerful and has the same level of exclusivity as an expensive country club or resort. The poor and disenfranchised are barred from entry and are thus marginalized.

Capital government is the equivalent of a bank’s automatic teller machine. Corporate lobbyists put their money into it and the machine prints out the legislation they paid for. It is a system in which the creator of the machines is no longer their master. We have become, as Thoreau said, “the tools of our tools.”

The people should not, and must not lend their material support to a government that so obviously works in the private corporate interest at the expense of the public well being. To do so is an exercise in self-deception and futility.

Material wealth is only rarely attracted to virtue. Voluntary poverty and simplicity is the usual domain of virtue, as history attests. Conversely, immense wealth is attracted to vice, to the mean-spirited, the selfish, the very aggressive and the morally depraved. The best people throughout history did not possess great material wealth. To paraphrase Charles Dickens, “Humanity was their business.”

What could be more incompatible than virtue and wealth, than business and morality? What could be more opposed to beauty, to truth, justice; to art and poetry, to life—than big business and capitalism? It is telling that our cultural icons are people like Donald Trump, Bill Gates, George Steinbrenner and other business tycoons, not virtuous men like Frederick Douglas and Henry David Thoreau or women like Mary Harris—the fiercely tenacious Mother Jones.

Corporate governance and plutocracy are manifestations of capitalism that invariably appeal to the worst in human nature. Expansive economic self interest is resulting in an ever expanding private domain and a shrinking public commons. The concentration of wealth and power into fewer and fewer hands is not in the public interest; nor is the wholesale exploitation of labor and ecosystems. A system in which means always justify the ends—a values neutral system of production and waste is contrary to the needs of the people, as well as the health of the planet.

The Holy Grail of mature capitalism is the belief that markets should be the final arbiter of all things, the greatest purity that can be attained by unleashing the ravenous dogs of greed upon the world. Free market capitalism does not account for anything that cannot be commodified and traded; and so it assigns them no weight. Hence morality, honesty, virtue, self-sacrifice and public service have no worth and no place in capitalism’s economic formulations because they impose restraints that limit growth. They are as ethereal as the ruddy glow of the morning sky and as unmarketable as the mist rising from a brook.

Any belief system that is not regulated by healthy societal values and the laws of nature is destined to degenerate into a monstrosity. In reality, ecological restraints always exist but they are ignored until catastrophe results and force them upon the public conscience—as in the case of global warming.

Capitalism, with its dependence on ever expanding markets and continuous growth behaves like a planetary malignancy that if left untreated, eventually consumes the host and results in mortality. It persists by virtue of its providing obscene wealth to a few through the exploitation of the many. In this country it is the few who own the political system, not the many. Capitalism would be quickly abolished in a truly democratic society as surely as darkness retreats before the light and ignorance yields to knowledge and understanding.

By participating in capitalism we have created a culture that over emphasizes competition and conquest; a culture that defines greed and lust as the highest expressions of success and as the most desirable symbols of status. It is a culture that feeds at the public trough and gorges itself on imperial wars; a system that pays favors to the legal fiction of corporations while rejecting social justice, the needs of the people and planetary health.

Thus we witness coal companies blowing majestic Appalachian Mountain tops to smithereens: destroying world class biodiversity, polluting streams and rivers and poisoning the air in quest of profits while disregarding the social and environmental damage they cause. The cost is always passed on to the public but the profits remain private. Without massive public welfare, what some might call socialism—capitalism could not exist. Capitalism is always on the public dole.

It is beyond bizarre that corporations enjoy the legal status of persons but without the social responsibility required of real citizenship and personhood. Corporations often serve as masks to hide the faces of criminals operating behind the scenes, just as the white hoods of Klansmen conceal the cowardly faces of those who burn crosses on black people’s lawns in the night. Any force that operates out of public view is liable to criminal intent, especially government.

Corporations routinely commit crimes against earth and humanity but are rarely held accountable. When was the last time that a corporation had its corporate charter revoked for malfeasance? When has a corporation ever been executed for murder?

