The Rag Blog

The ruling class in this country would like us to believe that young people are apathetic. But the youths participating in the Sept. 29 demonstration in Washington showed another side entirely.

They were aching to struggle. They were determined not only to demonstrate and to shout, but were ready to get arrested, ready even to put their bodies on the line to stop the war at home and abroad waged against the poor and oppressed of the world. They sat in the street for hours, daring the Washington police to arrest them as they blocked traffic in an important intersection.

That readiness for struggle was a new, important sign. It goes hand in hand with what another section of young people who are in the U.S. Armed Forces are doing: mobilizing to combat the war.

Another aspect of the sit-down was instructive. The Washington police broke with their usual practice and refused to arrest them, instead directing traffic away from the blockage. At times, police have arrested hundreds, even thousands of demonstrators for doing no more than the young people at the Troops Out Now Coalition’s protest were doing. So it begs the question: “Why didn’t the cops handcuff these young people and take them away?”

It was obvious that this was no decision made by the cops on the spot. There was a political decision that instructed the cops what to do.

The most likely reason is that the police were instructed to avoid actions that would give publicity to the demonstration. First of all, it was an exceptional anti-war action in that it united many nationalities, was militant and anti-imperialist, and joined the struggles against the war at home and abroad. Second, the Iraq war has become so unpopular that tens of millions of people—who may not be ready to come into the streets themselves—could be aroused and angered if they see cops roughing up young people protesting that war.

Maybe those giving orders in Washington were having nightmares that the mood against the war was growing angrier, and that the street sit-down of Sept. 29 was simply the dress rehearsal for demonstrations ready to break out in the near future. They didn’t want to accelerate this development by an untimely crackdown.

Alan Greenspan’s new memoir has put his tenure as Federal Reserve chairman on the hot seat, as critics ask whether he bears responsibility for the housing bubble and for his failure to vocally reject the Bush tax cuts. Missing from this criticism is an understanding of what the Federal Reserve System is about. The real job of Mr. Greenspan and his predecessors and successors is to protect the country’s creditors and in the process extend and solidify the ownership and control a tiny minority of extremely rich persons have over profit-generating property. By extension this means that the monetary authorities aim to diminish and weaken the political strength of working people, who through their collective actions have provided the only real counterweight to the power of the wealthy.

Consider the housing bubble and the very low interest rates that brought it about. In our travels my wife Karen and I met a wealthy and prominent man in a Midwestern city. He was a successful professional, and he has used his considerable earnings to buy real estate. During the past few years, his holdings have risen dramatically. Today he is perhaps the largest real estate owner in town.

It occurred to me that a key to this man’s ability to accumulate property was the very low interest rates generated by the easy money policy of the Federal Reserve System that marked the first half decade of the twenty-first century. In 2000, the stock market began a precipitous decline, first in the “dot-com” sector and then, in 2001, the rest of the market. In the late 1990s, there was a sharp run-up in prices, which, as often happens in capitalist economies, had become a bubble, with investors buying stock simply because everyone else was. The stocks of companies that had consistently lost money and had limited prospects for future profits were trading at remarkably inflated prices. When the big traders started to sell, the floodgates opened and prices plummeted. The events of September 11 compounded the bear market, and share prices fell further. As those whose wealth had diminished and whose debts had risen were forced to cut their consumer spending and investment, what economists call aggregate demand for the economy’s output began to fall and threatened a recession.

Presumably to forestall a downturn, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, chaired by Mr. Greenspan, began to implement monetary policies that pressured interest rates sharply downward. According to standard economic wisdom, falling interest rates will stimulate both consumer and capital spending, increasing both output and employment. While these things happened to some extent, the main outcome was that low interest rates (lower than at any time in forty years) encouraged borrowing, not to finance the building of productive capital, but to buy real estate. New home construction boomed (with, by the way, many socially negative but seldom discussed consequences” deforestation, traffic congestion, continuous road construction, air pollution, and erosion of communities by second, third, and fourth home owners.) Sales of existing homes skyrocketed too, as did the refinancing of mortgages, with the latter fueling a burst of home repairing and remodeling.

Because of low interest rates, the businessman we met was able to leverage his existing properties into much larger holdings without incurring high-interest mortgages. As his wealth increased, so too did his political and social influence in the town. And his ability to purchase still more property rose in tandem with the greater wealth the low interest rates made possible. All across the United States there are businessmen like this one; and in cities large and small, they have gained what we might call “class power.” They are not the economic elite, which owns the “commanding heights” of the economy, but they are closely allied with and take direction from them. And of course, those who do control the “commanding heights” acquired property on a scale that makes our businessman look like a piker.

