The Rag Blog

In the American movie Cool Hand Luke – a cult classic in the US – a drunken Paul Newman faces his jailer. “What we have here,” intones the captain of Road Prison 36, “is a failure to communicate.” The movie has provided fodder for a gaggle of bloggers, who now refer to US Lieutenant General Douglas E Lute, President George W Bush’s new “war czar”, as “Cool Hand Lute”.

Lute recently made the rounds of official Washington, telling everyone that aside from the advisability of invading Iraq in the first place (something with which, in private, he had real problems), the US national security establishment’s failure to coordinate policy, its failure to communicate, is leading the nation into a foreign-policy debacle.

Lute’s appointment in May as “war czar” is a talisman of this disaster. Lute’s job, as he sees it, is to help reverse this potential disaster and shape a national security establishment that actually works. His colleagues say he’s terribly worried that he’s fated to fail.

Lute’s most powerful ally in his lone battle to rebuild what he sees as the shattered American national security establishment is Robert Gates, the unassuming, seemingly soft-as-a-pillow new secretary of defense. Gates is Donald Rumsfeld-in-reverse. Gates is a man who has spent a career being underestimated. “Gates is soft-spoken, courteous, a very good listener, workmanlike, treats people well, has a good sense of humor – and is completely and absolutely ruthless,” a colleague who has worked with him for three decades notes.

“It took a lot for Bob Gates to take that job,” former US Marine Corps commandant Joe Hoar says. “Let me be blunt. He was president of Texas A&M [University] and he had the job for life. Why would he take on a major headache like the Pentagon? He told Bush he wanted the right to run the Pentagon his way and he didn’t want what he said vetted by the White House. And Bush was in trouble and he knew it. So he agreed. And Gates might look like a soft guy, but he’s a realist and he’s a patriot and he knows Washington and he knows what he wants. And he got it.”

What Gates got when he took over last December was the right to do things his way. “When Gates showed up at the Pentagon, he was just stunned,” a senior civilian official at the Defense Department says. “No one knew what was going on. There were no plans. Nothing worked. The policy establishment was broken.”

In his first meeting with the major heads of departments, Gates said they would not be replaced (“We don’t have time for that,” he said) and announced that he would spend the next weeks traveling. In his first two months as Defense Secretary, Gates might have spent four days at the Pentagon, if that. “We just didn’t see him,” an official said. “He was elsewhere.”

Gates was in the Middle East – talking with coalition commander General George Casey and CENTCOM commander General John Abizaid. Gates talked to the troops, held press conferences, smiled for the cameras, shook hands – and decided that America was losing.

“I think it’s pretty clear that Bob spent long nights, alone, thinking about all of this by himself,” a friend says, “and he just decided to throw out all of this neo-con stuff and all this bunk about democracy and Islam and the clash of civilizations and he decided the country needed to get back to the basics. What is the mission? Are we accomplishing it? What do we need to get it done? Can we do it? How long will it take? How much will it cost? And he just decided that everything else is just so much talk. And really it was a breath of fresh air.

“He just stopped people talking about that stuff. So he went in and started to clean it up. And he was quiet about it, but he made it clear: there are rules, and if you don’t obey the rules you’re out. And there’s a chain of command, and if you don’t follow it, you’re gone. There’s a chain of command at the Department of Defense, and there’s only one man at the top of it. And he’s [Gates] at the top of it. Maybe at the end he won’t fix all of it, but he’s sure going to try.”

Starting at the top

After just six weeks on the job, and after hours of discussions with Casey, Abizaid and their key combat subordinates, Gates was convinced that the US senior military leadership in Iraq and in the Middle East needed to be replaced. Casey and Abizaid were nearly exhausted from years of fighting both the Iraqi insurgency and Rumsfeld. Gates feared both had lost their edge as well as the confidence of their subordinate commanders.

In one sense, Gates was lucky. With Casey due to rotate back to Washington as the new army chief of staff and Abizaid up for retirement, the change in command could be seen as nothing out of the ordinary. The change would be swift and painless. Neither Casey nor Abizaid need be embarrassed. Both men would be given parades, medals and handshakes. “There would be no blood on the floor,” a Pentagon civilian official said of the command change. But no one was fooled: Casey and Abizaid had been sidelined.

“Gates was particularly disturbed with Abizaid,” a Pentagon official says. “His [Central Command Regional military] staff had ballooned, it was way out of wack. There were 3,800 officers in the region, sitting at their computers in their little cubby holes. That was more than [president Dwight D Eisenhower had in Europe in World War II. Gates came back to Washington and said, ‘What the hell are these people doing? Why aren’t they in the front lines’?”

Abizaid had always had problems with staffing. One of his jobs at the Pentagon prior to his Gulf deployment was to organize former deputy defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz’s staff – “and he actually made it worse, if you can believe that”.

The rap on Casey was different: “He was simply indecisive, like [former president] Jimmy Carter. His commanders would come to him with options and he would look around the table and say, ‘Well gentlemen, what should we do?’ Damn, why was he asking them? He was the one who was supposed to be in charge,” the Pentagon official says.

Over the past several months The Nation has interviewed fifty combat veterans of the Iraq War from around the United States in an effort to investigate the effects of the four-year-old occupation on average Iraqi civilians. These combat veterans, some of whom bear deep emotional and physical scars, and many of whom have come to oppose the occupation, gave vivid, on-the-record accounts. They described a brutal side of the war rarely seen on television screens or chronicled in newspaper accounts.

Their stories, recorded and typed into thousands of pages of transcripts, reveal disturbing patterns of behavior by American troops in Iraq. Dozens of those interviewed witnessed Iraqi civilians, including children, dying from American firepower. Some participated in such killings; others treated or investigated civilian casualties after the fact. Many also heard such stories, in detail, from members of their unit. The soldiers, sailors and marines emphasized that not all troops took part in indiscriminate killings. Many said that these acts were perpetrated by a minority. But they nevertheless described such acts as common and said they often go unreported–and almost always go unpunished.

Court cases, such as the ones surrounding the massacre in Haditha and the rape and murder of a 14-year-old in Mah­mudiya, and news stories in the Washington Post, Time, the London Independent and elsewhere based on Iraqi accounts have begun to hint at the wide extent of the attacks on civilians. Human rights groups have issued reports, such as Human Rights Watch’s Hearts and Minds: Post-war Civilian Deaths in Baghdad Caused by U.S. Forces, packed with detailed incidents that suggest that the killing of Iraqi civilians by occupation forces is more common than has been acknowledged by military authorities.