Under capitalism, competitive advantage is sought at any cost and it is used as a weapon against the competition and the people. The status of the individual is thus elevated above the collective good. The purpose of competition is to rise above others and to lord power over them, rather than for everyone to rise together and share the bounty equally through cooperation. Ideologies that foster equality and fair play are dismissed as unattainable Utopian fantasy or socialist propaganda. We are told there is no alternative to capitalism, so we cease to look for them and make little effort to create something better.

In purely market driven economies—virtue, character and social justice have no use unless they can generate wealth for their owners. Imagine the life of Christ valued only by the income his carpentry brought to his employer; his teachings dismissed as worthless because they did not produce money in great enough abundance.

What remains of the Jewish carpenter’s essence exists outside of the socio-economic paradigm of today’s capitalism and in clear opposition to it. Betrayed by the religious institutions of our time, the prophets of religion have given way to the profits of religion, as documented by Upton Sinclair and others.

With the corporatization of the church, the teachings of Christ were discarded and cast to the four winds in order to give religious authority to capitalism, greed and exploitation. Rather than producing men of virtue like Jesus, who called for restraint and shared wealth, it has yielded a morally depraved leadership as exemplified by Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson; men who have risen to prominence to fleece their obedient flock, rather than to enlighten and save them from the ravages of unregulated greed.

Rather than imposing the moral restraints of Jesus upon an unjust society, Pat Roberson and his kind champion the cause of aggressive exploitation, effectively turning the teachings of Christ upside down and using them to justify everything that Jesus Christ railed against and died for. How ironic that the Christian church so often turns out an army of anti-Christs rather than Christians in the image of the man they so eagerly idolize but continuously dishonor.

And so it goes. Virtue, arguably the greatest of human traits, has no presence in the market place and it is slowly sinking into the oblivion of euphemisms and the boiling cauldron of corrupted language from which nothing emerges intact.

Due in part to our unquestioned acceptance of capitalism, we are a people who pay homage to concepts such as democracy, equality, social and environmental justice and freedom, even as we continually undermine them in nearly everything we do. Thus we bear a history of genocide, chattel slavery, racism, sexism, ethnic cleansing, imperial wars and occupation and manifest destiny that have flourished despite the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights.

Henry Thoreau astutely observed: “There are nine hundred and ninety-nine patrons of virtue to one virtuous man.” Thoreau hit the nail squarely on the head, as he so often did. We Americans are patrons of virtue rather than virtuous people. It costs nothing to be a patron of virtue; but it requires character and effort to be a virtuous person. Apparently, we have yet to learn the distinction.

We know that Thoreau was a virtuous man rather than a patron of virtue, as demonstrated by certain events in his life. Like Christ, he found himself in formal opposition to the cultural orthodoxy; he lived apart from society—outside of the social and political mainstream, an oddity to his neighbors and often persecuted by them. Thoreau refused allegiance to money and wealth, understanding that the most important things in life could not be bought and sold. For him, property and possessions were burdens, not assets.

Thus Thoreau wisely refused to waste any more time than absolutely necessary in earning a modest living. He did not rent himself to factories and bosses or to any of the respectable professions; he worked sporadically and only when necessary—usually on his own terms. He was a man of principle who refused to pay taxes that he knew supported an unprovoked war on Mexico; a war that sought to expand the territory of slavery; and he went to jail for his beliefs. Thoreau was also a fierce abolitionist who, against the law, put many a run-away slave on board the Underground Railroad to Canada and to freedom.

Like all virtuous people, Thoreau lived by a higher law. He did what was right, not what was legal or considered respectable or expedient. Unlike today’s political leadership and contemporary Christians, he was guided by incorruptible conscience that could not be bribed.

Thoreau’s freedom from menial work also provided independence from possessions and debt. Thoreau was a minimalist. His freedom to explore Concord and vicinity gave birth to several literary masterpieces, including Walden and Civil Disobedience—works that sold poorly in his time and provided but little income; but are known worldwide today. World renowned moralists such as India’s Mohandas Gandhi and Dr. Martin Luther King were strongly influenced by Thoreau.

