The Rag Blog

His rosy statements about Iraq were aimed at GOP primary voters, but they suggest the would-be president doesn’t understand the war he’d be fighting.

April 9, 2007 | On Sunday, April 8, Sen. John McCain appeared on CBS’s “60 Minutes” in an attempt to do damage control. Pressed on his assertion, in a CNN interview last week, that Gen. David Petraeus goes about Baghdad in an unarmored Humvee, he admitted that he was wrong. “Of course I’m going to misspeak,” he observed, as though he could put the controversy behind him with weasel words. But he did not actually back off his recent sunny pronouncements about the situation in Iraq. “I believe we can succeed, and I believe the consequences of failure are catastrophic.”

In the past two weeks, McCain has produced a trove of Iraq-related images and quotes that are sure to dog his faltering bid for the presidency. On March 26, during an interview with conservative radio host Bill Bennett, McCain said, “There are neighborhoods in Baghdad where you and I could walk through those neighborhoods today.” The next day, he insisted to CNN’s Wolf Blitzer that Gen. Petraeus was driving around armorless. Then, on April 1, in an attempt to back up his words, McCain went on his infamous Baghdad shopping trip. The Internet was soon awash with mocking photos of McCain strolling blithely through the Shurja market in a Kevlar vest. On Sunday, “60 Minutes” ran footage of McCain dickering over a rug with a merchant, then pulled back to show the senator surrounded by heavily armed and armored U.S. troops, and also mentioned that attack helicopters were hovering overhead. In the past year, only the image of Israeli Minister of Defense Amir Peretz looking out on the battlefield through binoculars with the caps still over the lenses has made a politician look more foolish.

Any Republican running for president must face the fact that a year and a half out from November 2008, two-thirds of likely GOP primary voters still back President Bush on Iraq. Having been beaten by Bush in the primaries in 2000, McCain’s strategy now seems to be out-Bushing the competition by insisting that “things are getting better in Iraq.” He is targeting precisely those remaining voters who keep telling pollsters Bush is “doing a good job in Iraq.” But by reaching out to the faithful, McCain has exposed himself to ridicule from everybody else. Four years after the fall of Baghdad, he still doesn’t seem to understand the facts on the ground.

First of all, contra McCain, there is no evidence that things are getting better in Iraq. The Nouri al-Maliki government began implementing the U.S.-directed “surge” –what is known in Iraq as “the new security plan” — in late January. While deaths decreased in Baghdad itself, especially killings by sectarian death squads, other sorts of violence increased in the capital, including car bombings and mortar attacks. And the guerrillas, melting away before the expanded U.S. presence in the capital, simply did more killing in other places, especially to the north and west. Iraqi government officials admitted early last week that while in February, 1,806 persons were killed in political violence nationwide, in March the number rose to 2,078. Allowing for the greater number of days in March, the daily death toll still climbed slightly, from 64.5 deaths a day in February to 67 last month.

Horrific attacks continue in Iraq. On April 8, six U.S. troops died, four as a result of a roadside bomb in the violent Diyala province. In Ramadi on April 6, a truck bomber unleashed chlorine gas, killing 30 persons and wounding or sickening nearly 100. Dozens of Shiites have been kidnapped in the past week in regions around the capital, and many have since shown up dead. On April 7, there were at least five roadside bombings in Baghdad, several neighborhoods of the capital were hit with mortar or rocket fire, and the bodies of 12 people killed by sectarian death squads were discovered by police. In the city of Baquba, an hour northeast of the capital, 27 bodies were discovered on April 7, and in the northern Turkmen city of Tal Afar, trumpeted as a success story by George W. Bush, 11 corpses were found in the streets. And on April 2, the day after McCain’s photo op in Baghdad, some of the merchants from the largely Shiite market he had visited were murdered. They had gone north looking for work when they were ambushed and killed by Sunni Arab guerrillas.

The al-Maliki government still appears paralyzed politically. Its Cabinet approved a new oil law with provisions for fair revenue sharing among sectarian and ethnic groups, but the Parliament has balked at taking it up. There has been no practical movement in Parliament for revision of “de-Baathification” measures that resulted in the firing and marginalization of tens of thousands of Sunni Arabs who once belonged to the Arab nationalist Baath Party, but who otherwise have not been found guilty of any wrongdoing.

Two kinds of imperial whining have come to pervade foreign policy discussion. One relates to Bush’s overextending the military so they cannot deploy to other places desperately needing their lethal capacity.