For working people, low interest rates meant something different. Some were able to refinance mortgages and reduce their monthly payments, but for most the money saved was simply spent on consumer goods. If money was borrowed against houses that had appreciated in value, the result was still more debt. If new homes were bought, there was a good chance, especially for minority borrowers, that the interest rate was not the low one given to richer borrowers. Instead banks gave so-called subprime loans, with higher rates and thousands of dollars of hidden charges. As real estate growth degenerated into a “bubble,” financial institutions engaged in an orgy of dishonest advertising, urging everyone to become a home owner. Thousands of poorer, working-class people were sucked into a bevy of mortgage schemes that promise years of debt dependency, bankruptcy, and foreclosure.

Alan Greenspan’s low-interest-rate-fueled real estate boom was in essence a form of class warfare, strengthening the power of large property holders while reducing that of working persons. Recent Fed actions confirm this. The interest rate cuts will not help homeowners now in trouble. The banks will not cut deals with them, and prospective buyers will not get lower rate mortgages. The banks and other creditors, however, now have the liquidity necessary to help them ride out the crisis. And should the economy slip into recession, so what? Those on top will buy up those without enough ready cash to withstand a downturn, concentrating economic power still further. Workers will lose their jobs, and there will be more foreclosures. But they are too disorganized and demoralized to do anything about it.

Low interest rates used to be a rallying cry of American populists like William Jennings Bryan. Farmers and small business owners needed low rates, they said, to compete with their larger rivals. Workers joined them in great political upheavals. But in a society marked by large income and wealth inequalities and a moribund labor movement, low interest rates only served to make such disparities wider. They made the rich richer and the poor poorer. It is difficult to believe that at least some of this wasn’t intentional. During the Greenspan years, we have witnessed a rush of money flowing from the bottom to the top of the income distribution, now more unequal than at any time since the 1920s. Economic “and political” power are firmly entrenched at the top too. Alan Greenspan did his job well.

This essay is adapted from Yates’ new book, Cheap Motels and a Hot Plate.

Iraqi refugess are unwanted in their own land as provinces bar them from entering, the UN refugee agency warns.

Provincial authorities, unable to cope with the influx, are refusing entry to refugees fleeing violence, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees said.

”In many parts of the country refugees are being stopped at roadblocks and told they cannot go any further,” Andrew Harper, the UNHCR Iraq Support Unit chief, said.
Authorities in 16 of the 18 Iraqi provinces have sealed off access to refugees and if they do manage to get into the province then food and other vital services are denied, Harper said.

”Local authorities are also restricting access to food, health care and education. So not only are they being stopped but aid to them is also being halted. Iraqi authorities are simply overwhelmed.”

Two governorates (Ninewa and Baghdad) do not limit refugee access or registration, Harper said.

There could be up to 100,000 Iraqis leaving their homes every month, Harper believes. This translates into a daily average of more than 3,000 refugees on the move.

It is difficult to gauge the exact number of internal refugees but the UNHCR believes the figure is in the region of 2.2 million.
Another 2.2 million Iraqis are estimated to have fled to neighbouring countries such as Syria and Jordan which in turn are finding that their own social services are stretched to the limit.

The UNHCR estimates that at least 12 per cent of Iraqis have fled their homes due to the violence that has spread through the country since the 2003 US-led invasion.

Even when they manage to go to other countries their plight is nothing more than miserable.

In Syria, almost a third of Iraqi refugee children do not go to school. There have been reports form a number of countries, according to the UN, that Iraqi women are forced to turn to prostitution to feed their families.

The flight of Iraqis is the biggest movement of people in the Middle East since the exodus of Palestinians from what became Israel in 1948

The difficulties faced by Iraqis in neighbouring countries is not a matter of ill will or an uncaring attitude. They are just unable to cope.

Iraq had a total population of about 26.8 million in 2003.

Refugees within Iraq’s borders could reach more than 2.5 million by the end of 2007.

Blackwater USA is the private American security company whose tactics are under scrutiny following a series of high-profile shooting deaths of Iraqi civilians. The company is just one of many such mercenary outfits that provide bodyguard details for foreign (and, sometimes, Iraqi) VIPs. Such contractors are immune from prosecution under Iraqi law. Only recently did the U.S. House pass a bill that put Blackwater and the like under the jurisdiction of U.S. criminal law.

A number of Iraqis I know could fill this blog with harrowing tales of their encounters with Blackwater and other security contractors. These are only my recollections:

You couldn’t miss the Blackwater contractors who lived in our hotel in Baghdad in summer 2003. They were living and breathing action figures, a band of GI Joe-looking guys who favored cargo pants, microfiber shirts, hunting knives and foldable machine guns that fit into discreet black carrying cases.

They were nice enough, at first. They hit on all the female journalists; they drank with our male colleagues. They sunned themselves by the hotel pool, showing off their washboard abs and recounting war stories from stints in the Marines or Navy SEALs. I recall them as young, good-looking thrill-seekers – as harmless as the enlisted guys I knew from back home in Oklahoma. While their leers grew tiresome, I admit there was something comforting in having the heavily armed X-Men around in case the stuff hit the fan.