If Thoreau’s life could be summed up in three words they would be, “Simplify, simplify, simplify.” To simplify and reduce one’s wants is a paradigm in stark contrast to the ravenous consumption required by capitalism. It was a way of living that eschewed money and markets; a way of being that afforded opportunity for intellectual pursuits and life long learning. Above all, it was a spiritually enriching way of life that was in harmony with the planet; it was gentle, sustainable, and fulfilling.

In contrast to Thoreau, most of us unthinkingly support a system that is fundamentally unjust, unsustainable and superfluous. It is a system that has no room for virtue and character because these characteristics cannot be commodified and marketed; and they impose market restraints. Yet, these are the very traits that can save us from ourselves and make a better world possible. How ironic that the traits of character that are most valuable to our survival as a species are the ones appreciated the least by capitalism.

Markets unregulated by morality and governments unbounded by justice serve no useful purpose to anyone in the long run, even those who champion them. Planetary destruction is not in anyone’s interest. Sustainability is. Sustainability, unlike its economic counterpart—capitalism, requires virtuous people rather than mere patrons of virtue. Virtue requires people who not only understand what is going on but who have the courage to do something about it—a consciousness that knows the distinction between patronage to virtue and actual virtue.

Our current form of government is a spectacular failure because it is an arm of business and capitalism rather than an institution of democracy with powerful ethical moorings derived from the grass roots—a decentralized, non-hierarchal power that radiates equally from the people like the spokes of a wheel from a central hub. As such, it often attracts the worst kind of people rather than the principled and just. The interest of big business is now and always has been at odds with just causes and the public welfare. Corporate interests and the people’s interests must never be confused.

The influx of U.S. troops brought a relative lull in violence — but the failing state remains in political chaos and is headed for collapse.

Dec. 4, 2007 | Appearing on “Meet the Press” on Sunday, Democratic Sen. Jim Webb of Virginia gave some needed perspective on the U.S. troop “surge” in Iraq. Webb, a Vietnam veteran and former secretary of the Navy under Ronald Reagan, recently returned from a visit to Iraq. He said that it was inaccurate to attribute the recent reduction in violence entirely to Bush’s troop escalation. Moreover, Webb said that any security improvements in Iraq would only help if accompanied by political progress. He criticized the administration for “the failure for the last five years to match the quality of our military performance with robust regional diplomacy.”

Webb was correct to point out that the only truly good news to come from Iraq would be good news regarding the political landscape. And there, Iraq is still beset with problems. In recent days, parts of northern Iraq have been invaded by Turkey, an ally of the United States. In Baghdad, Sunni members of parliament staged a walkout to defend their leader, whose bodyguards were implicated in fashioning car bombs. Proposed legislation reducing sanctions against Sunni Arabs who once belonged to the Baath Party nearly produced a riot in parliament. Meanwhile, Britain and Australia, among Bush’s few remaining allies with combat troops in Iraq, are planning to depart in 2008, raising questions about security in the key southern port city of Basra, the major route for the country’s lucrative oil exports.

What the recent publicity about the “success” of the troop surge has ignored is this: The Bush administration has downplayed the collapsing political situation in Iraq by directing the public’s attention to fluctuating numbers of civilians killed. While there have been some relative gains in security recently, even there the picture remains dubious. The Iraqi ministry of health, long known for cooking the books, says that a few hundred Iraqis were killed in political violence in November. However, independent observers such as Iraq Body Count cite a much higher number — some 1,100 civilians killed in Iraq in November. They reported that bombings and assassinations accounted for 63 persons on Saturday, the first day of December, alone.

Indeed, the “good news” of a lull in violence is relative at best. In fact, Iraq’s overall death rate makes it among the worst civil conflicts in the world. Even if one accepted the official Iraqi government statistics, the average number of Iraqi deaths directly attributable to political violence in the past three full months has been around 700 per month. That pace, if maintained, would work out to about 8,400 deaths a year. (I am citing the kind of war statistics produced by passive information gathering such as in newspapers. Using a more comprehensive public health study such as the one that appeared in the Lancet last year, which takes into account deaths from criminal violence and insecurity generally, would result in much higher numbers.) In all of Northern Ireland’s troubles over 30 years, only about 3,000 persons are thought to have been killed. In Kashmir since 1989, some 40,000 to 90,000 persons have been killed in communal and guerrilla violence; if we take the higher number, that’s roughly 419 killed per month. Perhaps only Somalia and Sudan witness killings on that scale, and no one would say that “good news” is coming out of either of those places.

