The Rag Blog

All my forewarnings have suddenly been actualised, all at once: Gaza has descended into total and utter chaos; Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has capitulated to Israel and to the United States without a shred of reservation; and the Palestinian democratic experiment, which was until recently an astounding success, has been smashed to pieces.

For years I have been warning of a civil war starting in Gaza. I wrote about it in my last book, The Second Palestinian Intifada. I warned via every media platform available that there are too many hands working to ensure the demise of the Palestinian national project, both from within and without. I urged Palestinians not to fall into rhetoric. I saw very clearly that the fragmentation of Palestinian national identity — an outcome of two combined realities: one stemming from the post-Oslo political culture, the other from Israel’s Bantustan ghettos imposed in the West Bank and the total isolation of Gaza — was almost perfected. I’ve toured many cities in many countries taking on Palestinian division, worried that Palestinians will reach a point where they no longer identify themselves as such, but as ideological and tribal extensions of factions and sub-factions.

In recent months I became belligerent — in the eyes of some — in my frankness. Not one public speech I gave would conclude without a few Palestinians abandoning the gathering; either Fatah loyalists furious over my chastisement of Abbas, Fatah leader Mohamed Dahlan and the rest of the clique for their corruption and deviation from the aspirations of their own people; or Islamists, angry for my suggesting that Hamas shouldn’t act as the sole proprietor of the Palestinian narrative, despite their parliamentary majority, but merely as a conduit for Palestinian constants and the will of the Palestinian people. My comments were not always popular: they ruffled many feathers, and recently they cost me my job.

The devastating embargo imposed on Palestinians after the Hamas landslide victory in January 2006, didn’t produce the results publicly projected. To the contrary, it greatly hampered the American “democratic” experiment in the Middle East. Everywhere I travelled since, I have witnessed a sense of giddiness and much hope being pinned on Hamas’s rise in politics. Thus it was resolved that Hamas had to be removed, with Abbas’s Preventive Security Forces, riddled with corruption, entrusted with the task. Dahlan, man of the hour, was given the Israeli and American nod. His Palestinian “Contras” wreaked havoc: kidnapping, assassinating and provoking endless feuds.

One can well imagine what impact such meddling would have, knowing that Gaza is essentially a huge open-air prison. I was a prisoner there until the age of 21. I remember how people picked fights for no convincing reason — isolation, hunger and hopelessness lead to self-destruction. The US and the EU took part in the siege and embargo, and Israel’s bombardment never ceased, not even for one day. Hundreds of besieged Palestinians have been blown to shreds by Israeli bombs. Their only mechanism of defence has been makeshift Qassam “missiles” that have killed no more than a dozen Israelis in six years. Thousands of Palestinians were killed in Gaza during the same period. Gaza bore all the signs that warned of disaster and civil war was looming, it was one assassin’s bullet away — one provocative statement, one kidnapping.

The pressure Hamas faced as a result was insurmountable. The movement had reached the limits of political concessions; any more would be considered a retreat from its political platform and could lead to fragmentation within its own ranks. Yet a state of isolation from within (Fatah’s total control over the 10 branches of the security apparatus), and from without (the US-led international embargo that called for Hamas’s removal), was sure to weaken Hamas and eventually deprive it of popular support. The decision was thus made that Hamas must take its chances and push for what it termed the “second liberation of Gaza”.

Now the situation is very bleak. Hamas is in control of Gaza, and Abbas and Fatah are in control of as much in the West Bank as Israel allows. This places Palestine’s destiny back in the US neo-conservative court.

Dividing the West Bank and Gaza appears central to the agenda: “This turn of events frees Abbas to focus on the much more manageable West Bank, where he can depend on the Israeli Defense Forces to suppress challenges from Hamas, and on Jordan and the United States to help rebuild his security forces,” wrote Martin Indyk, the pro-Israel lobbyist in Washington, in The Washington Post, 15 June. Most American mainstream editorials are sounding the same message. And various Arab governments, the EU, the US and Israel are flocking to back Abbas. Money, weapons and political legitimacy are being bestowed upon him from all directions. The once irrelevant leader is now the darling of the international community; the sanctions set to be lifted on his emergency government, which he has appointed after sacking the unity government, an unconstitutional act by all standards.

Israeli officials cannot imagine a more satisfactory scenario. The new experiment suggests that the West Bank will be lavished with aid and Gaza will be starved further. This is the pinnacle of injustice, and as always the US and Israel take centre stage, directing the show. Abbas and his men are presented as the true heroes, already making their debut as the true and legitimate face of Palestinian democracy, a democracy determined by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, not the Palestinians.

A number of major pharmaceutical corporations and biotech firms are concealing the nature of the biological warfare research work they are doing for the U.S. government.

Since their funding comes from the National Institutes of Health, the recipients are obligated under NIH guidelines to make their activities public. Not disclosing their ops raises the suspicion they may be engaged in forbidden kinds of germ warfare research.

According to the Sunshine Project, a nonprofit arms control watchdog operating out of Austin, Texas, among corporations holding back information about their activities are:

Abbott Laboratories, BASF Plant Science, Bristol-Myers Squibb, DuPont Central Research and Development, Eli Lilly Corp., Embrex, GlaxoSmithKline, Hoffman-LaRoche, Merck & Co., Monsanto, Pfizer Inc., Schering-Plough Research Institute, and Syngenta Corp. of Switzerland.

In case you didn’t know it, the White House since 9/11 has called for spending $44-billion on biological warfare research, a sum unprecedented in world history, and an obliging Congress has authorized it.