This Nation investigation marks the first time so many on-the-record, named eyewitnesses from within the US military have been assembled in one place to openly corroborate these assertions.

While some veterans said civilian shootings were routinely investigated by the military, many more said such inquiries were rare. “I mean, you physically could not do an investigation every time a civilian was wounded or killed because it just happens a lot and you’d spend all your time doing that,” said Marine Reserve Lieut. Jonathan Morgenstein, 35, of Arlington, Virginia. He served from August 2004 to March 2005 in Ramadi with a Marine Corps civil affairs unit supporting a combat team with the Second Marine Expeditionary Brigade. (All interviewees are identified by the rank they held during the period of service they recount here; some have since been promoted or demoted.)

Veterans said the culture of this counterinsurgency war, in which most Iraqi civilians were assumed to be hostile, made it difficult for soldiers to sympathize with their victims–at least until they returned home and had a chance to reflect.

“I guess while I was there, the general attitude was, A dead Iraqi is just another dead Iraqi,” said Spc. Jeff Englehart, 26, of Grand Junction, Colorado. Specialist Englehart served with the Third Brigade, First Infantry Division, in Baquba, about thirty-five miles northeast of Baghdad, for a year beginning in February 2004. “You know, so what?… The soldiers honestly thought we were trying to help the people and they were mad because it was almost like a betrayal. Like here we are trying to help you, here I am, you know, thousands of miles away from home and my family, and I have to be here for a year and work every day on these missions. Well, we’re trying to help you and you just turn around and try to kill us.”

He said it was only “when they get home, in dealing with veteran issues and meeting other veterans, it seems like the guilt really takes place, takes root, then.”

The Iraq War is a vast and complicated enterprise. In this investigation of alleged military misconduct, The Nation focused on a few key elements of the occupation, asking veterans to explain in detail their experiences operating patrols and supply convoys, setting up checkpoints, conducting raids and arresting suspects. From these collected snapshots a common theme emerged. Fighting in densely populated urban areas has led to the indiscriminate use of force and the deaths at the hands of occupation troops of thousands of innocents.

Many of these veterans returned home deeply disturbed by the disparity between the reality of the war and the way it is portrayed by the US government and American media. The war the vets described is a dark and even depraved enterprise, one that bears a powerful resemblance to other misguided and brutal colonial wars and occupations, from the French occupation of Algeria to the American war in Vietnam and the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory.

“I’ll tell you the point where I really turned,” said Spc. Michael Harmon, 24, a medic from Brooklyn. He served a thirteen-month tour beginning in April 2003 with the 167th Armor Regiment, Fourth Infantry Division, in Al-Rashidiya, a small town near Baghdad. “I go out to the scene and [there was] this little, you know, pudgy little 2-year-old child with the cute little pudgy legs, and I look and she has a bullet through her leg…. An IED [improvised explosive device] went off, the gun-happy soldiers just started shooting anywhere and the baby got hit. And this baby looked at me, wasn’t crying, wasn’t anything, it just looked at me like–I know she couldn’t speak. It might sound crazy, but she was like asking me why. You know, Why do I have a bullet in my leg?… I was just like, This is–this is it. This is ridiculous.”

Much of the resentment toward Iraqis described to The Nation by veterans was confirmed in a report released May 4 by the Pentagon. According to the survey, conducted by the Office of the Surgeon General of the US Army Medical Command, just 47 percent of soldiers and 38 percent of marines agreed that civilians should be treated with dignity and respect. Only 55 percent of soldiers and 40 percent of marines said they would report a unit member who had killed or injured “an innocent noncombatant.”

These attitudes reflect the limited contact occupation troops said they had with Iraqis. They rarely saw their enemy. They lived bottled up in heavily fortified compounds that often came under mortar attack. They only ventured outside their compounds ready for combat. The mounting frustration of fighting an elusive enemy and the devastating effect of roadside bombs, with their steady toll of American dead and wounded, led many troops to declare an open war on all Iraqis.

Veterans described reckless firing once they left their compounds. Some shot holes into cans of gasoline being sold along the roadside and then tossed grenades into the pools of gas to set them ablaze. Others opened fire on children. These shootings often enraged Iraqi witnesses.

In June 2003 Staff Sgt. Camilo Mejía’s unit was pressed by a furious crowd in Ramadi. Sergeant Mejía, 31, a National Guardsman from Miami, served for six months beginning in April 2003 with the 1-124 Infantry Battalion, Fifty-Third Infantry Brigade. His squad opened fire on an Iraqi youth holding a grenade, riddling his body with bullets. Sergeant Mejía checked his clip afterward and calculated that he had personally fired eleven rounds into the young man.

“The frustration that resulted from our inability to get back at those who were attacking us led to tactics that seemed designed simply to punish the local population that was supporting them,” Sergeant Mejía said.

We heard a few reports, in one case corroborated by photo­graphs, that some soldiers had so lost their moral compass that they’d mocked or desecrated Iraqi corpses. One photo, among dozens turned over to The Nation during the investigation, shows an American soldier acting as if he is about to eat the spilled brains of a dead Iraqi man with his brown plastic Army-issue spoon.

“Take a picture of me and this motherfucker,” a soldier who had been in Sergeant Mejía’s squad said as he put his arm around the corpse. Sergeant Mejía recalls that the shroud covering the body fell away, revealing that the young man was wearing only his pants. There was a bullet hole in his chest.

“Damn, they really fucked you up, didn’t they?” the soldier laughed.

The scene, Sergeant Mejía said, was witnessed by the dead man’s brothers and cousins.

Some officers and midlevel officials have been telling me and other reporters that President George W. Bush is preparing to give in on Iraq—to recognize that victory is no longer feasible, that the “surge” isn’t working, and that it’s time to cut back U.S. troop levels and shift strategy once more.

After watching Bush’s speech in Cleveland this afternoon, I can only conclude that this prediction—like all the similar predictions of an impending drawdown these past three years—is wishful thinking.

The president seemed, as much as ever, committed to the war, certain of liberty’s inevitable triumph, and deluded about the nature and direction of the conflict.

It was, even by his standards, an unusually rambling speech, alternately folksy and haranguing, most of it about the virtues of tax cuts and private health care. A half-hour passed—and the cable news channels cut away to an incident at the Oakland airport a couple of times—before he came to the main point, the reason they were carrying the speech live: to articulate his latest views on Iraq.

And the startling thing about these views is that they haven’t changed a bit.

This is the case, despite the serious Republican defections—and the urgings by the most senior of these Republicans that the president shift his strategy and draw down some U.S. troops or see Congress cut off funds and end the war altogether.