Over time, however, our Blackwater pals wore out their welcome. I can’t pinpoint when it happened. Was it one too many beer-drenched party that upset the Iraqi families who lived in neighboring homes? Was it the parade of young Iraqi prostitutes that crept out of their rooms when the sun rose? Was it when their speeding SUV convoys began cutting down any Iraqi with the misfortune to block their path?

Our own security adviser, an older Brit who sneered at what he considered Blackwater’s unprofessional behavior, was conducting his rounds late one night when he noticed shadowy figures lurking about the hotel. From his balcony, he later told me, he observed the fully armed, camouflaged men creeping around corners as if ready to attack. Alarmed, our guard took the safety lock off his weapon and prepared to fire.

Then he realized it was the Blackwater boys, apparently drunk and playing war games after dark. Our security adviser was livid and lodged complaints with the hotel. I don’t remember whether he also contacted Blackwater. In any case, this wasn’t the first time managers had received such gripes and the Blackwater team was kicked out.

Some of the Blackwater contractors had moved into the hotel next door. Among them was Jerko Zovco, one of the four guards killed in a brutal ambush of a Blackwater convoy in Fallujah in March 2004. Some of my journalist friends knew Zovco quite well and were devastated at images of the four charred and mutilated corpses dangling from a bridge over the Euphrates.

Blackwater finally moved out of our neighborhood and into the Green Zone, but the company remained a daily part of our lives – and the lives of ordinary Iraqis.

I ran into the contractors escorting U.S. officials to the Bank of Baghdad, where Blackwater commandeered the entrance and ordered Iraqi patrons out of the bank. I saw them guarding American diplomats in Najaf, where I teased a Blackwater contractor for carrying nunchucks and sporting black greasepaint under his eyes. (He told me he was in Iraq for the six-figure paycheck and the chance to be assigned to guard Victoria’s Secret models at the lingerie company’s annual fashion show.)

“They think they’re bloody Rambo!” our exasperated British security adviser would say.

Tuesday was ladies-only day at the pool of the nearby Babylon Hotel – the only time when middle-class Iraqi women could strip off their modest cloaks to swim and sunbathe within the privacy of the hotel’s tall walls. On more than one occasion, Blackwater interrupted a serene ladies’ day at the Babylon. The company’s tiny helicopters with gunners dangling out the sides would dip perilously close to the outdoor pool, presumably for a rare glimpse of Iraqi women in bikinis. The Muslim women screamed and reached for towels to cover themselves.

One day, when it was still safe enough for me to drive around Baghdad, I was behind the wheel of a borrowed car with a couple of Iraqi girlfriends. We were returning to the hotel from a shopping trip, happy and with the music turned up so loud that we failed to hear the warning honks until a private security convoy was running us off the road so it could pass. I panicked and froze as the guards trained their guns on us and forced us on to the shoulder. Long after they sped off, we sat in the car shaken and grateful that the guards had “allowed” us to live.

Were they from Blackwater? I can’t say for sure, but in subsequent conversations we always referenced “the time Blackwater almost shot us to death for listening to music.” By then, Blackwater had become the symbol of out-of-control security contractors, the American cowboys who terrorized Baghdad streets with impunity.

A few months later, I was dropped off at the gates of the Green Zone to meet a security contractor friend who worked for a Blackwater rival. I sat in the car with my Iraqi driver, waiting for my American friend to show up and escort me into the Green Zone, when a convoy of SUVs suddenly blazed onto the scene. Gunners hung out the windows, shouting for the Iraqi civilians to “move!” An Iraqi man failed to get out of the way in time. My driver and I watched as the security guards fired a single shot through his windshield.

The convoy was gone by the time the Iraqi man’s car door opened. He stumbled out, clutching his bleeding chest, and collapsed on the street. Other Iraqis loaded the shooting victim into a car and left for the hospital just as my American friend showed up. My friend shared my outrage and made it his personal mission to track down the convoy and force the contractors to file an incident report.

We raced through the Green Zone, ignoring the posted speed limits, until I spotted the same convoy pulling into parking spaces outside the Republican Palace. The contractors poured out of their SUVs, stripping off body armor and wiping sweat from their foreheads.

“That’s them,” I told my friend, who identified the guards as Blackwater employees.

He urged me to go confront them, and I begged him to accompany me. Minutes before, I had seen them shoot a man and leave him for dead in the street. I wasn’t about to march up to them on my own. My friend refused to get involved; he’d tracked them down, he told me, and it was up to me to approach them. I chickened out. In the end, we took down details of the convoy and my friend turned our notes over to the U.S. embassy.

WASHINGTON (Oct. 10) — The United States tortures prisoners in violation of international law, former President Carter said Wednesday.