Thus, some of the deadliest pathogens known to humankind are being rekindled in hundreds of labs in pharmaceutical houses, university biology departments, and on military bases.

An international convention the U.S. signed forbids it to stockpile, manufacture or use biological weapons. But if the U.S. won’t say what’s going down in those laboratories other countries are going to assume the worst and a biowarfare arms race will be on, if it isn’t already.

Sunshine says failure to disclose operations also puts corporate employees involved in this work at risk. Only 8,500, or 16%, of the 52,000 workers employed at the top 20 U.S. biotech firms work at an NIH guidelines-compliant company, Sunshine says.

Francis Boyle, an international law authority at the University of Illinois, Champaign, says pursuant to national strategy directives adopted by Bush in 2002, the Pentagon “is now gearing up to fight and win’ biological warfare without prior public knowledge and review.” Boyle said the Pentagon’s Chemical and Biological Defense Program was revised in 2003 to endorse “first-use” strike in war. Boyle said the program includes Red Teaming, which he described as “plotting, planning, and scheming how to use biowarfare.”

Besides the big pharmaceutical houses, the biowarfare buildup is getting an enthusiastic response from academia, which sees new funds flowing from Washington’s horn of plenty. “American universities have a long history of willingly permitting their research agenda, researchers, institutes and laboratories to be co-opted, corrupted, and perverted by the Pentagon and the CIA,” Boyle says.

What’s more, the Bush administration is pouring billions in biowarfare research while some very real killers, such as influenza, are not being cured.

In 2006, the NIH got $120 million to combat influenza, which kills about 36,000 Americans annually but it got $1.76 billion for biodefense, much of it spent to research anthrax. How many people has anthrax killed lately? Well, let’s see, there were those five people killed in the mysterious attacks on Congress of October, 2001 — attacks that suspiciously emanated from a government laboratory at Fort Detrick, Md.

One would think the FBI might apprehend the perpetrator whose attack shut down the Congress of the United States but nearly six years have gone by and it hasn’t caught anybody. Seem a bit odd to you? Some folks suspect the anthrax attack was an inside job to panic the country into a huge biowarfare buildup to “protect” America from “terrorists.”

Milton Leitenberg, of the University of Maryland’s School of Public Policy, though, says the risk of terrorists and nonstate actors using biological agents against the U.S. “has been systematically and deliberately exaggerated” by administration scare-mongering.

And molecular biologist Jonathan King of Massachusetts Institute of Technology says, “the Bush administration launched a major program which threatens to put the health of our people at far greater risk than the hazard to which they claimed to have been responding.” King added President Bush’s policies “do not increase the security of the American people” but “bring new risk to our population of the most appalling kind.”

In the absence of any credible foreign threat, Sunshine’s Hammond said, “Our biowarfare research is defending ourselves from ourselves. It’s a dog chasing its tail.” Sadly, it looks more and more every day like a mad dog.

In March 2007, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez spoke in Ciudad de Leon, Nicaragua’s second largest city, and he summed up the thing we call the Latin American Revolution:

“There are new winds blowing in Argentina, Bolivia, Ecuador, Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Cuba that allow these to form an axis of popular forces, of progressive, revolutionary, and socialist governments, which cross the entire American continent to consolidate the union of the people and to defeat the empire and its new offensive.” – President Hugo Chavez Frias

In other words, the Chavez said the “new winds” consist of an array of political and ideological forces, blowing, so far, in six countries. The most noticeable omission is Brazil where an “axis of popular forces” surely exists and the government is sometimes described as, at least , “progressive.”

What is interesting, among other things, about Chavez’s comment about “new winds” is his division of the politics of the region into something he calls an “axis of popular forces” and “governments.” These “governments” themselves appear to be specific items within the “axis of popular forces.”

Chavez goes on and divides the governments into three kinds:

* Progressive
* Revolutionary
* Socialist

Chavez could also apply this threefold division, not only to governments but also to the “axis of popular forces.”

CHÁVEZ: THE THREE-FOLD DIVISION

The gist of “socialist” seems to be mainly an economic thing that entails the distribution or redistribution, usually by the state, of the national income or the gross domestic product, in large part, to the working, poor, and middle classes or, in other words, a redistribution of national income away from the bourgeoisie. Chavez didn’t identify which of the six governments he views as socialist, but he probably referred only to Cuba and views the Venezuelan government as only socialist-oriented, not socialist, because the redistribution of national income is not yet large enough or complete.

The gist of both “progressive” and “revolutionary” as concepts seem to be primarily political in nature and not necessarily economic.

Both words are defined or used in many ways.

LENIN’S CONCEPT OF REVOLUTION

If Chavez had Lenin in mind when he spoke in Nicaragua about revolutionary things, he probably meant something like “The passing of state power from one class to another is the first – the principal – the basic sign of a revolution.” See Lenin’s “First Letter on Tactics” (1917).

In other words, the passing of power from the millionaires to the workers is … concretely … a revolutionary move.

Lenin’s definition of revolution implies that the bouncing around of power from one sector of a class, say from US bourgeois reactionaries, to another sector of the same class, say to the US bourgeois liberals and is not a revolution, but only a change of government and it may even be less. Again, a revolution, according to Lenin and those who follow Lenin, requires the passing of power outside of the old class and into a new class.

Chavez didn’t identify which of the six countries have undergone revolutions, but he probably meant only Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia, and perhaps Nicaragua.

There are cases of the passing of power from one class to another but one of the classes is domestic to the power and the other is foreign. One example is the current struggle between the Iraqi patriotic bourgeoisie against the aggression, occupation, and bestiality of the US imperialist bourgeoisie. The 18th century struggle of the US bourgeoisie led by George Washington against the UK imperialists serves as another example.