This is the case, despite news of a forthcoming administration report—to be delivered to Congress this week—that concludes the Iraqi government has met none of the political or security “benchmarks” that Bush himself once urged them to meet in exchange for continued U.S. support.

This is the case, despite the fact that nearly everyone around him is at least very skeptical of the surge’s prospects. (One must assume that Dick Cheney is an exception, and perhaps the only exception necessary.)

Unlike earlier talks of this sort, in which Bush’s speechwriters at least assembled some stray facts and passed them off as evidence of progress, this speech—which seemed entirely improvised—was founded on nothing but faith.

“We can accomplish and win this fight in Iraq,” Bush said at one point in the speech. “I strongly believe we will prevail … that democracy will trump totalitarianism every time,” he said later, as if the war in Iraq is somehow about democracy and totalitarianism.

“I wouldn’t ask a mother or a dad” to send a son or daughter to this war “if I didn’t feel this is necessary to the security of the United States and the peace of the world.”

He pulled out the Sept. 11 gambit more blatantly than ever (and that’s saying a lot). There was a brief time, a couple of years ago, when President Bush acknowledged the complexities of Iraqi society, made distinctions among the different insurgent groups, and allowed that some were only nationalists opposed to occupation, that not all were jihadists.

But today, Bush spoke (screamed, really) as if the fighters in Iraq were under the command of Osama Bin Laden. Speaking of the suicide attacks in Iraq, he said, “Al-Qaida is doing most of the spectacular bombing—the same people who attacked us on September 11.” Sectarian violence didn’t exist in Iraq, he claimed, until it was incited by al-Qaida—”the killers who attacked America.”

Does he believe this? Probably not. He also would have had to approve the recent U.S. military strategy of forming alliances with Sunni tribalists for the common cause of bashing al-Qaida.

Bush was right about one thing: A precipitous and total U.S. withdrawal from Iraq probably would have “serious consequences.” Iraq could erupt into sheer chaos. (If you think the country’s already as bad off as it can be, think back on Lebanon during the civil war or Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge.) This chaos could impel neighboring countries to intervene, either to contain the violence or to fight alongside their respective sectarian allies.

Mission Miracle, the three-year old Venezuelan-Cuban anti-blindness program initially for Latin America and the Caribbean, has already restored the sight of about 700,000 people from 30 countries and aims to restore the sight of about 6,000,000 blind people in the region by 2015.

The services that Mission Miracle offers to its patients are free.

Mission Miracle has drawn quite of bit of attention from the revolutionary and progressive media. With only a handful of exceptions, the bourgeois media, both in Latin America and the USA, have largely ignored the astonishingly successful ophthalmologic program. Ironically, it is the extreme reactionary sector of the US bourgeois media that shows the most interest in the program.

One of the partial exceptions to this non-coverage or bigoted coverage of Mission Miracle in the bourgeois media is John Otis’ piece in the Houston chronicle, a moderate bourgeois newspaper, which gives a surprisingly factual account of the tremendous success of Mission Miracle with the customary or inescapable anti-socialist bias, mandatory in the capitalist press, largely held in the background of the story.

The Mission Miracle has, among others things, medical, political, and moral sides.

Medical side of Mission Miracle

According to the World Health Organization, there are more than 37 million people in the world who have lost their sight as a result of preventable causes; of these, more than a million and a half are children below the age of 16.

The prevalence of preventable blindness varies in relation to the level of economic development in each country. While in highly developed capitalist countries, blindness hovers at 0.25%. In poorly developed capitalist countries with insufficient health care services, this figure can reach 1% of the populace.

In Third World countries, which are mostly poorly developed capitalist countries, the main causes of blindness are cataracts, glaucoma, diabetic retinopathy, infectious diseases such as trachoma and onchocerciasis, and Vitamin A deficiencies. Other ophthalmologic diseases such as pterygium, ptosis and strabism are very frequent in both children and adults.

Since cataracts are the cause of more than 50% of preventable cases of blindness in the world, one must perform between 2000 and 4000 cataract operations for each million people annually if one wishes to gradually eradicate this disease.

Glaucoma causes 15% of the blindness in the world. Between 1 and 2% of the world population suffers from this disease, and these figures double in black populations. These cases require a high percentage of filter or trabeculoplasty laser surgery.

On July 5, 2004, the Cuban President Fidel Castro and Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez agreed to start Mission Miracle to aid patients with eye diseases, as a result of the complaints from many workers in the joint Venezuelan-Cuban literacy program in Venezuela about many of their students whom they were trying to teach to read but who couldn‘t even see, according to John Otis’ article in the Houston Chronicle.

In the early days of the program in 2004, Cuba mostly supplied the experts and Venezuela mostly the money for Mission Miracle, but today Venezuelan doctors, many educated at Cuban medical schools or at Venezuelan medical schools where Cuban doctors teach, are very much involved on the operational side of the program.

Now, three years later, in addition of flying hundreds of thousands of patients to Cuba and Venezuela for operations and treatment, Cuba has also constructed and donated 36 ophthalmologic centers which are already functioning in 8 countries in Latin American, the Caribbean and Africa (13 centers in Venezuela, 2 in Haiti, 12 in Bolivia, 2 in Guatemala, 2 in Ecuador, 1 in Honduras, 1 in Panama, 1 in Mali and 1 in Nicaragua [2 more are currently under construction in Nicaragua].) where, so far, 686,442 Latin American, African and Caribbean patients have already been operated on, as of June 13, 2007. More than 690 Cuban public health professionals are working in these ophthalmologic centers. These centers contain state-of-the-art equipment and supplies, most of which are manufactured in Cuba.

It was announced that the CIA would be declassifying hundreds of pages on illegal actions that included plans to eliminate the leaders of foreign governments. Suddenly the publication is halted and it is delayed one day. No coherent explanation was given. Perhaps someone in the White House looked over the material.

The first package of declassified documents goes by the name of “The Family Jewels”; it consists of 702 pages on illegal CIA actions between 1959 and 1973. About 100 pages of this part have been deleted. It deals with actions that were not authorized by any law, plots to assassinate other leaders, experiments with drugs on human beings to control their minds, spying on civil activists and journalists, among other similar activities that were expressly prohibited.

The documents began to be gathered together 14 years after the first of the events took place, when then CIA director, James Schlessinger became alarmed about what the press was writing, especially all the articles by Robert Woodward and Carl Bernstein published in The Washington Post, already mentioned in the “Manifesto to the People of Cuba”. The agency was being accused of promoting spying in the Watergate Hotel with the participation of its former agents Howard Hunt and James McCord.