The current “good news” campaign from the Bush administration regarding the troop surge is only the latest in a long history of whitewashing the war since the 2003 invasion. First, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld denied that there was massive looting following the fall of Baghdad. Then he denied that there was a rising guerrilla war. Then, after the Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani maneuvered an unwilling Bush administration into holding relatively free elections, the victory of Shiite fundamentalists close to Iran was obscured by the “purple thumb” good news campaign. That is, the administration focused on the democratic process and relative success of the voting, diverting attention from the bad news that the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq had taken over.

Later, it was good news when the Iraqi parliament produced a theocratic constitution with all the weaknesses of the U.S. Articles of Confederation, even though all three Sunni-majority provinces rejected it in the subsequent referendum. What was in the constitution was not important, only that it existed. The Bush administration has heralded any number of such “milestones” reached, but not whether they led to worthwhile results.

Obscured by these “milestones” is that the orgy of violence in Iraq has displaced 2 million persons abroad and another 2 million internally, and left tens of thousands dead. But now the “good news” is that the guerrillas appear not to have been able to keep up the pace of violence characteristic of 2006 and early 2007, even if the pace they maintain today is horrific.

It’s long been a right-wing canard that the federal Endangered Species Act is, if you’ll pardon the term, a political animal. Wacko environmentalists, the theory goes, just want to steal land out from under honest, hard-working Americans, and they use the existence of, say, the piebald socialist toad (Namus madeupicus) to accomplish their nefarious purpose.

Well, everything is political — just not always in the way you might expect.

On Tuesday, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service reversed a handful of rulings that denied endangered-species protection after an investigation found that a former Bush administration official, Julie McDonald, pressured scientists to change their conclusions for political reasons.

McDonald, who served as the deputy assistant secretary overseeing the agency, resigned in May. Without naming McDonald, the investigation found that the decisions had been “inappropriately influenced … revising the seven identified decisions is supported by scientific evidence and the proper legal standards.”

The reversal could affect protected status of several species, including the white-tailed prairie dog, Canada lynx and Preble’s meadow jumping mouse, found in Boulder County.

But there are three times as many cases in which “we have evidence of (political) interference,” said Francesca Grifo of the Union of Concerned Scientists. Tuesday’s ruling, while welcome, “does not begin to plumb the depths of what’s wrong” at the Fish and Wildlife Service when it comes to protecting endangered species, Grifo said.

McDonald shamefully illustrates the baldly political Bush administration approach to science. Trained as a civil engineer, she had no expertise in biology or species protection. And when the science pointed to conclusions not to her bosses’ liking, she simply put the screws to those working under her to “fix” the findings. She told them to lie, in other words.

The episode recalls any number of similar efforts by the administration to subordinate science to politics, as when federal scientists were prohibited from talking about the effects of climate change on declining polar bear numbers, and when former White House official Philip Cooney (previously an oil-industry lobbyist) single-handedly redacted and altered scientific conclusions in a key report on climate change.

Whatever one thinks about the validity of the (sorry, overwhelming) conclusions of climate scientists or the efficacy of the Endangered Species Act, surely we can agree that untrained political hacks should not be the arbiters of “truth” in science.

One of the most disturbing developments in the past seven years has been the growing currency of the notion that science is just another political philosophy, based on the opinions of scheming scientists (though what, exactly, they’re scheming for is never made clear).

For some time now, the commentariat — columnists, critics, bloggers — has bashed the American public as “celebrity-starved,” gobbling every sighting and, better yet, smashup of a person “famous for being famous.”

And, with the smashups accelerating — just this year we have had shock jock Don Imus, former stripper Anna Nicole Smith, socialite Paris Hilton — the bashing accelerates. Increasingly, we also are cited — in both mainstream and “new” media — as “porn-loving,” “potty-mouthed,” “stupid,” “shopaholic,” possessed of the attention span of a flea and, as to political (in)activity, history-averse and criminally apathetic.