Are these struggles revolutionary in character although they are between the same socio-economic strata from different countries?

It is very difficult to make sense out of the word “progressive” because everybody, except Lenin, seems to make up their own definitions for convenience and propaganda. But using Lenin’s definition of revolution, we may be able to understand what the term, “progressive” is all about. To some, “Progressive” appears to be the passing of power among classes or to a sector of a class that is closer to the working class or, at least, to the revolutionaries within the working class.

Progressive change is not truly revolutionary because the class to which power passes, say to the liberal sector of the bourgeoisie or to the middle class, bears too many similarities to the class or sector from which power passed in the first place.

Some political abstentionists or people who holler for the need for non-participatory politics argue that all sectors of the bourgeoisie, are equally distant politically from the workers and the poor. Therefore, they say, the passing of power from the bourgeois reactionaries, like PAN in Mexico, to the bourgeois liberal, like PRD in Mexico, is not even “progressive.”

Again, Chavez didn’t identify which of the six countries are progressive, but he probably meant Argentina and perhaps both Ecuador and Nicaragua.

Returning to those abstentionists or the people who yell for non-participatory politics: They don’t seem to want power to pass from one class to another or from one sector of a class to another sector. They seem to want power to pass from existence to non-existence. This passing of power into non-existence is what they call “revolution.” Abstentionists deny that their intent is to help power remain where it presently lodges in bourgeois society although this is sometimes the result of their hollering.

As a rule, power passes from one class to another as a result of armed or electoral struggle; so, when we renounce both armed and electoral struggle, we want power to remain where it presently lodges.
Impressionistically, this seems to mean that about 90 percent of people are neither revolutionary nor counter-revolutionary, that is, people who want power to pass backward. This 90 percent does not want power to pass either forward or backward, they want it to remain where it presently lodges.

We can add that most progressives and most socialists are not revolutionaries, in the Leninist sense, because the passing of power to the workers is not the “first” and “principal” thing, but only something incidental or undesirable to most of the progressive/socialist type.

Revolutionaries, about whom Chavez speaks, are a distinct specie within the genus of the political Left.

FIVE COUNTRIES ON HUGO CHAVEZ’S LIST

Now we should take a quick look at five of the six countries on Chavez’s list, revisiting with each of them the concepts of progressive, revolutionary, and perhaps socialist as well as estimating the size of the “axis of popular forces” in the country.

We will conclude with Nicaragua, thereby saving the best for last.

1. Argentina

In Argentina, the liberal wing of the bourgeoisie obviously has the power. According to the latest opinion polls, the “axis of popular forces” backing the liberal bourgeois regime appear to consist of an astounding 65 percent of the people and electorate. The progressive government in Buenos Aires is anti-imperialist and bold in the defense of its sovereignty. Economically, Argentine President Nestor Kirchner redistributes the national income favoring somewhat the Argentine bourgeoisie over the foreign imperialist creditors. Kirchner has also increased discernibly the amount of the national income that goes to wages and salaries of the working and middle classes and the amount of the national income that goes to social programs — health care, education, housing , nutrition — in lieu of wages and salaries of the working and middle classes.

Although power has passed to the liberals, many of the senior positions of the regime … especially in the military, police and judiciary … remain in the hands of reactionaries. So, not all of the power has passed. These reactionaries of the Argentine bourgeoisie are bestial, depraved, compulsively genocidal, and generally rotten to the core. But the liberals, who enjoy political legitimacy and prestige, seem to have a firm grip of the executive power, especially the bureaucracy, outside of the military and police.

2. Ecuador

It’s too early for us to make heads or tails about what is going on Ecuador. Hugo Chavez only promises that Ecuador will be either progressive or revolutionary or socialist. Nobody seems to know whether Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa is a revolutionary or something else. Correa describes himself as ” a humanist and a Christian of the Left.” If Correa is what he says he is, then he may be the most revolutionary of the bunch. But it is very clear that power is passing away from the reactionary and pro-imperialist sector of the bourgeoisie. But nobody seems to know where power is ultimately headed — perhaps to the liberal bourgeois like in Argentina, to some kind of middle class thing, or to class conscious workers. We haven’t seen as yet an attempt at a major redistribution of national income in favor of the workers, the poor, and middle class, but Correa seems intent on moderating the amount of national income that goes to pay the foreign debt which was a whopping 45 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP) when Correa took office.

The IMF and World Bank are very much alarmed by Correa’s presidency. The “axis of popular forces” backing Correa seem to constitute about 55 percent of the people and electorate under the current bourgeois constitution. Correa has very properly concentrated much of his time on rewriting the bourgeois constitution. Significant issues of stratification and discrimination both horizontal, such as class and other strata, and vertical, such as nationality, gender, and race complicates the analysis of the class struggle, both of the people against the rich and the rich against the people. The rewriting of the bourgeois constitution which presently, among other things, favors descendents of European immigrants over the indigenous peoples and those of mixed ancestry should alter the balance of what Hugo Chavez calls the “axis of popular forces” and reshape the course of the class struggle for decades.

3. Bolivia

Bolivia resembles Ecuador in respect to serious problems of both class and vertical differences in society. Perhaps the Bolivian problems in this regard are more serious than those in Ecuador. In Bolivia, the power, especially most of the executive power, seems to have passed to revolutionary workers. Reactionaries, centrists, and liberals are still ensconced in the legislative and judicial powers. Although Bolivian President Evo Morales and his revolutionaries seem to be in charge, he has truly reached out to almost all strata and sectors of society in appointing officials for the executive power.