In May 1973, the Director of the CIA was demanding that “all the main operative officials of this agency must immediately inform me on any ongoing or past activity that might be outside of the constituting charter of this agency”. Schlessinger, later appointed Head of the Pentagon, had been replaced by William Colby. Colby was referring to the documents as “skeletons hiding in a closet”. New press revelations forced Colby to admit the existence of the reports to interim President Gerald Ford in 1975. The New York Times was denouncing agency penetration of antiwar groups. The law that created the CIA prevented it from spying inside the United States.

That “was just the tip of the iceberg”, said then Secretary of State Henry Kissinger.

Kissinger himself warned that “blood would flow” if other actions were known, and he immediately added: “For example, that Robert Kennedy personally controlled the operation for the assassination of Fidel Castro”. The President’s brother was then Attorney General of the United States. He was later murdered as he was running for President in the 1968 elections, which facilitated Nixon’s election for lack of a strong candidate. The most dramatic thing about the case is that apparently he had reached the conviction that John Kennedy had been victim of a conspiracy. Thorough investigators, after analyzing the wounds, the caliber of the shots and other circumstances surrounding the death of the President, reached the conclusion that there had been at least three shooters. Solitary Oswald, used as an instrument, could not have been the only shooter. I found that rather striking. Excuse me for saying this but fate turned me into a shooting instructor with a telescopic sight for all the Granma expeditionaries. I spent months practicing and teaching, every day; even though the target is a stationary one it disappears from view with each shot and so you need to look for it all over again in fractions of a second.

Oswald wanted to come through Cuba on his trip to the USSR. He had already been there before. Someone sent him to ask for a visa in our country’s embassy in Mexico but nobody knew him there so he wasn’t authorized. They wanted to get us implicated in the conspiracy. Later, Jack Ruby, –a man openly linked to the Mafia– unable to deal with so much pain and sadness, as he said, assassinated him, of all places, in a precinct full police agents.

Subsequently, in international functions or on visits to Cuba, on more than one occasion I met with the aggrieved Kennedy relatives, who would greet me respectfully. The former president’s son, who was a very small child when his father was killed, visited Cuba 34 years later. We met and I invited him to dinner.

The young man, in the prime of his life, and well brought up, tragically died in an airplane accident on a stormy night as he was flying to Martha’s Vineyard with his wife. I never touched on the thorny issue with any of those relatives. In contrast, I pointed out that if the president-elect had then been Nixon instead of Kennedy, after the Bay of Pigs disaster we would have been attacked by the land and sea forces escorting the mercenary expedition, and both countries would have paid a high toll in human lives. Nixon would not have limited himself to saying that victory has many fathers and defeat is an orphan. For the record, Kennedy was never too enthusiastic about the Bay of Pigs adventure; he was led there by Eisenhower’s military reputation and the recklessness of his ambitious vice-president.

I remember that, exactly on the day and minute he was assassinated, I was speaking in a peaceful spot outside of the capital with French journalist Jean Daniel. He told me that he was bringing a message from President Kennedy. He said to me that in essence he had told him: “You are going to see Castro. I would like to know what he thinks about the terrible danger we just experienced of a thermonuclear war. I want to see you again as soon as you get back.” “Kennedy was very active; he seemed to be a political machine”, he added, and we were not able to continue talking as someone rushed in with the news of what had just happened. We turned on the radio. What Kennedy thought was now pointless.

Certainly I lived with that danger. Cuba was both the weakest part and the one that would take the first strike, but we did not agree with the concessions that were made to the United States. I have already spoken of this before.

Kennedy had emerged from the crisis with greater authority. He came to recognize the enormous sacrifices of human lives and material wealth made by the Soviet people in the struggle against fascism. The worst of the relations between the United States and Cuba had not yet occurred by April 1961. When he hadn’t resigned himself to the outcome of the Bay of Pigs, along came the Missile Crisis. The blockade, economic asphyxiation, pirate attacks and assassination plots multiplied. But the assassination plots and other bloody occurrences began under the administration of Eisenhower and Nixon.

After the Missile Crisis we would have not refused to talk with Kennedy, nor would we have ceased being revolutionaries and radical in our struggle for socialism. Cuba would have never severed relations with the USSR as it had been asked to do. Perhaps if the American leaders had been aware of what a war could be using weapons of mass destruction they would have ended the Cold War earlier and differently. At least that’s how we felt then, when there was still no talk of global warming, broken imbalances, the enormous consumption of hydrocarbons and the sophisticated weaponry created by technology, as I have already said to the youth of Cuba. We would have had much more time to reach, through science and conscience, what we are today forced to realize in haste.

President Ford decided to appoint a Commission to investigate the Central Intelligence Agency. “We do not want to destroy the CIA but to preserve it”, he said.

As a result of the Commission’s investigations that were led by Senator Frank Church, President Ford signed an executive order which expressly prohibited the participation of American officials in the assassinations of foreign leaders.

The documents published now disclose information about the CIA-Mafia links for my assassination.

Details are also revealed about Operation Chaos, carrying on from 1969 for at least seven years, for which the CIA created a special squadron with the mission to infiltrate pacifist groups and to investigate “the international activities of radicals and black militants”. The Agency compiled more than 300,000 names of American citizens and organizations and extensive files on 7,200 persons.

According to The New York Times, President Johnson was convinced that the American anti-War movement was controlled and funded by Communist governments and he ordered the CIA to produce evidence.

The documents recognize, furthermore, that the CIA spied on various journalists like Jack Anderson, performers such as Jane Fonda and John Lennon, and the student movements at Columbia University. It also searched homes and carried out tests on American citizens to determine the reactions of human beings to certain drugs.

In a memorandum sent to Colby in 1973, Walter Elder who had been executive assistant to John McCone, CIA Director in the early 1970s, gives information about discussions in the CIA headquarters that were taped and transcribed: “I know that whoever worked in the offices of the director were worried about the fact that these conversations in the office and on the phone were transcribed. During the McCone years there were microphones in his regular offices, the inner office, the dining room, the office in the East building, and in the study of his home on White Haven Street. I don’t know if anyone is ready to talk about this, but the information tends to be leaked, and certainly the Agency is vulnerable in this case”.

The secret transcripts of the CIA directors could contain a great number of “jewels”. The National Security Archive is already requesting these transcripts.

A memo clarifies that the CIA had a project called OFTEN which would collect “information about dangerous drugs in American companies”, until the program was terminated in the fall of 1972. In another memo there are reports that manufacturers of commercial drugs “had passed” drugs to the CIA which had been “refused due to adverse secondary effects”.