Enough. Before this contemptuous “conventional wisdom” congeals into “fact,” let’s get clear: Some of our number in this democracy may be gaga over celebrity, though I have yet to meet one of these creatures. But — crucial to the survival of the Republic — some of us are most emphatically not.

Call us the conscientious public. (And, if the following seems self-serving, it’s meant both as defense against further defamation and antidote to declining readership, by turning a gimlet-eyed view of the broad public into respect for the worthy citizen, Democrat and Republican, within it.)

Instead of celebrity, our eye is on infinitely more important things: the unjust war that America forced on Iraq; the unnecessary death of Americans and Iraqis; our departure from the rule of law, with torture and secret prisons now standard. In short, America’s moral fall.

We mark also our fellow citizens still digging out from Hurricane Katrina two years later; the growing inequity between the superrich and superpoor; and, we mark this administration’s unconscientiousness to that suffering.

And when we can, we act — to maddeningly little result. By the millions, we protested, full-throat, the launching of the Iraq war, but President Bush wasn’t listening; we’ve continued protesting, but Bush stays the course. When Abu Ghraib hit in April 2004, we let loose an enormous outcry but, unforgivably, torture never surfaced in the ongoing presidential campaign, nor did a champion emerge to forward our cause.

And that enormous outcry to Imus’ slurring African-American women as, um, whores? Again, that came from us, though in defending the women, we got dirtied ourselves (it’s distasteful even to write the word “whore”) — a consequence of fighting pigs in mud. And, while we care about things like honor, dignity and good name, to call women whores and claim it’s just a free-speech issue, as Imus did, is to be so uncaring of the injury inflicted as to be psychopathic. (Fittingly, one of the women slurred is now suing Imus for defamation.) And what came of our protest? More celeb-a-thons followed.

Pigs, mud, whores, strippers: Contrasted with the prayerful hope that, in response to 9/11, our best would come forth, what sorry ruin. Instead, the worst in the American character is reflected back at us: the warrior bombast, the vulgarity, a cash-register ethic, Melville’s confidence man as national type. That this cruel farce stretches into Year Six portends, in our eyes, tragedy. We should be well past the post-shock need for distraction, a role celebrity fills. But the warmup act won’t leave the stage.

“Only a good thing can be abused,” goes a French proverb. We conscientious see a great and good thing — the idea of America — being abused, wrecked, and it breaks our hearts, also our health: Burning shame — made more acute in light of the high achievement of the World War II generation — on top of protesting, petitioning, mentoring, and starting new organizations and Web sites, even running for office, takes a toll.

The strain of it all is causing some conscientious to consider leaving the United States; as one soon-to-be expatriate told me, “I can’t bear to watch this great country destroy itself.” But, most of us are sticking — we have to, we’re conscientious — and, sticking, we are emboldened to ask: Why is all our various action, over which we’re knocking ourselves out, not to mention our heartbreak and strained checkbooks (we are overdonating to our watchdog organizations), weighted so much less than mere passive consumer choice (for, say, more pix of Anna Nicole Smith)?

And, consider the despair of the conscientious veteran. The New York Times recently wrote of a vet, home from Iraq, who now advocates for brain-damaged comrades: “And day after day [he] has to grind his teeth at how swiftly, how vapidly the occasional news of troubled veterans is bumped aside by a deluge of bulletins about Paris Hilton or some other this-just-in frippery. ‘It’s staggering, sickening,’ he says. ‘There are days I scream at the television — lives are being taken, families left in heartbreak.’ ” No doubt this vet wonders, “What was I fighting for?”

What infuriates is that this egregious situation is rigged … and the commentariat has to know that. To bump news of troubled vets in favor of “frippery” reflects the monetized “celebrity sells” bias of the media’s corporate owners. Instead of bashing the conscientious public for something we never wanted, pundits should bash their bosses for pushing meretricious product (and their hack colleagues for reporting it and their editors for assigning it). Also, they might ponder their corporate owners’ motives in accelerating the inanity as the ruin deepens. But that’s a profile in media courage we seldom see.