The revolutionary government in La Paz expropriated some of the means of production and raised prices of its products, significantly increasing the amount of the national income. The revolutionaries in power are trying to moderate the amount of the GDP that goes to the foreign debt and fund social programs, especially for education, health care, and nutrition. The government is exploring creative ways to bring a large sector of the poor which is effectively outside of the workings of the economy into the sphere of wage labor. Bolivia also resembles Ecuador in the difficulties it faces in rewriting the bourgeois constitution which now rigs the political struggle in favor of the rich and the privileged. Like Ecuador, again, the axis of popular forces backing the revolution seem to consist of about 55 percent of the population and electorate under the current constitutional set-up.

4. Cuba

As for Cuba, it’s more difficult in the absence of opinion poll data and in the presence of multi-candidate, rather multi-party elections, to estimate the size of the “axis of popular forces” backing the Havana government. But many observers feel comfortable with the estimate that a staggering 80 percent of the Cuban people and electorate support the revolutionary government. A reported 97 percent of the officials of the revolutionary government in Cuba are workers. [I have no idea what the other 3 percent are.] The overwhelming mass of the national income goes straight to the people either as wages or as social services. Some foreign private capital is present and gets a modest share of the GDP in the form of profits, interest payments, commodities, and bourgeois salaries. Cuba is as much of a draw to revolution and socialism as Venezuela because Cuban Revolution has given the highest standard of living to its people of all the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean if we use indices of health care, education, housing, nutrition, and public access to the arts as the chief indicators of living standards of the people. Cuba shows and proves that socialism works, despite the interminable and savage hostility of US imperialists.

5. Venezuela

The political and ideological composition of the government of Venezuela resembles that of Bolivia. At the core of government is a force of extremely sophisticated proletarian revolutionaries from both the theoretical and organizational points of view. But around this revolutionary core is a plethora of “progressive” forces, including elements of the middle class and patriotic elements of the bourgeoisie. In April 2002, some of the bourgeois elements in the regime, especially in the military and police, grew fangs and attacked the revolution, seeking in a counter-revolution to pass power back to the most reactionary sectors of the bourgeoisie. But, in April 2002, the “axis of popular forces” backing the revolutionary government was something like 58 percent of the people and electorate; so, the counter-revolution barely lasted two days.

President Hugo Chavez has presided over a monumental redistribution of the national income in favor of workers, poor, and middle class at the expense of the domestic bourgeoisie and the foreign imperialists. It’s difficult to say whether the mass of the gross domestic product still flows as dividends, interest payments, rents, and bourgeois salaries to the Venezuelan bourgeoisie and the imperialists. In any case, bourgeoisie and the imperialists have certainly lost a lot of ground in Venezuela in respect to their former access to the national income. What is distinct and exciting about the Venezuelan Revolution is the colossal amount of power that has already passed to the revolutionaries.

In 1999, the revolutionaries and their diverse allies had a grip only on the bureaucracy in the executive power; but today, their grip extends to the military, central bank, and the state oil company. Only parts of the police, which collude with US imperialists and organized crime, are still “off the reservation” in the executive power. The legislative power is surprisingly pure. As for the judicial power, the revolutionaries and the progressives are in charge, but this branch of the power is plagued by a foul reactionary and bourgeois presence. The revolution, here, has reached the mopping up stage.

Another distinctive characteristic of the Venezuelan Revolution is its profound proletarian and humanitarian internationalism.

Wealth is never created by destroying things. This is extreme capitalism killing itself.” ~ Leuren Moret, June 20, 2007

An unprecedented event is scheduled to take place Sunday, June 24, 2007 in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, at the Vancouver 9/11 Truth Conference. At this 9/11 Conference, Independent Scientist and world-renowned Uranium Weapons radiation expert, Leuren Moret, and International Lawyer Alfred Webre, J.D., M.Ed., will be calling publicly for the establishment of an International Citizen’s 9/11 War Crimes Tribunal.

The only disappointing aspect about this event is that 300 Million Americans will not be around to watch – and celebrate – this historical announcement, as it will be taking place in Canada. One certainly hopes that somebody remembers to bring a video camera.

Almost six years have passed since the horrific crimes which have permanently etched graphic, disturbing images into the world’s collective memory. September 11, 2001 was a day filled with tragedies of incalculable devastation and loss in which countless homes, lives, and dreams were obliterated in not much more than the blink of an eye.

But this is not just an American deal. Sure, the lives of 3,000 Americans and those who loved them were shattered that day; but for millions of Middle Easterners daily existence has been forever contaminated with the lingering, cumulative effects of radioactive, infinitesimal, invisible Uranium aerosols of war that the self-proclaimed deliverers of “democracy”-American-style, continue to spew, forever poisoning the air, water, soil and food supply.

In addition to the massive Uranium poisoning effectively conducted with the occupying military’s weapons of war, the events of September 11 forever obliterated any sense of “normal” life, as we in the United States used to know it, beginning the very moment the massive heinous killing spree was first reported.

One could say that America has become the land of the walking zombie – with citizens controlled by fear and a rapidly growing, alarming cognizance that our government, once looked upon as a benign entity that functioned as caretaker, dedicated to looking after its populace’s needs, health, and pursuit of happiness, is nothing more than a brutal police state heavily entrenched in fascist ideology; it is seen to be hiding behind a cross and a flag while single-mindedly hell-bent on imperialistic crusades in search of ever more resources, power, and control – but only for those who pull the strings, naturally … and their wealthy friends.