“I don’t think it. I know it,” Carter told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer.

“Our country for the first time in my life time has abandoned the basic principle of human rights,” Carter said. “We’ve said that the Geneva Conventions do not apply to those people in Abu Ghraib prison and Guantanamo, and we’ve said we can torture prisoners and deprive them of an accusation of a crime to which they are accused.”

Carter also said President Bush creates his own definition of human rights.

Carter’s comments come on the heels of an October 4 article in The New York Times disclosing the existence of secret Justice Department memorandums supporting the use of “harsh interrogation techniques.” These include “head-slapping, simulated drowning and frigid temperatures,” according to the Times.

The White House last week confirmed the existence of the documents but would not make them public.

Responding to the newspaper report Friday, Bush defended the techniques used, saying, “This government does not torture people.”

Asked about Bush’s comments, Carter said, “That’s not an accurate statement if you use the international norms of torture as has always been honored — certainly in the last 60 years since the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was promulgated.

WASHINGTON, DC–The indigenous North American hippie population has expanded to the point that its teeming herds are endangering the planet’s fragile freakosystem, warned a Department of the Interior report released Monday.

According to the report, over the past 20 years, the wide-ranging, largely migratory hippies have more than tripled in population, insidiously infiltrating nearly every other U.S. subculture while venturing far beyond their natural Vermont and Colorado habitats.

“Due to the species’ lack of predators, willingness to live almost anywhere and rabbit-like breeding habits, the hippie has become the most prevalent feature on the American countercultural landscape,” Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt said. “If we do not soon find a way to thin their herds, they will overwhelm every other subculture on the continent, potentially leading to freakological disaster on a mass global scale.”

Experts say the hippie-related environmental damage has largely been the result of their sheer numbers. Long regarded as a mere nuisance species, the hippies have grown over the past 10 years into one of the most populous in North America, numbering close to 20 million. Further, because of the hippie herds’ normal daily cycle of waking, bongo-playing and large-scale grass consumption, followed by a brief period of torpor and then aggressive nutritive replenishment, their freakological impact is enormous.

“Each summer, the hippie herds migrate north to Boulder, wiping out 80 to 90 percent of the hummus supply of the regions through which they pass,” National Park Service director Roger Kennedy said. “In certain parts of Colorado, by mid-August, the patchouli reservoirs are entirely drained.”

The burgeoning herds–identifiable by their dreadlocked hair, hemp jewelry and distinctive tie-dyed markings–have greatly affected the quality of life of people living in these areas of high hippie concentration.

“They’re everywhere,” said Linda Hewson of Albany, NY. “Last night, when I went to take out the trash, I found one of them foraging through my garbage cans for Dead bootlegs. I shooed it away, but a bunch more came by later scavenging for discarded twirling sticks.”

2006: A noose is hung from a “Whites Only” tree in a Jena, Louisiana high school.

September 20th, 2007: tens of thousands descend on Jena in an outraged and joyful protest.

October 9, 2007: a noose is hung at Columbia Teacher’s College as part of a spate of nooses, racist threats and brutality lashing back across the country. A white supremacist website has published the home addresses of the Jena Six, encouraging people to take “justice” into their own hands.

TODAY: Time for everyone who refuses to go backwards and worse to stand up, resist, and take the future into OUR hands!

What are NOOSES?

NOOSES — are an open threat of racist terror rooted in generations of slavery: children auctioned out of their mother’s arms, feet mutilated to prevent against escape, backs scarred with welts from whips.

NOOSES–are in line with a whole system of white supremacy enforced by courts that have warehoused nearly a million Black people into prison, carried out by brutal police who see “driving while Black” as a crime punishable by death, and reinforced through countless daily insults and discrimination large and small.

NOOSES–are a message to Black people as a whole, but particularly Black youth, that the U.S., the so-called “leader of the free world,” has no future for them other than massive criminalization, gangs, dead-end and disappearing jobs, imprisonment, early death or know-nothing-bible-banging.

The hanging of this noose at Columbia also takes place after the appearance of racist graffiti lashing out at communists and advocating “nuk[ing] Mecca, Medina, Tehran, Baghdad, Jakarta, and all the savages in Africa,” and a whole atmosphere of fascist intimidation and thuggery being whipped up and mobilized in the upcoming “Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week” October 22–26th initiated by David Horowitz. This week involves over 100 campuses, speakers like Ann Coulter, Daniel Pipes, Rick Santorum and is ominously being called “the biggest conservative protest ever.” Invoking progressive themes like “free-speech” and combating “the oppression of women in Islam” as a cover, they plan to harass Muslim Student Associations and Women’s Studies departments, and silence anyone that questions the Bush regime’s official narrative, including even those concerned about global warming.