Others fixate on “American credibility.” If we withdraw, an October 22, 2006 Washington Post editorial declared, we forego our “moral obligation.” After all the U.S. military and Iraqi sacrifices, the U.S. must not allow a collapse, which would occur “without the prop of 140,000 [now 170,000] U.S. troops.”

By leaving, this argument posits, we open the door to greater horror in this poor land. Bush might have made a mistake to invade and occupy, but we as a nation owe it to the Iraqis to keep our troops there until the Iraqis themselves can assume security responsibilities.

Some moralist-realists admit that as many as 650,000 Iraqi civilians have died since the March 2003 US invasion. (Lancet, October 11, 2006) Nor do they dispute claims by Caritas Internationalis and Caritas Iraq (a confederation of 162 Catholic relief, development, and social service organizations), showing that malnutrition rates have risen in Iraq from 19 percent before the U.S.-led invasion to a national average of 28 percent four years later. (March 16, 2007) Caritas also claims that the causes of rising hunger relate to high levels of insecurity, collapsed healthcare and other infrastructure, increased polarization between different sects and tribes, and rising poverty.

They report that over 11 percent of Iraqi babies are born underweight, compared with a figure of 4 percent in 2003. Before March 2003, Iraq already had significant infant mortality due to malnutrition because of the 13 years of UN — pushed by Washington — sanctions. In addition to the hundreds of thousands of dead, wounded and displaced, approximately one of every eight Iraqis has fled to Syria, Jordan, Iran and nearby states.

World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz, in a memo to the bank’s staff, responded today to the growing controversy surrounding the salary paid to a staffer with whom he is romantically linked after she was detailed to work at the U.S. State Department in September 2005.

“I…acted on the advice of the [World Bank] Board’s Ethics Committee to work out an agreement that balanced the interests of the institution and the rights of the staff member in an exceptional and unprecedented situation,” he said.

The World Bank’s staff association had said Shaha Ali Riza, who remained on the bank’s payroll while working at State for the Middle East Partnership Initiative, had received $61,000 in raises since she left, a sum the association said is out of line with bank rules governing salary increases.

Her annual salary — $193,590 — exceeds that of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and as a foreign national working for an international institution, Riza isn’t subject to the same U.S. income taxes as Rice.

The bank’s 24 executive directors — representatives of the countries that own it — said last week they “have decided to acquire all the information related to this matter and will respond to the issues raised as soon as possible.” The executive directors asked World Bank General Counsel Ana Palacio, a Wolfowitz appointee and former Spanish foreign minister, to handle the inquiry.

The text of Mr. Wolfowitz’s memo follows:

“Over the past few weeks, information regarding the external assignment of a World Bank staff member has raised concerns among some of you about upholding Bank Group rules regarding the rights, obligations, and fair treatment of all employees,” Wolfowitz said. “I would like to assure the staff that I have always acted to uphold these rules to the best of my ability, and I will continue to do so.”

“The case of the staff member mentioned prompted me to seek the advice of the Board of Executive Directors upon my arrival at the Bank. I subsequently acted on the advice of the Board’s Ethics Committee to work out an agreement that balanced the interests of the institution and the rights of the staff member in an exceptional and unprecedented situation. Just as one example, a normal external assignment is voluntary and for a maximum of three years, but this one was involuntary and for the length of my service.”

“As President of this institution, I accept full responsibility for the actions taken in this case.

“I have already indicated to the Board my intention to cooperate fully in their review of the details of the case. In particular, I will ensure that the Board has access to the facts in this case, in a manner that also respects the Bank’s rules concerning the right of every staff member to the confidentiality of his or her records.”

Following a grand photo opportunity in March 2005 for the presidents of Mexico and the United States, and the prime minister of Canada, observers were regaled, almost to the point of nausea, by references to these men as ‘the three amigos’. Their alleged camaraderie was deemed by a compliant media to be of far greater interest and import than the substance of what might have been discussed or accomplished. Unfortunately, the major issue under review by the three men will, if not aborted, cause immense harm to North America and, ultimately, the world.

Canadian prime minister Paul Martin and Mexican president Vicente Fox are now gone from the world stage; neither will be missed. Unfortunately, the most simple-minded of the three remains. In the context of this article, however, United States president George Bush is not the villain; he is merely a symptom of a virulent disease that is infecting North America and which may be unstoppable unless the brakes are applied very soon.