When I first heard about the upcoming announcement of the International Citizen’s 9/11 War Crimes Tribunal, I realized that if Leuren Moret, arguably the nation’s most ardent, knowledgeable, and passionate anti-Uranium weapons voice was involved, that this must be the “real thing”. I was also familiar with Alfred Webe, J.D., M.Ed., who had, to his tremendous credit, initiated The September 11 Treason Independent Prosecutor Act.

Still, I admit to being more than a bit curious to discover the driving force behind the pursuit of justice for the False Flag war crimes of 9/11, when the entire US government had long ago washed its hands of the matter. In short, while my heart pounded wildly at the words “International Citizen’s 9/11 War Crimes Tribunal”, I could not help but think, as righteous as this effort might sound: would it – could it – possibly, really, actually work?

To find out what was driving this action, I first approached Leuren Moret. She has earned a M.A. degree with completed coursework for a Ph.D., and is an independent geo-scientist and environmental commissioner for the City of Berkeley, California. She has provided expert testimony on numerous occasions, including the Tokyo International Tribunal for War Crimes in Afghanistan, the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Conference, the World Depleted Uranium Weapons Conference in Hamburg, Germany, and a Public Hearing for the ICTA in Manila, Philippines. Moret also serves on the organizing committees of the World Committee on Radiation Risk and International Criminal Tribunal for Iraq and has written volumes on the topic of Uranium weapons of war.

I asked Moret what made her want to become involved with calling for a Citizen’s 9/11 War Crimes Tribunal. She replied, “I don’t think there is any choice. Someone has to stop it, and hold the perpetrators accountable.”

I should have figured that this would be her reply, as Moret had previously written about tracking radiation from Depleted Uranium at the Pentagon. It was obvious that she did not believe the pre-packaged caveman story either.

Wondering what outcome did she think – or hope – this might have, Moret replied encouragingly: “People are beginning to act, and to think, and to get in touch with their anger. That becomes the power to fight back and to feel empowered. If we are able to reach our spiritual energy and our real potential, the perpetrators will soon be chased down the street, caught, and hanging from the gallows.”

In complete candor, the visual that phrase conjured up was one I had never before so graphically contemplated. Admittedly, as loathe as one might be to admit out loud to such gruesome thinking, the image of the war-making civilian-killers from Washington, in their designer suits and star-emblazoned, military-green uniforms, lifelessly dangling from the tallest old oak trees inside Lafayette Park, holds a certain fascinating – while undoubtedly macabre – appeal.

Well, if you stop to think about it for a moment, what punishment, would be just, proper, and fitting for such beasts-in-human-form-only who have, quite literally, knowingly, and radioactively contaminated not “only” several nations, but an entire planet for all eternity?

Moret continued, “It’s a process. Getting people into the process is the most important step. After that, it takes on its own path and dynamic and we just need to be there engaged in the process. I know. That’s how it happened to me … Suddenly you look around and say, ‘How did I get here?’, and realize you are doing the most important work you have ever done … and you feel nothing but the incredible lightness of being. And you realize that all these other light beings are swarming around you helping … and that is exactly what is happening. It is not hierarchical or structured, it is more like insects swarming … a global diffuse and very powerful movement that cannot be attacked or defeated.”

Further elaborating with the sense of an individual who had given intense contemplation on her purpose in this mission, Moret explained, “It’s beautiful, it’s effortless, and it’s done with the greatest sense of joy and love in the world… and we are all working side by side.

There is nothing to fear but fear itself. Toss it away, dismiss it, give it no thought or power. Just start doing…”

For God’s sake, tell me where to begin?

I was set out to write about Father’s day and the thousands of fatherless Iraqi children.The thousands of killed fathers, the thousands of fathers trying desperately hard to feed their families, daily putting their lives at great risk, in a country gripped by demonic violence. The exiled fathers, selling scraps in Amman and Damascus, bearing the brunt of daily insults. Or the unemployed fathers, feeling torn inside watching their kids go hungry. Or maybe the head bent down father, slouched posture, hiding scars beneath a worn out shirt. The father that has been imprisoned, humiliated, tortured and sodomized, unable to look his children in the eyes…

Or maybe I should write about sexual torture and sodomy instead…

The further horrors emerging from Abu Ghraib and the Taguba report…
More reports of “abuse”. And I am sure Abu Ghraib is not over. I am certain that more Abu Ghraibs are taking place in Iraq, in those shadowy detention centers…
Abu Ghraib.
An American brave boy caught with his pants down, sodomizing an Iraqi female detainee. I cannot stomach the scene and will prepare a longer post on that, to expurgate your filth… Torn rectums and feces come to mind.

Wait, I think I will write about feces instead…

An orphanage in Baghdad. 24 young boys founds laying naked in their own pool of excrements, starved, covered with feces and flies, hands tied to bare metal beds.
With the “liberation”, the main orphanage of Baghdad was bombed. Of course no one spoke of that one. Hundreds of children took to the streets and were trafficked in, traded in.
UNICEF wrote a brief report on it but then it disappeared from their website.
Trading in dollars for each child’s head, like in a slave market, exported to neighboring Gulf countries as…only Allah knows as what…

Heads and more heads…Perhaps I need to write about rolling heads…

A leaked autopsy report from the Iraqi ministry of Health (what an oxymoron that title is) states that Barzan Al-Tikriti’s head was very slowly slit with a sharp instrument whilst his body showed bruises from kicks. They slowly severed his head, very slowly and kicked his jolting body at the same time, in another pool of blood…

Severed…Wait, maybe I should write about forced circumcision in Basrah. A public castration. Another bloody scene.