The people planning this week are the ideological foot-soldiers of a whole fascist clamp-down on society right at a time when the Bush regime is neck-deep into a deeply unpopular and genocidal war in Iraq and is preparing a new potential war against Iran. David Horowitz himself waged a campaign against reparations by crowing that Black people should be grateful for slavery! Horowitz is planning to come and speak at Columbia, along with Fox News host Sean Hannity on October 26th.

This fascist assault will not “just go away” and cannot be ignored. It must be exposed, confronted with the truth about who the real fascists are, and politically defeated.

If anything cried out with urgency for a revolutionary movement and massive political resistance it is the world today: the nooses, the legalized torture, the wars for empire, the moves towards a dark ages theocracy for women and gays and science, and the massive grinding up of human lives and human potential in the vast sweatshops, swelling shanty-towns slums, and whole regions left to waste in disease and disaster.

We have learned from the righteous history of rising up and fighting against the oppression of Black people, against unjust wars, the oppression of women and from revolutionary struggles for emancipation the world over–power concedes nothing without a struggle!

Two futures are being posed for this generation…what will you do? The direction of the whole world is being fought over–campus life cannot go back to normal.

It is time for a new generation to wake up and fight for a whole different world!
What could be more important than that?

Who Is David Horowitz?

It is worth reprinting this description from Revolution Newspaper:

Horowitz is a self-described “battering ram” against any thinking in academia that challenges a whole range of lies this system has perpetrated. He’s played a major role in slandering, hounding, and even ending the careers of progressive teachers. Horowitz established his credentials with the ruling class by renouncing his involvement in the 1960s movements for social change in a series of slanderous articles, books and conferences. He “made his bones” in the ’90s, by waging a high-profile campaign against reparations for African-Americans, with the theme that Black people should be grateful for slavery! Horowitz took out huge ads in campus newspapers proclaiming this vicious lie and to this day makes it a major part of his attack. He wrote a book on the “art of political war” that Karl Rove distributed to key Republican campaign operatives. He is a vitriolic defender of everything from the extermination of the Native Americans and the enslavement of Black people, to the savage and criminal wars against Iraq and Afghanistan and the torture of those whom this regime deems to be terrorists. He has set up a website that clamors for the arrest and imprisonment of revolutionaries, radicals, dissenters and liberals and reports every slander, rumor, lie and innuendo that comes his way. And, bankrolled from the ruling class, he has organized the falsely named “Students for Academic Freedom,” which literally takes notes on lectures and rips things out of context in an attempt to get professors who do not sufficiently bow down to the Bush agenda fired. The modern-day Nazi-type student groups inspired by Horowitz organize so-called “games” like “Catch an Illegal Immigrant” on campus. In short, Horowitz defends every crime that this system has ever committed and is now preparing to justify even more, and to intimidate and silence any who would question or resist this.

Since we are among the precious few who have watched FOX business shows, from Neil Cavuto to the “Cost of Freedom,” we know what a joke the so-called business coverage is. Melanie at the News Hounds has documented the coverage for years. Paris Hilton, strippers, sex diaries — all critical business functions.

“Was his death by fratricide an accident or a homicide? After all, he had reportedly advised fellow Rangers to vote for John Kerry and, on his next leave, was looking forward to meeting Noam Chomsky.”– Robert Lipsyte, Tomdispatch, January, 2007

If the sports media ever decides to get serious about its ranting, the Pat Tillman case would be perfect. The promising young pro football player with a reputation as a risk-taker and free thinker, Tillman was no Bush poster boy when he joined the Army after 9/11. He was a patriot. The spinning of his death in Afghanistan three years ago as a heroic defense of his comrades was yet another act of deadly cynicism and/or desperation by the current administration — particularly after it was discovered that he had been killed by friendly fire.

And then it got much worse. This summer, while we were counting down Bonds and counting out Vick, the Associated Press, using documents dug up through a Freedom of Information request, reported just why the Army had buried the findings of a post-mortem on Tillman. He had been shot three times in the forehead at close range.

According to the AP on July 27, “U.S. Army medical examiners were suspicious about the close proximity of the three bullet holes in Pat Tillman’s forehead and tried without success to get authorities to investigate whether the former professional football player’s death amounted to a crime…; The doctors — whose names were blacked out — said the bullet holes were so close together that it appeared the Army Ranger was cut down by an M-16 fired from a mere 10 yards or so away.” Oh, and by the way, “No evidence at all of enemy fire was found at the scene — no one was hit by enemy fire, nor was any government equipment struck.”

How could this bombshell explode so quietly? Where was the sports media? Where was the media period? Forget about the relative importance of this story compared to drugs, dingers, dogs; just think about the chance to rumble and rant

You don’t even have to be a casual viewer of CSI to deduce that Tillman could well have been murdered by another U.S. soldier. You can imagine the detectives’ hunches — a soldier who hated him or his politics, maybe one who went psycho or thought Tillman was leading them into a trap, took him down at close range. And then there could be room for more Belichickian paranoia: Officers ordered Tillman killed to prevent him from coming home and telling people what he had seen and how he now felt about the war.