Completely outside the public forum, behind closed doors and in first class comfort, planners have been meeting to create a North American Union (NAU). Mostly, these planners are not government officials; they are not the representatives of the people. Those government minions who have been admitted to these hallowed meetings are there solely for the functionary benefit of greasing the skids for the conductors of what might soon become a runaway train.

What is occurring is the auctioning of North America. You can find some of the details if you really search; but there is no way to know how much information is still hidden.

A small, but influential, group of wealthy business people is proceeding with plans to create a North American union that will combine Canada, Mexico, and the United States. There is no political or economic mandate for these plans and various polls, mostly unofficial, indicate that citizens of all three countries would oppose such a union. Although George Bush is not the prime mover behind this effort, it does have its genesis in the Executive Branch of the US government – more than 30 years ago – and both Presidents Bush have their fingers all over it.

What is being created can be best thought of as NASSR — North America’s Sinking Ship Republic. It has most of the bad points of the USSR, and none of the good. Most important, it is doomed to fail.

Triumphant Trilateralism

In 1973, a group known as the Trilateral Commission was founded. It’s a private organization created on the initiative of David Rockefeller, of the family who bears that famous surname. He solicited a cadre of influential people and, after a series of preliminary and exploratory meetings, the first executive meeting of the Commission took place in October 1973. Today, the membership is between 300–350 private individuals from North America, Europe, and Asia; it claims to exist for the purpose of promoting closer economic and political cooperation between these areas. In fact, the group has asserted throughout the years that its only goal was to foster a ‘New International Economic Order’.

The membership list during its history contains a lot of familiar names: George Bush the First, Bill Clinton, Jimmy Carter, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Henry Kissinger, Paul Wolfowitz, Dick Cheney – and a host of influential politicians, diplomats, and business executives from several continents.

It presents itself as non-political; but nothing could be further from the truth.

The Trilateral Commission has maintained a lock on the Executive Branch of the US government since the election of Jimmy Carter in 1976. The Trilateral Commission is believed to have hand-picked Carter to be a candidate for the presidency; his training in globalist philosophy and foreign policy appears to have been provided by Brzezinski personally. As president, Carter appointed a third of the US members of the Commission to his cabinet and other high-level administration posts.

White House influence continued with the election of Ronald Reagan and his vice-president, George H.W. Bush, who influenced Reagan to appoint Commission members to key areas in his government. Following Reagan, the presidency itself was held by members of the Trilateral Commission for twelve consecutive years. And although the current President Bush is not a member of the Commission, his vice-president is.

This group is, despite all protestations to the contrary, established solely to provide a forum for the elite to plan the management of the world. Because the people of the world are not, in the view of the Commission members, entitled to any kind of input into how the world should be ordered – only this elite group should have that right. Naturally, the order of the world shall be whatever enriches them most.

The North American members of the group now have their sites set on a new prize.

Circumventing the Ballot Box

Membership in the Trilateral Commission includes corporate CEOs, politicians, academics, labor leaders, and individuals involved in overseas philanthropy. Members who gain a position in their respective country’s government must resign from the Commission. That criteria has nothing to do with maintaining integrity or averting inappropriate influence; it is to deflect criticism that the Commission is running the world’s governments – but it does run them nonetheless, or at least many of them.

The time for democratic choice by citizens has long since passed. No government of a major country can make any real claim to democracy any longer. Governments do not represent the citizenry; they represent business. And business is the domain of the Trilateral Commission and other similar groups whose prime purpose is to ensure that the elites continue to be in charge, and that the great mass of humanity functions as their feudal peasants.

In North America, there is a general belief among the citizenry that we have largely fair and clean elections. There is at least some belief that the people we elect to represent us intend to do just that. But such beliefs are wishful thinking. If the citizens of the three North American countries ever truly did have democratic choice and honest representatives, it is in some semi-mythical past far beyond the reach of remembrance.

Speaking to an audience at Columbia Business School in February, Rodrigo de Rato, Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund, sketched out his vision for Latin America. Optimistically titled “The Way Forward,” Mr. de Rato called on the countries of the region to stay the course laid out by the IMF – structural adjustments, trade liberalization and privatization.

He dismissed the shift to the left in Chile, Argentina and Bolivia as an “apparent inconsistency of economic and political developments,” suggesting that voter dissatisfaction has more to do with a lack of recognition of economic progress to date. When he did admit to high poverty levels, he advised that “the problem is often that reforms have not gone far enough.”