As part of the MKULTRA program, the CIA had given LSD and other psycho-active drugs to people without their knowledge. According to another document in the archive, Sydney Gottlieb, a psychiatrist and head of chemistry of the Agency Mind Control Program, is supposedly the person responsible for having made available the poison that was going to be used in the assassination attempt on Patrice Lumumba.

CIA employees assigned to MHCHAOS ­the operation that carried out surveillance on American opposition to the war in Vietnam and other political dissidents ­expressed “a high level of resentment” for having been ordered to carry out such missions.

The launch of the Bank of the South is an ambitious and strategic gambit in regional integration, one that could result in a truly regional development bank. Despite Brazilian concerns, this new institution is ready to be launched.

“Positive,” Joseph Stiglitz, Nobel Laureate in Economics, concluded in a recent speech to the Argentine business association in Buenos Aires. He noted that the new Bank of the South (BoS) would allow South American nations to assist each others’ economies, adding that a major obstacle for emerging markets is a lack of long-term financing, and development banks have been successful in the past at filling this void.

On May 22 in Asunción Paraguay, the six founding states—Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Paraguay, Ecuador, and Venezuela—reached an agreement on the Bank of the South after two months of negotiations. The BoS will begin operations in 2008. It was to be formally presented to the public in the next presidential summit in Venezuela on June 26, although the date has been delayed. Unlike the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank, the BoS assigns a single vote to each member country, independent of the size of its financial contribution.

The First Steps

Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez initially proposed the idea of the Bank of the South. Argentine president Nestor Kirchner soon followed suit.

The first step was to throw down the gauntlet. Chávez and Kirchner did this on Feb. 21 in Puerto Ordaz, Venezuela, during the inauguration of the first active oil well in a joint venture between their two state energy companies, Energia Argentina S.A. (Enarsa) and Petroleos de Venezuela S.A. (PDVSA).

The two presidents proposed creation of an institution to quickly and effectively finance regional development projects in a more independent manner. Currently there are two regional banks. The River Plate Basin Financial Fund (FONPLATA), consisting of Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay, has a mere US$410 million at its disposal. The Andean Promotional Corporation (CAF) manages US$10.5 billion, available for investment in infrastructure. Both banks are related to the World Bank and the IMF, and are structured along the same lines.

During the annual governing meeting of the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB), held in March 2007 in Guatemala, the Argentine and Venezuelan finance ministers made some progress on technical matters and solidified objectives for the proposed institution. In early May, representatives of the six countries reached a consensus known as “The Quito Declaration” that proposed the creation of the Bank in the first quarter of 20071. They also agreed to a stabilization fund designed to aid countries suffering international speculative attacks, and to develop a regional currency. The critical challenge was bringing Brazil on board.

Difficulties and Obstacles

There are two countries professing left-wing progressive governments that are notably absent from the bank’s founding members—Chile and Uruguay. The former has a bilateral trade agreement with the United States and applies neoliberal economic policies. The latter, although a full member of the South American Common Market (Mercosur), has serious political issues with its neighbors, Brazil and Argentina. Uruguay has collided repeatedly with Brazil on trade issues and resents the fact that its powerful neighbor announced its refusal to accept Uruguay’s intention of signing a unilateral trade agreement with the United States. In Argentina’s case the main issue is a dispute over a new paper pulp mill built on the Uruguayan bank of the river that forms Uruguay’s western border with Argentina.

Another difficulty relates to the situation in Brazil. Brazil already has its own development bank, the National Bank of Social and Economic Development (BNDES), and does not need to create a new regional financial entity. It may also be that Brazil would be required to supply more funds than it might expect to receive.

The BNDES currently handles more funds than all other regional development organizations put together, including the IADB2. For this reason Brazil is leaning toward the reactivation of currently existent banking entities.

Despite frictions on economic issues, the main problems confronting the Bank of the South are political. In May two positions evolved: the first was that of the Venezuelan and Argentinean finance ministers, the second, that of Ecuador. Each group drafted documents reflecting their views. According to the Ecuadorian documents, the joint Argentine/Venezuelan position lacked environmental protection, cultural, and educational policies. Furthermore it took the position that each nation’s vote should be allotted according to the funds provided. In general their criticism was that much of the proposed ordinances were carbon copies of those of the World Bank, the IMF, and the IADB3.

The document presented by Ecuador proposed three pillars: a regional monitory fund, the BoS, and a regional currency. It bases these on the guiding principle that “the implementation of economic instruments should bring about the guarantee of fundamental human rights.”4 This perspective implies that the bank’s clients should not be large corporations; rather it should give loans “to the public sector, to small producers, to local communities, to municipalities, and to states or provinces.”5

Finally the document asserts that BoS should not be a behemoth like the World Bank with its 13,000 employees, and it should account for operations and activities on an annual basis. It required an annual public debate for the bank to explain its activities to the citizenry whose taxes it used.

The two concepts of the BoS are clearly contradictory and it does not seem possible to arrive at a consensus. To date all parties have agreed to some of the Ecuadorian proposals, such as equal voting rights. What remains to be decided is whether the bank has responsibility for intervening in financial crises (à la IMF) or whether it be viewed as a partner in economic development.

WASHINGTON (AP) – U.S. counterterror officials are warning of an increased risk of an attack this summer, given al-Qaida’s apparent interest in summertime strikes and increased al-Qaida training in the Afghan-Pakistani border region.

On Tuesday, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff told the editorial board of The Chicago Tribune that he had a “gut feeling” about a new period of increased risk.

He based his assessment on earlier patterns of terrorists in Europe and intelligence he would not disclose.

“Summertime seems to be appealing to them,” Chertoff said in his discussion with the newspaper about terrorists. “We worry that they are rebuilding their activities.”

Other U.S. counterterrorism officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, shared Chertoff’s concern and said that al-Qaida and like-minded groups have been able to plot and train more freely in the tribal areas along the Afghan-Pakistani border in recent months. Osama bin Laden and his top deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri, are believed to be hiding in the rugged region.

Have you ever felt numb? Like a paralytic numbness?

I put the receiver down, stared at the wall, beyond the wall and saw yet another wall, and more walls…
Unable to move, unable to take a step forward, a step back. I was stuck in that spot for what seemed to be forever.
I felt the warmth of the cigarette, its heat, getting closer to my fingertips, almost burning me.
I guess the thought of being burnt took me out of this trance like state…that state of being walled in.