Mahdi Militiamen (remember Mahdi, your darling drill boy?)rounded up a group of Sabaeans. Sabaeans are one of the oldest “ethnic” groups in Iraq, converting them by force. At gun and drill point, they agreed to embrace the Mahdi creed.
An old Sabaean of 70 years, with a beard reaching his belly, was circumcised.
Bloody severed foreskin.

Did I say blood? Which reminds me of Othman’s blood clot, stuck in his leg…

“Layla I need some blood thinner, I need aspirin – Help me for God’s sake”.
Othman cannot leave the house, cannot get to a pharmacy, cannot see a doctor. Snipers, checkpoints, fear…”They are burying me alive at home”…he says.

Buried alive at home…Yes this is what I will be writing about.

Alia was driving her car with Auntie Sameera to get some gasoline.
Suddenly, her car was riddled with bullets. They were lucky.
A man in black walks up to her.

– What have you done? You nearly killed all of us.
– Why did you not stop?
– I did not see you. There is no uniform, no checkpoint, no nothing.
– I waved.
– I did not see you. I am sorry.
– I do not want your apology. I want you to go home and stay there. I never want to see your face in this neighborhood again. You are to stay at home where you belong.

Home, a home…any home…I think I will write about that instead.

Marwan is a Palestinian Iraqi. This is how he defines himself.

“I do not know where my family is. They are stranded somewhere in the desert, between Syria and Iraq. Layla, I already lost 4 of them in Baladiyat. I regret Saddam so much…”

Ah regrets and nostalgia…Maybe I need to write about this instead.

Salman, an Iraqi shia. An staunch anti-Saddam says to me.

“There is no end to this dark tunnel, Layla. Give us back a strong government, with an iron fist. I would pay anything to have that back…”

Did I hear pay ? Pay, paychecks…

Now check this one out.
I mentioned in one of my posts that a junior member of parliament in the Green Zone brothel makes 30’000 dollars a month plus fringe benefits. Now do you want to know how much the matron makes? No joke here.

Jalal Talabani makes 1 million dollars A MONTH plus fringe benefits. This heavy hooker has pocketed in 2 years, 24 million dollars! Whilst the majority of the Iraqis don’t have a piece of bread…

Bread…That reminds me of Nadia’s husband. After being sacked from his job as an accountant, he took up the job of a baker. I just learned that he has typhoid.
Raging fevers in raging Iraq…

So kindly tell me, where would you like me to start? Pick and choose.

Fatherless day, orphans in feces, sodomy Americana, blood pools, home burials, severed heads, public castrations, erring homelessness, regrets and nostalgia or how to make a million bucks per month in Iraq? Or maybe I need to stop here and put out this fever?

So when you decide, let me know. But do remember there is no end in sight…

Now, If you don’t mind, I would like to go and crawl into some corner, take up a foetal position and vanish…Vanish from these endless beginnings, vanish from my own powerlessness, vanish far away….

WASHINGTON (June 22) – Little-known documents now being made public detail illegal and scandalous activities by the CIA more than 30 years ago: wiretappings of journalists, kidnappings, warrantless searches and more.

The documents provide a glimpse of nearly 700 pages of materials that the agency plans to declassify next week. A six-page summary memo that was declassified in 2000 and released by The National Security Archive at George Washington University on Thursday outlines 18 activities by the CIA that “presented legal questions” and were discussed with President Ford in 1975.

Among them:

-The “two-year physical confinement” in the mid-1960s of a Soviet defector.

-Assassination plots of foreign leaders, including Fidel Castro.

-CIA wiretapping in 1963 of two columnists, Robert Allen and Paul Scott, following a newspaper column in which national security information was disclosed. The wiretapping revealed calls from 12 senators and six representatives but did not indicate the source of the leak.

-The “personal surveillances” in 1972 of muckraking columnist Jack Anderson and staff members, including Les Whitten and Brit Hume. The surveillance involved watching the targets but no wiretapping. The memo said it followed a series of “tilt toward Pakistan” stories by Anderson.

-The personal surveillance of Washington Post reporter Mike Getler over three months beginning in late 1971. No specific stories are mentioned in the memo.

-CIA screening programs, beginning in the early 1950s and lasting until 1973, in which mail coming into the United States was reviewed and “in some cases opened” from the Soviet Union and China.

Much of the decades-old activities have been known for years. But Tom Blanton, head of the National Security Archive, said the 1975 summary memo prepared by Justice Department lawyers had never been publicly released. It sheds light on meetings in the top echelon of government that were little known by the public, he said.

CIA Director Michael Hayden on Thursday called the documents being released next week unflattering, but he added that “it is CIA’s history.”

“The documents provide a glimpse of a very different time and a very different agency,” Hayden told a conference of historians.

Blanton pointed to more recent concerns, such as post-Sept. 11 programs that included government wiretapping without warrants. “The resonance with today’s controversies is just uncanny,” he said.

The long-secret documents being released next week were compiled at the direction of then-CIA Director James Schlesinger in 1973. In the wake of the Watergate scandal, he directed senior CIA officials to report immediately on any current or past agency matters that might fall outside the authority of the agency.

A separate memo, also dated 1975 and made public by the National Security Archive, discusses the briefing given to Ford detailing abuses by the spy agency. Then-CIA director William Colby tells the president that the CIA “has done some things it shouldn’t have.”