But even as Mr. de Rato spoke, the IMF’s influence in the region is on the decline. In 2005, the Fund placed 80 per cent of its loans in Latin America but this year that amount is down to a mere one per cent, or $50 million. While there has been no economic miracle, enabling countries like Bolivia and Ecuador, which owe $5.9 billion and $10 billion respectively, to pay off their foreign debts, a new lender has entered the picture – Hugo Chavez and the Venezuelan petro-economy.

So far, Chavez has loaned $2.5 billion to Argentina and is close to providing $500 million to ease the Ecuadorian debt crunch and $1.5 billion to help Evo Morales stabilize the situation in Bolivia. Venezuela is also floating a bond offering jointly with Argentina, following last November’s successful $1 billion issue. Chavez has proposed institutionalizing this lending with a regional organization he calls the Banco del Sur.

This is bad news for the IMF, which has been forced to consider selling off part of its gold reserves to cover losses from its lending operations. More fundamentally, it is bad news for the United States, whose Treasury is the largest shareholder in the IMF. Historically, the IMF and the World Bank have been effective in promoting the ‘Washington Consensus’ – a sort of economic shock treatment intended to put countries like Argentina on the path to economic growth. Typically, countries would have to submit to structural adjustments, privatization and austerity measures to obtain a loan from the IMF.

Chavez’ disdain for the IMF was clear in remarks he made at the Non-Aligned Movement summit in Havana last year, arguing “we don’t accept the kind of development the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund want to push on us.” The IMF after all, oversaw the wholesale privatizations and adjustments made in the early 1990’s in Venezuela that prompted Chavez’ first rebellion in 1992.

Pundits argue whether Venezuela has enough oil revenue to fuel socialist alternative lending in Latin America in the long-term and whether Venezuela and its partners will be able to challenge the US even when, as Chavez remarked in Havana last year, it is a “US empire experiencing decline.” But the bigger question is what the US will do now that it has lost a lever of influence in the region. As Bill Blum (author of ‘Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II’) argues, “the simple numbers don’t begin to tell the full story because the US can and probably will undermine Venezuela in various ways which have more to do with covert operations and psychology.”

I’m not going to church this Easter, as well as not joining with family, because I don’t silently condone torture nor can I shut up about it. I’m supposed to zip my lip and not offend the morality of other family members who “love my country”. Excuse me. My morality is offended, much more deeply than those offended by my protests could ever fathom because of their shallowness. Abu Grahib was the 9-11 event to our morality. Where is the outrage?

This president is not ashamed or embarrassed to use tortured confessions. This country is not ashamed or embarrassed to use tortured confessions. Need I say more? I don’t suspect there is any questioning of this in the churches of this country. Rather, there is pray for our troops. And just what are our troops doing?

Laila al-Arian was wearing her headscarf at her desk at Nation Books, one of my New York publishers. No, she told me, it would be difficult to telephone her father. At the medical facility of his North Carolina prison, he can only make a few calls – monitored, of course – and he was growing steadily weaker.

Sami al-Arian is 49 but he stayed on hunger strike for 60 days to protest the government outrage committed against him, a burlesque of justice which has, of course, largely failed to rouse the sleeping dogs of American journalism in New York, Washington and Los Angeles.

All praise, then, to the journalist John Sugg from Tampa, Florida, who has been cataloging al-Arian’s little Golgotha for months, along with Alexander Cockburn of Counter Punch.

The story so far: Sami al-Arian, a Kuwaiti-born Palestinian, was a respected computer professor at the University of South Florida who tried, however vainly, to communicate the real tragedy of Palestinian Arabs to the US government. But according to Sugg, Israel’s lobbyists were enraged by his lessons – al-Arian’s family was driven from Palestine in 1948 – and in 2003, at the instigation of Attorney General Ashcroft, he was arrested and charged with conspiring “to murder and maim” outside the United States and with raising money for Islamic Jihad in “Palestine”. He was held for two and a half years in solitary confinement, hobbling half a mile, his hands and feet shackled, merely to talk to his lawyers.

Al-Arian’s $50m (£25m) Tampa trial lasted six months; the government called 80 witnesses (21 from Israel) and used 400 intercepted phone calls along with evidence of a conversation that a co-defendant had with al-Arian in – wait for it – a dream. The local judge, a certain James Moody, vetoed any remarks about Israeli military occupation or about UN Security Council Resolution 242, on the grounds that they would endanger the impartiality of the jurors.