Some of you may recall that I already have 2 relatives who had been kidnapped and are now imprisoned in “Detention centers”.

Kamel, 60 plus, is still in American “custody”. He is sick and we have no news except that he is still alive…at least we hope so.

Omar, 19 years old, also detained by the Americans. Seems he has been transferred from American hands in Baghdad and moved to Southern Iraq.
When we enquired about him, they said that he is in a military hospital getting treatment in Southern Iraq.

That is very strange indeed. Bear in mind that Southern Iraq prisons are run by the sectarian militias from Iran and neither them nor the Americans actually provide any medical treatments in “hospitals”.
How long will he be there? What is he suffering from? Is it possible to visit him?
None provides us with any answers.

I personally believe that Omar is dead. I believe that Omar has been killed. Possibly under torture…most probably under torture.

A few weeks back, Salam, another relative was kidnapped and badly battered, bashed up. I have already relayed her story in my previous post “Scream Quietly”.

A few days ago, it was Raouf’s turn. Now Raouf is very close family.

I chose to call him Raouf because Raouf in Arabic means “kind spirited, gentle…”
And Raouf is both. Raouf is a very gentle soul. A soft spoken man, who cared about poetry, philosophy, arts, animals, the land…which he cultivated with great care and love.

Yes Raouf is a very loving person. Early 50’s, handsome, eloquent and very kind.

When a great aunt passed away, Raouf inherited a little plot of land. He was not a materialistic person. He contended himself with the little money that this piece of soil gave him. He reared on it birds, chicken and a few fruit crops and lived off its revenue.

Raouf lived outside of Baghdad, about one hour’s drive from the capital.
When things got very rough there, we suggested he moved to Baghdad. Another relative lent him a temporary roof where he could stay with his wife. He has two grown up kids who have just finised medical school.

Raouf comes from a very well known family. Well known in the sense that his lineage is made of learned men. In fact his forefathers all the way down, were the first to institutionalize the first Islamic Jurisprudence and Theology school in 13th century Baghdad.

Raouf was getting restless in Baghdad. He missed and worried about his birds, chicken, trees and flowers.
“Who will feed them, who will water them?” he would exclaim. “I cannot abandon them. I am going just for the day”… And he left.

He arrived home and to his plot of land. A few hours later, a knock on the door.
He opened. Familiar faces from the district. Three armed men.
“Salam aleikom” he said. “Wa aleikom” they replied.

Then, they blindfolded him, handcuffed him and shoved him in a car.
His ordeal had started. His torture odyssey was about to unfold …

He was held for three full days and three full nights. He was tortured NON-STOP for three full days and three full nights.

They used iron rods, chains, rubber hoose, sticks…
Sometimes the three pounded him in unison. Sometimes they would take turns.
The only respite he had is when they stopped for “prayers”!!!!

Again, the interrogation, the senseless interrogation.

“What have I done” he would scream.
“We found an empty can of beer next to your house door – why are you not growing a beard – why are you not wearing a long “thob” … and they would pound him some more.

But fortunately they did stop for prayers and did not have drills!

– Ok how much ? he said
– 100’000 Dollars.
– Impossible. None of us have this amount.
– Who is us?
– Well, me, my family in Baghdad.
– Who is your family in Baghdad ?
– There is x. y, z and Layla A. Some lent me their house.
– So you are rich all of you.
– No, they just lent me an empty house. We are all unemployed.
– Sell the house and the plot of land.

They dialled a real estate agent. Raouf talked to him and begged him to find a buyer for the house and the land.
“Impossible” replied the agent, “none is buying.”

The “pious” armed men lost patience.

So Raouf, tell us how would you like to die? Beheading? Have you throat slit? or a few bullets in your head? You choose …

Raouf’s wife showed remarkable courage. She was in constant contact with the “pious” armed men. She would talk to them, patiently with the voice of reason. Sometimes begging, pleading. Sometimes reminding them of their common neighborhood, people they both knew , maybe a neighbor, a distant relative, a school, a teacher, a grocer… Anyone, any name, any face that could be used as a bridge back to life.

His wife reminded me the way Shehrazade recounted endless tales to Shahrayar the king from the Tales of the 1001 nights. Thus delaying and preventing her beheading.
Except Raouf’s wife tales was to prevent her husband’s beheading…

She must have struck a chord somewhere in their collective memory.
They dropped him on the 4th day, in the middle of the night, on some dark street…

Raouf carried his wounds and his broken body and walked for miles before he could get any help at all.

And us, for three days and nights we would roam the rooms like animals in a cage, pacing back and forth…Praying, crying, bargaining, pleading, supplicating, begging, God, the Universe, the Darkness, the Silence, the Walls….

When Raouf finally arrived to Baghdad, the whole family went to visit him. A sight that could not be described in words.

Raouf was so badly tortured, he was unrecognizable. You cannot see his eyes anymore. His face, his nose are so swollen , as if about to explode with pain and hurt.

His body, his body, the marks of a thousand rods, chains, sticks on it. His legs, his back, his chest, his arms, his stomach… His white shirt was dark brown with blood.

Someone took pictures. For the memory, for the record, for the family album. An Iraqi family album.
Even though, I am certain that Raouf will never need pictures to remember. I know his character and his predisposition. I am sure these marks will stay with him forever…

It is a miracle he did not die from the torture. He has hypertension and a kidney condition. He could have easily died from a brain hemorrhage due to the beatings, or from kidney failure or from a cardiac arrest.
It is a miracle they let him go in exchange for nothing because there is nothing to give.
It is a miracle they did not kill him.
It is a miracle they did not drill him…

Look at us. See what a grateful, humble people we have become. We are grateful that our loved ones are tortured but not killed or drilled or have their eyes pulled out.
See what an obedient, grateful people we have become…You must be so happy at our docility now.

But Raouf died on the inside…I know it.

His voice was barely audible…He would speak and then his voice would gently fade away and his lips would stop moving.

“It hurts to breathe” he says. “It really hurts to breathe.”

Then he manages another sentence, that he keeps repeating like some sacred mantra.

” I will crawl on all four to the border. Am willing to beg or become a street sweeper in Damascus. But I will not stay here anymore. This is no longer my country.”
And his voice disappears again.

“Take the pictures” shouted another one. “Show it to the UN. Show it to the World…Take the pictures with you.”

Take the pictures like you take a postcard and show it to others. Share it with others. A postcard from Iraq.

After the visit, some took turns to vomit, physically vomit, the sadistic, vicious, cruelty that Raouf had to endure.