Nobody picked it up and ran with it. Too dangerous? Too political? Are sportswriters too lazy, too wussy, or just too smart? Landis and Donaghy and Bonds and Vick can’t hurt you so long as you carp from a distance. Karl could kill you by text-message.

I’m no fool. I’m going to keep this story alive in fiction. Change names, do it as a movie, which I want to develop with Steven Soderbergh, David Cronenberg, and Peter (“Friday Night Lights”) Berg.

The shooting would then become a hit ordered by Karl Rove for reasons that are revealed after the Tillman character miraculously recovers from his wounds and comes home to lead us into the second American Revolution.

In a motor home called Liberty Two, he drives the NASCAR circuit telling crowds of more than 200,000 what he has learned of the government’s greed and betrayal. This audience is particularly responsive because it’s their siblings, children, relatives, and friends who have been doing most of the fighting — and dying.

In the last scene, as Tillman heads for Washington, D.C. leading a convoy of more than one million vehicles, Karl Rove shows up to offer his services.

While I wait for the green light to write up the script, I’ll be keeping an ear cocked toward the NFL. Last month, a group of veterans who fought in Iraq and Afghanistan asked Commissioner Roger Goodell to help obtain all the documents in the Tillman case.

10/08/07 “Common Dreams” — — Iran has never manifested itself as a serious threat to the national security of the United States, or by extension as a security threat to global security. At the height of Iran’s “exportation of the Islamic Revolution” phase, in the mid-1980’s, the Islamic Republic demonstrated a less-than-impressive ability to project its power beyond the immediate borders of Iran, and even then this projection was limited to war-torn Lebanon.

Iranian military capability reached its modern peak in the late 1970’s, during the reign of Reza Shah Pahlevi. The combined effects of institutional distrust on the part of the theocrats who currently govern the Islamic Republic of Iran concerning the conventional military institutions, leading as it did to the decay of the military through inadequate funding and the creation of a competing paramilitary organization, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Command (IRGC), and the disastrous impact of an eight-year conflict with Iraq, meant that Iran has never been able to build up conventional military power capable of significant regional power projection, let alone global power projection.

Where Iran has demonstrated the ability for global reach is in the spread of Shi’a Islamic fundamentalism, but even in this case the results have been mixed. Other than the expansive relations between Iran (via certain elements of the IRGC) and the Hezbollah movement in Lebanon, Iranian success stories when it comes to exporting the Islamic revolution are virtually non-existent. Indeed, the efforts on the part of the IRGC to export Islamic revolution abroad, especially into Europe and other western nations, have produced the opposite effect desired. Based upon observations made by former and current IRGC officers, it appears that those operatives chosen to spread the revolution in fact more often than not returned to Iran noting that peaceful coexistence with the West was not only possible but preferable to the exportation of Islamic fundamentalism. Many of these IRGC officers began to push for moderation of the part of the ruling theocrats in Iran, both in terms of interfacing with the west and domestic policies.

The concept of an inherent incompatibility between Iran, even when governed by a theocratic ruling class, and the United States is fundamentally flawed, especially from the perspective of Iran. The Iran of today seeks to integrate itself responsibly with the nations of the world, clumsily so in some instances, but in any case a far cry from the crude attempts to export Islamic revolution in the early 1980’s. The United States claims that Iran is a real and present danger to the security of the US and the entire world, and cites Iranian efforts to acquire nuclear technology, Iran’s continued support of Hezbollah in Lebanon, Iran’s “status” as a state supporter of terror, and Iranian interference into the internal affairs of Iraq and Afghanistan as the prime examples of how this threat manifests itself.

On every point, the case made against Iran collapses upon closer scrutiny. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), mandated to investigate Iran’s nuclear programs, has concluded that there is no evidence that Iran is pursuing a nuclear weapons program. Furthermore, the IAEA has concluded that it is capable of monitoring the Iranian nuclear program to ensure that it does not deviate from the permitted nuclear energy program Iran states to be the exclusive objective of its endeavors. Iran’s support of the Hezbollah Party in Lebanon – Iranian protestors shown here supporting Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah during an anti-Israel rally – while a source of concern for the State of Israel, does not constitute a threat to American national security primarily because the support provided is primarily defensive in nature, designed to assist Hezbollah in deterring and repelling an Israeli assault of sovereign Lebanese territory. Similarly, the bulk of the data used by the United States to substantiate the claims that Iran is a state sponsor of terror is derived from the aforementioned support provided to Hezbollah. Other arguments presented are either grossly out of date (going back to the early 1980’s when Iran was in fact exporting Islamic fundamentalism) or unsubstantiated by fact.