Where the conscientious public does get respect is in the editorial. There we are appealed to, in moral voice, about the important things — i.e., America’s moral fall.

Yet, elsewhere in the same venue, even in prestige ones, the moral line is chucked and we read of “kinky chic”; the pornographer as entrepreneur; critics’ thumbs up to the latest sleaze (e.g., the TV series “Californication”) — and see ourselves again “dissed,” as “prudes” and “righteous” and (new epithet) “pearl clutchers” if we object. This is the worst hypocrisy — moral hypocrisy — yet it goes uncommented upon. Analyze that, please.

But, apart from respect, getting squared on terminology is crucial, because perception is reality. And the commentariat, dealing in ideas, helps shape perception, also capacity: To brand a people with their worst traits is to cripple their capacity to recover their path, govern themselves, solve complex problems.

When global warming was declared fact by the world’s scientific community some months ago, three of the six TV screens at my gym featured endless loops of Anna Nicole Smith — not confidence-building, considering the gathering storm(s) coming at us.

In a word: The conscientious public cares about the commonweal, while the celebrity-starved does not.

Happily, the conscientious public is making its point, or rather history is making it for us: A big and growing majority of Americans now opposes the Iraq war. And, finally, torture is being addressed: The recent attorney general confirmation hearings focused on waterboarding, the presidential candidates are being forced to take a stand, and a month ago a group of World War II interrogators broke silence to condemn this administration’s use of torture.

More than celebrity-gazing, it’s these two matters — when and why we wage war; how we treat people in our custody — that define who we are as a people and what we are fighting for. Will we have that defining moment — or more drivel? The next celeb-a-thon, featuring a couple from the UK named Beckham, is already under way, and O.J. Simpson has made yet another comeback.

Six years after 9/11, patterns are being set — bad ones. Let’s stop the suicide now. At its simplest, the remedy is a matter of lighting: Just as the commentariat has ignored the conscientious public, it could ignore the next celeb-a-thon — simply kill the lights, for what’s celebrity without its lights, its stage?

At the same time, this spitball into the commentariat’s cubicle is to demand: Hey, over here, pay attention to us, the conscientious. For we are fighting for the nation’s conscience and the commonweal. It’s also to remind: Print is forever and history takes names.

Carla Seaquist, a playwright based in Gig Harbor, is author of “Who Cares?: The Washington-Sarajevo Talks,” among other works. Her Web address is www.carlaseaquist.com.

12/01/07 “Times Record” — — The percentage of Americans favoring impeachment of President Bush and Vice President Cheney is approaching the percentage who favored impeachment of President Nixon in 1973-74.

Public opinion has reached this high level even before Congress has started any impeachment investigation of the Bush-Cheney administration. The public is way ahead of Congress, suggesting that it is time for the U.S. House of Representatives to move forward with the impeachment process.

In October 1973, a Gallup Poll results showed only 28 percent favored Nixon’s impeachment and removal from office. That was after a summer of well-publicized Senate Watergate Committee hearings.

Just nine months later, the day before Nixon resigned, nearly two-thirds of Americans believed there was enough evidence for an impeachment trial, and 55 percent thought Nixon should be removed from office.

That is how drastically opinion shifted once Congress acted and revealed the full extent of Nixon’s abuses of power.

Now, without any impeachment investigation by Congress, we already see the public’s desire for impeachment action approaching the level that led to Nixon’s departure from office.

Now, 55 percent of Americans believe that “President Bush has abused his powers as president, which rise to the level of impeachable offenses under the Constitution,” and 34 percent believe he should be removed from office.

For Vice President Cheney, 52 percent believe he committed impeachable offenses, and 43 percent believe he should be removed.

Perhaps most telling is that 64 percent of Americans believe that President Bush has abused his powers, and 70 percent believe that Cheney has done so. Polling was conducted by American Research Group Inc., on Nov. 9-12.

Maine people feel much the same way. According to a recent poll by Critical Insights Inc., 40 percent of Maine adults say they favor “the U.S. House of Representatives beginning impeachment proceedings against Vice President Cheney,” and 38 percent against President Bush.