Raouf is beyond recognition, a reflection of what has become of Iraq – Beyond recognition.

I reflected later on the “purpose” of it all. Why did they do what they did?

And now I am absolutely convinced that these armed men, so called “Al Qaeda”, them along with the cars bombs, with the sectarian militias and their torture centers and their drills…are paid, trained and ordered by an American – Mossad – Iranian consortium to apply Bremer’s policy: ” Let us bring them down to 5 million.”

A deliberate policy to empty the country by terrorizing all of us . I am certain of that.

And I say to these hyenas.
Have it all. Take it all. Swallow it. Gulp it down. Gob it up. And choke and die on it.
Take Iraq. Take it all.
This is no longer our country.

Mother said ” May God guide them “.
Auntie Sameera said : ” Umm Layla, are you crazy ? Why do you pray for their guidance”
To which Mother replied : ” So maybe they will turn their attention elsewhere, away from us and forget about us…”

Yes take it all and forget about us.

So when some bastard writes to me calling me a “negative, whining, drama queen” because I am not using my “talents” to “uplift” the arrogant western minds into “Forgiveness and Beauty” – Notice how the occupier asks the occupied to uplift him/her!

I offer this postcard from Iraq instead of my usual “whining”.
It does have a “positive” side to it. Raouf is still alive but a very broken man who is willing to become a street sweeper or a beggar in Damascus rather than stay one more minute in “Free” Iraq.

Some of the accused behind the recent terror plots in Britain were professional healers. What on earth prompts someone to snap from caregiver to killer?

Counterterrorism officials have expressed astonishment that physicians and medical personnel appear to have been behind the recent terror plots involving car bombs in Britain. Physicians swear the Hippocratic oath to do no harm, and are in a caring profession aimed at healing, not killing. This puzzlement, however, betrays a lack of understanding of how members of small terrorist cells think and what motivates them. How, indeed, could a physician plan to inflict mayhem and lethal violence on club-goers or airline passengers?

Last Tuesday, a former Muslim militant, Shiraz Maher, dropped a bombshell in an interview on the BBC’s “Newsnight,” saying he had known one of the alleged perpetrators, Dr. Bilal Abdullah, a Sunni Iraqi, when Abdullah was at Cambridge. Dr. Abdullah, he said, “actively cheered the deaths of British and American troops in Iraq.” From an elite Sunni medical family, born in the U.K. but raised in Baghdad, Abdullah attended the upscale al-Mansour high school and Baghdad College. Abdullah’s family and friends have been targeted by Shiites in the past, according to recent news reports, although Abdullah reportedly had converted to the radical Salafi Jihadi form of Sunnism even before the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime. He is alleged to have hated Shiites, whom he considered apostates. He is also said to have come under the influence, while in Iraq, of the Sunni fundamentalist cleric Sheikh Ahmad al-Kubaisi, of the Association of Muslim Scholars.

Although not all the suspects so far detained in the attacks may be presumed guilty, Dr. Abdullah was arrested at the scene, on fire. He likely believed that Britain and the U.S. were responsible for the hundreds of thousands of deaths in Iraq — though this is a gross simplification of a complex war — and that the imperial powers had fatally marginalized Iraq’s formerly dominant Sunni Arabs in favor of Iran-linked Shiites and separatist Kurds.

Abdullah’s actions are consistent with the research findings of University of Chicago political scientist Robert Pape, who found that most suicide bombers are protesting what they see as the humiliating occupation of their country by a foreign military. He theorized that the bombings are intended to affect public opinion, and so to bring about changes in political attitudes in the occupying country toward the occupiers. Although the other alleged cell members are not Iraqis, they would have agreed that a key region of the Muslim world is occupied by Western troops, and felt similar outrage. At least one of the other plotters is thought to be from a Palestinian family displaced to Jordan by the rise of Israel, another source of anger in the Muslim world over occupation of Arab land.

Yet, the actions of the group in Britain were too erratic and error-prone to be the result of careful political planning. And the self-immolation by some of them raises questions as to their deeper mind-set. Terrorists imagine the world in black and white, as full of demons and angels, and place themselves on the side of the angels. Sociologist Mark Juergensmeyer has called this way of thinking “cosmic war.” Small terrorist cells arise in part because their members develop a specific way of looking at the world, which they reinforce for one another in everyday interactions. As the group becomes more and more distinct in its views from the society around it — and more isolated — its members can cross boundaries of reason and human sentiment, becoming monstrous.

Although immoral, external military operations of past empires often proved profitable, and therefore justifiable on economic grounds. Military actions abroad usually brought economic benefits not only to the imperial ruling classes, but also (through “trickle-down” effects) to their citizens. Thus, for example, imperialism paid significant dividends to Britain, France, the Dutch, and other European powers of the seventeenth, eighteenth, nineteenth, and early twentieth centuries. As the imperial economic gains helped develop their economies, they also helped improve the living conditions of their working people and elevate the standards of living of their citizens.

This pattern of economic gains flowing from imperial military operations, however, seems to have somewhat changed in the context of the recent U.S. imperial wars of choice, especially in the post-Cold War period. Moralities aside, U.S. military expeditions and operations of late are not justifiable even on economic grounds. Indeed, escalating U.S. military expansions and aggressions have become ever more wasteful, cost-inefficient, and burdensome to the overwhelming majority of its citizens.

Therefore, recent imperial policies of the United States can be called parasitic imperialism because such policies of aggression are often prompted not so much by a desire to expand the empire’s wealth beyond the existing levels, as did the imperial powers of the past, but by a desire to appropriate the lion’s share of the existing wealth and treasure for the military establishment, especially for the war-profiteering Pentagon contractors. It can also be called dual imperialism because not only does it exploit the conquered and the occupied abroad but also the overwhelming majority of U.S. citizens and their resources at home.

Since imperial policies abroad are widely discussed by others, I will focus here on parasitic military imperialism at home, that is, on what might be called domestic or internal imperialism. Specifically, I will argue that parasitic imperialism (1) redistributes national income or resources in favor of the wealthy; (2) undermines the formation of public capital (both physical and human); (3) weakens national defenses against natural disasters; (4) accumulates national debt and threatens economic/financial stability; (5) spoils external or foreign markets for non-military U.S. transnational capital; (6) undermines civil liberties and democratic values; and (7) fosters a dependence on or addiction to military spending and, therefore, leads to an spiraling vicious circle of war and militarism. (The terms domestic imperialism, internal imperialism, parasitic imperialism, and military imperialism are used synonymously or interchangeably in this article.)