The US claims concerning Iranian interference in both Iraq and Afghanistan ignore the reality that both nations border Iran, both nations were invaded and occupied by the United States, not Iran, and that Iran has a history of conflict with both nations that dictates a keen interest concerning the internal domestic affairs of both nations. The United States continues to exaggerate the nature of Iranian involvement in Iraq, arresting “intelligence operatives” who later turned out to be economic and diplomatic officials invited to Iraq by the Iraqi government itself. Most if not all the claims made by the United States concerning Iranian military involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan have not been backed up with anything stronger than rhetoric, and more often than not are subsequently contradicted by other military and governmental officials, citing a lack of specific evidence.

Iran as a nation represents absolutely no threat to the national security of the United States, or of its major allies in the region, including Israel. The media hype concerning alleged statements made by Iran’s President Ahmadinejad has created and sustained the myth that Iran seeks the destruction of the State of Israel. Two points of fact directly contradict this myth. First and foremost, Ahmadinejad never articulated an Iranian policy objective to destroy Israel, rather noting that Israel’s policies would lead to its “vanishing from the pages of time.” Second, and perhaps most important, Ahmadinejad does not make foreign policy decisions on the part of the Islamic Republic of Iran. This is the sole purview of the “Supreme Leader,” the Ayatollah Khomeini. In 2003 Khomeini initiated a diplomatic outreach to the United States inclusive of an offer to recognize Israel’s right to exist. This initiative was rejected by the United States, but nevertheless represents the clearest indication of what the true policy objective of Iran is vis-à-vis Israel.

The fact of the matter is that the “Iranian Threat” is derived solely from the rhetoric of those who appear to seek confrontation between the United States and Iran, and largely divorced from fact-based reality. A recent request on the part of Iran to allow President Ahmadinejad to lay a wreath at “ground zero” in Manhattan was rejected by New York City officials. The resulting public outcry condemned the Iranian initiative as an affront to all Americans, citing Iran’s alleged policies of supporting terrorism. This knee-jerk reaction ignores the reality that Iran was violently opposed to al-Qaeda’s presence in Afghanistan throughout the 1990’s leading up to 2001, and that Iran was one of the first Muslim nations to condemn the terror attacks against the United States on September 11, 2001.

A careful fact-based assessment of Iran clearly demonstrates that it poses no threat to the legitimate national security interests of the United States. However, if the United States chooses to implement its own unilateral national security objectives concerning regime change in Iran, there will most likely be a reaction from Iran which produces an exceedingly detrimental impact on the national security interests of the United States, including military, political and economic. But the notion of claiming a nation like Iran to constitute a security threat simply because it retains the intent and capability to defend its sovereign territory in the face of unprovoked military aggression is absurd. In the end, however, such absurdity is trumping fact-based reality when it comes to shaping the opinion of the American public on the issue of the Iranian “threat.”

10/08/07 “Khaleej Times” — — NUCLEAR-armed states are criminal states. They have a legal obligation, confirmed by the World Court, to live up to Article 6 of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which calls on them to carry out good-faith negotiations to eliminate nuclear weapons entirely. None of the nuclear states has lived up to it.

The United States is a leading violator, especially the Bush administration, which even has stated that it isn’t subject to Article 6.

On July 27, Washington entered into an agreement with India that guts the central part of the NPT, though there remains substantial opposition in both countries. India, like Israel and Pakistan (but unlike Iran), is not an NPT signatory, and has developed nuclear weapons outside the treaty. With this new agreement, the Bush administration effectively endorses and facilitates this outlaw behaviour. The agreement violates US law, and bypasses the Nuclear Suppliers Group, the 45 nations that have established strict rules to lessen the danger of proliferation of nuclear weapons.

Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association, observes that the agreement doesn’t bar further Indian nuclear testing and, “incredibly, … commits Washington to help New Delhi secure fuel supplies from other countries even if India resumes testing.” It also permits India to “free up its limited domestic supplies for bomb production.” All these steps are in direct violation of international nonproliferation agreements.

The Indo-US agreement is likely to prompt others to break the rules as well. Pakistan is reported to be building a plutonium production reactor for nuclear weapons, apparently beginning a more advanced phase of weapons design. Israel, the regional nuclear superpower, has been lobbying Congress for privileges similar to India’s, and has approached the Nuclear Suppliers Group with requests for exemption from its rules. Now France, Russia and Australia have moved to pursue nuclear deals with India, as China has with Pakistan — hardly a surprise, once the global superpower has opened the door.