Liam Madden is a Marine veteran who spent seven months in Iraq. After returning to the United States, he became a co-founder of the Appeal for Redress. This is a campaign of active service members who are appealing to the US Congress to remove all American military forces and bases from Iraq. He is also a member of the Iraq Veterans Against the War. Recently, the United States Marine Corps (USMC) notified him that they were going to change his honorable discharge to a less than honorable discharge. He finds himself fighting this attempt while also continuing his organizing against the war. As for the Appeal for redress, there are now 2002 service men and women who have signed the statement. What follows is a brief exchange between Liam and myself over this attempt to silence him and other service members for speaking out against the war.

Ron: Liam, What exactly is the military trying to do to you?

Liam:The Marine Corps notified me that I was being recommended for “Other then Honorable Discharge” from the Individual Ready Reserve (IRR) for two alleged violations of the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

1. Wearing a partial USMC camouflage uniform at a political protest.
2. Making Disloyal Statements at a speech in New York City. I said that “The War in Iraq is, by Nuremberg standards, a war crime and a war of aggression” and “the president has betrayed U.S. service members by committing them to a war crime.

In essence, they are trying to apply the UCMJ to members of the Individual Ready Reserves (IRR) who aren’t supposed to be subject to it. Further, they are attempting to silence political opposition to the war by intimidating vets and GIs.

Ron: Just to clarify, are you still in the reserves?

Liam: I’m still a member of the IRR.

Ron: Why do you think they chose you? Is this also happening to other service people or vets?

Liam: I believe they chose to target me because they perceive me as a figure head for the veterans who are speaking about the illegality of the war Two other members of IVAW are being targeted. Adam Kokesh and Cloy Richards are both former Marines who have been under investigation by the USMC and Adam has already faced his discharge board.

Ron: Historically, is this that unusual for the military to come down on you?

Liam: Normally people aren’t discharged from the IRR. It is simply a list of names the military can call upon in times of national crisis. When they don’t want someone on the list they typically just cross them off. However it is not unusual that the government cracks down on those who are questioning the motives of their actions. For example, COINTELPRO, the imprisonment of Eugene Debs, and harassment of Martin Luther King, Jr.

Ron: What is the status of the case? When do you have to go to court or whatever?

Liam: They haven’t scheduled a date yet

Ron: What are the potential punishments if they bust you?

Liam: It is basically a black eye on my record that makes it difficult to obtain future employment, particularly government employment.

Ron: What can people do to help you and whoever else is in a similar situation?

Liam: 1. Encourage GIs/Vets to press on in their opposition to the war. Do not be intimidated, if they were not concerned about our activities they wouldn’t be acting to stifle our views.
2. Join the Defense committee some friends are setting up.
3. Sign the petition.
4. Donate to the legal defense fund.
5. Boycott all gas except Citgo, this will to be my escalation of resistance after I return from the IVAW bus tour.

Ron: Now, on to more general stuff. How is the Appeal for Redress progressing?

Liam: The appeal has just passed the 2,000 mark. We are going strong and will continue to be an avenue for troops to speak out against the war.

Ron: I was recently at a conference where several Iraq Veterans Against the War were present. In your estimation, how is the organization faring? Are numbers growing, etc?

Liam: We are growing rapidly. We are getting alot of attention lately and we are on the leading edge of the anti war movement. Our activity is growing bolder and more independent of other groups.

Ron: From your perspective, do you think the military is feeling the heat from the growing disenchantment with the Iraq and Afghanistan wars–from within the military and otherwise?

Liam: Yes, troops aren’t stupid; they know the government isn’t telling them the whole story. No one is happy about the lengthening deployments and the deteriorating public support for the war. Let me be clear, public opposition doesn’t lower troop morale, being in a war that is clearly based on a lie lowers troop morale.

Ron: Anything you want to add–especially to vets or active duty GIs who might read this?

The displacement of Iraqis from Iraq is now the fastest-growing refugee crisis in the world.

The UN estimates that nearly 4 million Iraqis have been displaced by violence in their country, the vast majority of which have fled since 2003. Some 1.9 million have vacated their homes for safer areas within Iraq, 2 million are now living in Syria, Jordan, Iran, Egypt, Lebanon, Yemen, and Turkey. Most Iraqis are determined to be resettled to Europe or North America, and few consider return to Iraq an option. With no legal work options in their current host countries, Iraqis are already exploring the use of false documents to migrate to Western nations.

The violence in Iraq has reached a deadly tipping point: Most Iraqis feel threatened.

“Iraqis who are unable to flee the country are now in a queue, waiting their turn to die,” is how one Iraqi journalist summarizes conditions in Iraq today. While the US debates whether a civil war is raging in Iraq, thousands of Iraqis face the possibility of death every day all over the country. Refugees International has met with dozens of Iraqis who have fled the violence and sought refuge in neighboring countries. All of them, whether Sunni, Shi’a, Christian or Palestinian, had been directly victimized by armed actors. People are targeted because of religious affiliation, economic status, and profession – many, such as doctors, teachers, and even hairdressers, are viewed as being “anti-Islamic.” All of them fled Iraq because they had genuine and credible fear for their lives and the lives of their loved ones.

Neighboring countries are being overwhelmed by the massive influx of Iraqi refugees.

Syria and Jordan are rapidly becoming overwhelmed by the numbers of Iraqis seeking refuge in their urban centers. Jordan, Lebanon and Syria consider Iraqis as “guests” rather than refugees fleeing violence. None of these countries allows Iraqis to work. Although Syria is maintaining its “open door policy” in the name of pan-Arabism, it has begun imposing restrictions on Iraqi refugees, such as charges for healthcare that used to be free. In Jordan, Iraqis have to pay for the most basic services, and live in constant fear of deportation. It is also becoming increasingly difficult for Iraqis to enter Jordan or to renew their visas to remain in country.