Not surprisingly, Maine Republicans and Democrats differ substantially on this matter. Among Maine Democrats, 58 percent favor impeachment proceedings against Cheney, and 54 percent against Bush.

One in six Maine Republicans favors impeachment proceedings against Cheney, and one in eight against Bush.

Maine independents are about evenly split on the impeachment of both Bush and Cheney.

By any historic gauge, the nation clearly believes that we have a major problem with our president and vice president, although the Democrats in control of Congress have refused to even start an impeachment investigation. They are dismissing the sizable portion of citizens calling for Congress to act as the Constitution directed to keep presidential power under control.

The Constitution gives Tom Allen, Mike Michaud and Congress the tool of impeachment to address the problem that a majority of Americans now recognize. This impeachment tool is designed to keep our rulers’ power in check — to prevent drifting into a situation of absolute power by an individual or a small controlling group.

Impeachment is the tool being demanded by 43 percent of Americans who not only recognize the problem, but even call for the drastic action of removing Cheney from office.

House Democratic leadership is acting in a timid and irresponsibly political fashion. Likely, they want to keep the Republican executives in power and all Republican politicians “on the ropes” until the 2008 elections. Or perhaps they misguidedly believe that there are more important activities for Congress than heeding this historically strong demand to address these obvious abuses.

Whatever the motivation, Democratic congressional leaders continue to shirk their oaths of office by allowing the executive branch to ignore laws and plan expanded warfare without congressional authorization.

Public opinion and Constitutional responsibility are commanding congressional Democrats Tom Allen and Mike Michaud as strongly as in Nixon’s day.

Will they recognize the strength of public sentiment and the dire condition of our nation and take the required corrective action of impeachment investigation? Or will they choose to ignore the call and allow present and future presidents to control the people and their representatives — an authoritarian power that the Constitution directed Congress to prohibit?

12/01/07 “Prensa Latina ” — — Venezuela, whose people are heirs to Bolivar’s ideas which transcend his era, is today facing a world tyranny a thousand times more powerful than that of Spain’s colonial strength added to that of the recently born United States which, through Monroe, proclaimed their right to the natural wealth of the continent and to the sweat of its people.

Marti denounced the brutal system and called it a monster, in whose entrails he had lived. His internationalist spirit shone as never before when, in a letter left unfinished due to his death in combat, he publicly revealed the objective of his restless struggle: “…I am now every day risking my life for my country, and for my duty -since I understand it and have the courage to do it- to timely prevent, with the independence of Cuba, that the United States expand over the Antilles and that they fall, with this additional force, over our lands in America…”

It was not in vain that he stated in plain verse: “With the poor of this earth, my fate I wish to cast”. Later, he proclaimed categorically: “Humanity is homeland”. The Apostle of our independence wrote one day: “Let Venezuela call on me to serve her: I am her son”.

The most sophisticated media developed by technology, employed to kill human beings and to subjugate or exterminate peoples; the massive sowing of conditioned reflexes of the mind; consumerism and all available resources; these are being used today against the Venezuelans, with the intent of ripping the ideas of Bolivar and Marti to shreds.

The empire has created conditions conducive to violence and internecine conflicts. On Chavez’s recent visit last November 21, I seriously discussed with him the risks of assassination as he is constantly out in the open in convertible vehicles. I said this because of my experience as a combatant trained in the use of an automatic weapon and a telescopic sight. Likewise, after the triumph, I became the target of assassination plots directly or indirectly ordered by almost every United States administration since 1959.

The irresponsible government of the empire does not stop for a minute to think that the assassination of Venezuela’s leader or a civil war in that country would blow up the globalized world economy, due to its huge reserves of hydrocarbons. Such circumstances are without precedent in the history of mankind.

Cuba developed close ties with the Bolivarian government of Venezuela during the hardest days resulting from the demise of the USSR and the tightening of the United States economic blockade. The exchange of goods and services grew from practically zero level to more than 7 billion dollars annually, with great economic and social benefits for both our peoples. Today that is where we receive the fundamental supplies of fuel needed for our country’s consumption, something that would be very difficult to obtain from other sources due to the shortage of light crude oil, the insufficient refining capacity, the United States’ power and the wars its has unleashed to seize the world oil and gas reserves.