The Indo-US deal mixes military and commercial motives. Nuclear weapons specialist Gary Milhollin noted Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s testimony to Congress that the agreement was “crafted with the private sector firmly in mind,” particularly aircraft and reactors and, Milhollin stresses, military aircraft. By undermining the barriers against nuclear war, he adds, the agreement not only increases regional tensions but also “may hasten the day when a nuclear explosion destroys an American city.” Washington’s message is that “export controls are less important to the United States than money” — that is, profits for US corporations — whatever the potential threat. Kimball points out that the United States is granting India “terms of nuclear trade more favourable than those for states that have assumed all the obligations and responsibilities” of the NPT. In most of the world, few can fail to see the cynicism. Washington rewards allies and clients that ignore the NPT rules entirely, while threatening war against Iran, which is not known to have violated the NPT, despite extreme provocation: The United States has occupied two of Iran’s neighbours and openly sought to overthrow the Iranian regime since it broke free of US control in 1979.

Over the past few years, India and Pakistan have made strides towards easing the tensions between the two countries. People-to-people contacts have increased and the governments are in discussion over the many outstanding issues that divide the two states. Those promising developments may well be reversed by the Indo-US nuclear deal. One of the means to build confidence throughout the region was the creation of a natural gas pipeline from Iran through Pakistan into India. The “peace pipeline” would have tied the region together and opened the possibilities for further peaceful integration.

The pipeline, and the hope it offers, might become a casualty of the Indo-US agreement, which Washington sees as a measure to isolate its Iranian enemy by offering India nuclear power in exchange for Iranian gas — though in fact India would gain only a fraction of what Iran could provide.

The Indo-US deal continues the pattern of Washington’s taking every measure to isolate Iran. In 2006, the US Congress passed the Hyde Act, which specifically demanded that the US government “secure India’s full and active participation in United States efforts to dissuade, isolate, and if necessary, sanction and contain Iran for its efforts to acquire weapons of mass destruction.”

It is noteworthy that the great majority of Americans — and Iranians — favour converting the entire region to a nuclear-weapons free zone, including Iran and Israel. One may also recall that UN Security Council Resolution 687 of April 3, 1991, to which Washington regularly appealed when seeking justification for its invasion of Iraq, calls for “establishing in the Middle East a zone free from weapons of mass destruction and all missiles for their delivery.”

Clearly, ways to mitigate current crises aren’t lacking.

This Indo-US agreement richly deserves to be derailed. The threat of nuclear war is extremely serious, and growing, and part of the reason is that the nuclear states — led by the United States — simply refuse to live up to their obligations or are significantly violating them, this latest effort being another step toward disaster.

The US Congress gets a chance to weigh in on this deal after the International Atomic Energy Agency and the Nuclear Suppliers Group vet it. Perhaps Congress, reflecting a citizenry fed up with nuclear gamesmanship, can reject the agreement. A better way to go forward is to pursue the need for global nuclear disarmament, recognising that the very survival of the species is at stake.

Thousands of peace protesters won a victory for civil liberties and told Prime Minister Gordon Brown to get out of Iraq and Afghanistan on Monday.

Police had threatened to ban the Stop the War Coalition rally and march under archaic legislation dating from 1839, but they caved in and allowed it to proceed with just half an hour to go after thousands of supporters flooded into central London.

Speakers from the worlds of politics, trade unionism and entertainment celebrated at a preliminary rally in Trafalgar Square, along with peace and democracy campaigners from Iraq and Iran.

StWC chairman Andrew Murray announced to the crowd that the police had relented just 30 minutes before the rally was due to start.

He added: “This is a tribute to this movement and to everyone who has campaigned to assert our right to hold this government to account for the criminal policies it is following around the world.”

Coalition convener Lindsey German agreed, saying that the authorities and MPs had underestimated the determination of the anti-war movement.

But she warned that Britain was now seeing restrictions on civil liberties as a direct result of the war in Iraq.

Left MP John McDonnell thanked the crowd of “students, pensioners, trade unionists and workers” for attending, declaring: “You’ve won a tremendous victory for our civil rights.

“Gordon Brown will be addressing Parliament about the war today. But nothing he can say will make up for the slaughter in Iraq,” insisted Mr McDonnell.

“The message to Gordon Brown must repeated again and again. It’s not 500 or 1,000 troops withdrawn by Christmas that we want, it’s all of them out now.”

Respect MP George Galloway agreed that the peace movement had won a “significant victory.”

He added: “Gordon Brown might think that Basra is a photo opportunity, but we know it is a graveyard for millions of innocent Iraqi civilians, whose lives are being ruined by the criminal activity of the British Parliament.”

Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament chairwoman Kate Hudson pointed out: “Two weeks ago, at the Labour Party conference, Gordon Brown said: ‘I pledge to strengthen our liberties and to uphold our right to protest.’

“He has spent the last two weeks trying to suppress this demonstration, but they have had to cave in and allow it to go ahead. What a victory for our movement!”

Comedian Mark Steel added: “The government justified the invasion of Iraq by the torture and carnage going on under Saddam Hussein. “The extraordinary achievement of the occupation is that there is now more torture and more carnage than under Saddam.”