UNHCR does not have enough resources to assist Iraqi refugees in the Middle East.

Although they have received additional funds for this crisis in 2007, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees can’t provide adequate protection and assistance to Iraqis. The agency lacks the resources to process refugees’ documentation adequately. Without staff to monitor borders, UNHCR depends on national governments for updated information on new arrivals. UNHCR is also unable to provide significant assistance to Iraqis, and receives very little support from other UN agencies that seem slow to acknowledge the extent of the crisis. The fact that Lebanon, Syria and Jordan are not state parties to the 1951 Refugees Convention further reduces UNHCR’s ability to protect refugees.

Conditions for Palestinians from Iraq and other third country nationals are especially desperate and bleak.

Many Iraqis resent the preferential treatment Palestinians received under Saddam Hussein’s regime. As a result, several militia and sectarian groups have singled out Palestinians as recipients of a collective “fatwa” (or death sentence). Three hundred and seventy-two Palestinians from Iraq are living near the Al Tanf border crossing between Iraq and Syria in a makeshift refugee camp located in the no man’s land between both borders. They have been denied entry by the Syrian government and they refuse to return to Iraq. As a result, they have been living in increasingly desperate circumstances. Similarly, in Jordan, dozens of Palestinians remain in a camp where they have been since April 2003, awaiting resettlement.

Another vulnerable group is the Iranian Kurds in Jordan; 192 have been living in between the Iraqi and Jordanian borders since January 2005. Another group of 313 had previously been let into Jordan and allowed in a refugee camp. Both groups are awaiting resettlement.

Policy Recommendations

The United States must begin by acknowledging that violence in Iraq has made civilian life untenable, creating a refugee crisis that is essentially exporting the nation’s instability to neighboring countries. To deal with this crisis, Refugees International proposes the following:

1. Given its central role in Iraq, the US should lead an international initiative to support Middle Eastern countries hosting Iraqi civilians. The US should recognize and support the constructive role Syria is playing in hosting Iraqi refugees and help it keep its borders open.

2. Donors must continue to increase their support to UNHCR and other UN agencies must participate in the relief efforts for Iraqi refugees.

Yesterday, two farmers filed suit in the federal district court of North Dakota. They are seeking a declaratory judgment against the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) that would allow them to cultivate hemp, a profitable crop with many legal uses.

The DEA, however, is likely to strongly defend the suit. After all, ever since its very inception, the DEA has feared that if it allows “industrial” hemp to be produced, the result will be to seriously undermine its war on drugs, including marijuana. As I will explain, its position has led to a bizarre and, some argue, utterly irrational situation: It makes little sense for the War on Drugs to also include a War on Hemp.

A case decided last year by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit illustrates some of this irrationality, but doesn’t give the full picture. In this column, I’ll provide a chronology of the DEA’s war on this plant and its champions; discuss a set of legal questions that, in my view, complicates the agency’s war plans; and finally, offer a prediction of hemp’s regulatory future.

The Cannabis Conundrum: A Controlled Substance with Highly Beneficial Applications

The Controlled Substances Act (CSA) prohibits the manufacture, distribution, dispensation, or possession of any listed “controlled substance,” except as authorized by the CSA or the DEA. Marijuana is included, and even its medicinal use remains flatly prohibited. In 2006, the Supreme Court entertained a Commerce Clause challenge to that latter prohibition, in Gonzales v. Raich, but the challengers lost.

This unbending legal regime is a great shame, because the marijuana plant is a botanical superstar. It generates a portfolio of raw materials for products like rope and canvas (which reportedly covered the Conestoga wagons of the Nineteenth Century West), oil, paper, and cellulose.

This is no small matter today: Compared to most tree species, as the U.S. Department of Agriculture has acknowledged, hemp is several times more efficient for producing paper and fiber, is much less dependent upon pesticides and herbicides than crops like cotton, and creates a seed oil high in essential fatty acids. The oil alone has countless applications. Indeed, the U.S. Department of Agriculture even ordered cannabis production during World War II in its “Hemp for Victory” program.

So if you’re looking for an “assault on reason,” a flat ban on this plant–given its multitude of beneficial uses, most of which are fossil fuel-reducing and organic in every sense–certainly fits the bill.

Cannabis’s Early History: The 1937 Act

Of course, the issue with cannabis sativa is that some of its varieties are grown to maximize the creation of tetrahydrocannabinols (THC). THC is a psychoactive compound, and, unfortunately, the THC producer is the same genus and species as the botanical wunderkind. They are just different parts of the same plant or, in some instances, different varietals. Unfortunately, throughout American history, the U.S. government has too often acted as if these two features of the plant are inseparable – and that has led to some absurd results.

The cannabis plant was among the first drugs the U.S. Government tried to eradicate in this country, beginning in 1937 with the Marihuana Tax Act. The 1937 law was preceded only by the Harrison Narcotics Tax Act of 1914, which taxed opiates and cocaine, and, of course, the Eighteenth Amendment, imposing Prohibition.

While the 1937 law was formally a tax, it might as well have been a ban, for it made the cost of the plant prohibitively high, and thus effectively prohibited the growing of varieties and foliage to maximize THC (“pot”). Nevertheless, the growing of “hemp”–which has THC concentrations too low to move the needle–was taxed hardly at all.

A Senate Report on the bill made this point quite clear:

“The testimony before the committee showed definitely that neither the mature stalk of the hemp plant nor the fiber produced therefrom contains any drug, narcotic, or harmful property whatsoever and because of that fact the fiber and mature stalk have been exempted from the operation of the law.”