Add to the high energy prices, the prices of foods destined by imperial policy to be transformed into fuel for the gas-guzzling cars of the United States and other industrial nations.

A victory of the Yes vote on December 2 would not be enough. The weeks and months following that date may very well prove to be extremely tough for many countries, Cuba for one; although before that the empire’s adventures could lead the planet into an atomic war, as their own leaders have confessed.

Our compatriots can rest assured that I have had time to think and to meditate at length on these problems.

I was visited by the FBI at my residence on Thursday, November 29th. I am an Asian-American Muslim Man. I am an anti-war activist who believes that United States military has no business in the Middle East or anywhere else in the world. I do not hide my political perspectives from anyone. Despite this, I refuse to be intimidated into silence.

The two FBI agents claimed to be investigating a “complaint” from the University of Washington’s campus students that I might have said “things” which could suggest that I advocate violence against the U.S. This was in reference to my opposition to the Islamo-Fascist Awareness week that the College Republicans hosted in mid-October. During this week the CR showed a video which described all Palestinians as terrorists and posited a theory that Palestinian men are prone to violence because they are sexually repressed. (Ironic coming from the CR) Michael Medved also spoke during this week. I was part of a demonstration with a body of Muslims students and people of color who were barred from entering the event. The event organizers cited full capacity as the main reason. Why is my opposition to this event being criminalized?

The FBI agents wanted to see a flyer that I was passing out. I told them NO. I asked them, “Is this Stalin’s Russia or McCarthy’s America?” They have no business collecting literature from me or anyone else in the Untied States. Anyway, the flyers can be found all over campus because I have nothing to hide from my neighbors.

This is not one isolated incident. Muslims and Arabs are being attacked, harassed, and intimidated by the FBI across the country. The FBI claims that anyone who opposes US imperialism is a terrorist. Some Muslims leaders have come out in public and said “good Muslims” should cooperate with the FBI to help them control the “bad Muslims”. Meanwhile, the FBI has sent spies to our mosques and broken into our houses in the middle of the night to kidnap our brothers and sisters and send them to Guantanamo without evidence of any crime. Who is causing the terror here? Most of the time it goes unnoticed and in the shadows Arab and Muslim families are destroyed. Let me make it clear–the FBI is a racist and anti-democratic organization. Granted, the two FBI agents who visited my house were very nice to me and even shook my hand. That should not cover up the crimes of the institution they work for.

Meanwhile the College Republicans, who claim to be defenders of democracy and free speech are inviting racists like Medved onto campus. The CR advocates perspectives that lead to the deaths of Arabs and Muslims and people of color and you don’t see the FBI visiting them. I am not advocating state repression against the College Republicans; I simply wish to point out the racist double standard here.

I can ask how did the FBI get my house address? My address is not listed anywhere. Did the University administration give it to them? This would not be far-fetched considering that University administrations across the country have made it clear that they will stand with the FBI before they stand in solidarity with Arabs, Muslims, and students of color. Just look at their endorsement of the Patriot Act and the SEVIS registrations of international students. Given this climate, the burden should be on the UW administration to prove that they are not collaborating with such McCarthyist surveillance of campus activists like myself. How can they claim to be the patrons of free speech and dialogue if they facilitate such intimidation?

Only democratic and anti-racist students can curb the power of racist University bureaucracies and the FBI. Student organizing is part of a rich tradition of American history that has made the U.S. a more democratic and anti-racist country than it would be otherwise. However, across the country, University administrators and the FBI are working hand-in-hand to shut down and intimidate all who oppose U.S. Empire and domestic racism.

UW and the city of Seattle claim to be liberal and progressive places where racism cannot be found. This is a myth. Home grown white-supremacy stalks this campus. Every time we see the College Republicans, the FBI, and the Administration it is a reminder that people of color and Muslims and Arabs are not safe yet. However we are not silent victims. We do not know our own strength and no one dares to tell us. It is up to us to rediscover our democratic and anti-racist traditions. It is up to us to take back our university. Fear is not an option.

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.