1. Parasitic Imperialism Redistributes National Income from the Bottom to the Top

Even without the costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which are fast surpassing half a trillion dollars, U.S. military spending is now the largest item in the Federal budget. President Bush’s proposed increase of 10% for next year will raise the Pentagon budget to over half a trillion dollars for fiscal year 2008. A proposed supplemental appropriation to pay for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq “brings proposed military spending for FY 2008 to $647.2 billion, the highest level of military spending since the end of World War II-higher than Vietnam, higher than Korea, higher than the peak of the Reagan buildup.”[1]

The skyrocketing Pentagon budget has been a boon for its contractors. This is clearly reflected in the continuing rise of the value of the contractors’ shares in the stock market: “Shares of U.S. defense companies, which have nearly trebled since the beginning of the occupation of Iraq, show no signs of slowing down. . . . The feeling that makers of ships, planes and weapons are just getting into their stride has driven shares of leading Pentagon contractors Lockheed Martin Corp., Northrop Grumman Corp., and General Dynamics Corp. to all-time highs.”[2]

But while the Pentagon contractors and other beneficiaries of war dividends are showered with public money, low- and middle-income Americans are squeezed out of economic or subsistence resources in order to make up for the resulting budgetary shortfalls. For example, as the official Pentagon budget for 2008 fiscal year is projected to rise by more than 10 percent, or nearly $50 billion, “a total of 141 government programs will be eliminated or sharply reduced” to pay for the increase. These would include cuts in housing assistance for low-income seniors by 25 percent, home heating/energy assistance to low-income people by 18 percent, funding for community development grants by 12.7 percent, and grants for education and employment training by 8 percent.[3]

Combined with redistributive militarism and generous tax cuts for the wealthy, these cuts have further exacerbated the ominously growing income inequality that started under President Reagan. Ever since Reagan arrived in the White House in 1980, opponents of non-military public spending have been using an insidious strategy to cut social spending, to reverse the New Deal and other social safety net programs, and to redistribute national/public resources in favor of the wealthy. That cynical strategy consists of a combination of drastic increases in military spending coupled with equally drastic tax cuts for the wealthy. As this combination creates large budget deficits, it then forces cuts in non-military public spending (along with borrowing) to fill the gaps thus created.

For example, at the same time that President Bush is planning to raise military spending by $50 billion for the next fiscal year, he is also proposing to make his affluent-targeted tax cuts permanent at a cost of $1.6 trillion over 10 years, or an average yearly cut of $160 billion. Simultaneously, “funding for domestic discretionary programs would be cut a total of $114 billion” in order to pay for these handouts to the rich. The projected cuts include over 140 programs that provide support for the basic needs of low- and middle-income families such as elementary and secondary education, job training, environmental protection, veterans’ health care, medical research, Meals on Wheels, child care and HeadStart, low-income home energy assistance, and many more.[4]

According to the Urban Institute­Brookings Institution Tax Policy Center, “if the President’s tax cuts are made permanent, households in the top 1 percent of the population (currently those with incomes over $400,000) will receive tax cuts averaging $67,000 a year by 2012. . . . The tax cuts for those with incomes of over $1 million a year would average $162,000 a year by 2012.”[5]

Official macroeconomic figures show that, over the past five decades or so, government spending (at the federal, state and local levels) as a percentage of gross national product (GNP) has remained fairly steady-at about 20 percent. Given this nearly constant share of the public sector of national output/income, it is not surprising that increases in military spending have almost always been accompanied or followed by compensating decreases in non-military public spending, and vice versa.

For example, when by virtue of FDR’s New Deal reforms and LBJ’s metaphorical War on Poverty, the share of non-military government spending rose significantly the share of military spending declined accordingly. From the mid 1950s to the mid 1970s, the share of non-military government spending of GNP rose from 9.2 to 14.3 percent, an increase of 5.1 percent. During that time period, the share of military spending of GNP declined from 10.1 to 5.8 percent, a decline of 4.3 percent.[6]

That trend was reversed when President Reagan took office in 1980. In the early 1980s, as President Reagan drastically increased military spending, he also just as drastically lowered tax rates on higher incomes. The resulting large budget deficits were then paid for by more than a decade of steady cuts on non-military spending.

Likewise, the administration of President George W. Bush has been pursuing a similarly sinister fiscal policy of cutting non-military public spending in order to pay for the skyrocketing military spending and the generous tax cuts for the affluent.

Interestingly (though not surprisingly), changes in income inequality have mirrored changes in government spending priorities, as reflected in the fiscal policies of different administrations. Thus, for example, when from the mid 1950 to the mid 1970s the share of non-military public spending rose relative to that of military spending, income inequality declined accordingly.

But as President Reagan reversed that fiscal policy by raising the share of military spending relative to non-military public spending and cutting taxes for the wealthy, income inequality also rose considerably. As Reagan’s twin policies of drastic increases in military spending and equally sweeping tax cuts for the rich were somewhat tempered in the 1990s, growth in income inequality slowed down accordingly. In the 2000s, however, the ominous trends that were left off by President Reagan have been picked up by President George W. Bush: increasing military spending, decreasing taxes for the rich, and (thereby) exacerbating income inequality.

The following are some specific statistics of how redistributive militarism and supply-side fiscal policies have exacerbated income inequality since the late 1970s and early 1980s-making after-tax income gaps wider than pre-tax ones. According to recently released data by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), since 1979 income gains among high-income households have dwarfed those of middle- and low-income households. Specifically:

The average after-tax income of the top one percent of the population nearly tripled, rising from $314,000 to nearly $868,000-for a total increase of $554,000, or 176 percent. (Figures are adjusted by CBO for inflation.) By contrast, the average after-tax income of the middle fifth of the population rose a relatively modest 21 percent, or $8,500, reaching $48,400 in 2004.

The average after-tax income of the poorest fifth of the population rose just 6 percent, or $800, during this period, reaching $14,700 in 2004.[7]

Legislation enacted since 2001 has provided taxpayers with about $1 trillion in tax cuts over the past six years. These large tax reductions have made the distribution of after-tax income more unequal by further concentrating income at the top of the income range. According to the Urban Institute­Brookings Institution Tax Policy Center, as a result of the tax cuts enacted since 2001, in 2006 households in the bottom fifth of the income spectrum received tax cuts averaging only $20; households in the middle fifth of the income range received tax cuts averaging $740; households in the top one percent received tax cuts averaging $44,200; and households with incomes exceeding $1 million received an average tax cut of $118,000.[8]

2. Parasitic Imperialism Undermines Public Capital-both Physical and Human