The Rag Blog

Protected by a podium, thousands of thorns in the world’s most beautiful rose garden, and a cordon of Secret Service agents, President Bush continued his retreat into a bunker mentality.

The House and Senate had just passed a $122 billion war funding bill that demanded U.S. troops begin a systematic withdrawal from Iraq. Sen. Harry Reid, majority leader, had said that Congress had finally acceded to the will of the people.

President Bush defiantly told the people that he would veto the bill and continue his war in Iraq. “Democrat leaders in Congress seem more interested in fighting political battles in Washington than in providing our troops what they need to fight the battles in Iraq,” said the President. If anyone could be accused of not providing soldiers what they need it’s the President and his Administration.

Soldiers are dying because the Administration didn’t provide adequate body armor, forcing families to privately buy the bullet-proof vests for their sons, daughters, fathers, and mothers.

The Bush­Cheney Administration also stands convicted of not providing enough armor to the thin-skinned Humvees that were forced to patrol booby-trapped roads. The resourceful soldiers had to “uparmour” their own vehicles, with their own resourcefulness. The Administration would claim that manufacturers couldn’t produce the better-protected Humvees fast enough. Several companies that specialize in providing war-resistant protection for Humvees for private use say they advised the Department of Defense about their companies’ abilities but never received contracts.

The Bush­Cheney Administration, once it decided to lie to the American people and invade Iraq, sent in too few troops. To questions of why there weren’t enough troops in Iraq to quell the rising violence and developing civil war, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld merely parroted the President’s naiveté-“The big debate about the number of troops is one of those things that’s really out of my control.” The President said he provided whatever troops the military leadership requested. Gen. Colin Powell, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the first Gulf War and secretary of state at the time of the invasion, had stated that the troop level wasn’t adequate for invasion and occupation. Denied and Humiliated. Gen. Eric Shinseki, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said as many as 500,000 would be needed. Denied, and forced to retire early. Gen. Tommy Franks, commanding general of Central Command, learned his lesson; he suggested “only” 250,000 troops would be needed. Denied. Even the recent surge of 21,000 troops, which President Bush said was enough to solve the problem, is a lie. The Budget Office estimates 15,000 to 28,000 more troops are necessary just to support the 21,500 combat troops.

The Bush­Cheney Administration stands convicted of sending soldiers into their third tour of duty in Iraq; in what is known as “stop-loss” enlistment it doesn’t allow soldiers to leave the military at the end of their contracts.

With large numbers of military families living at or below the poverty level, the Bush­Cheney Administration stands convicted of having tried to cut a Congressionally-approved pay raise for soldiers. Bush wanted to trim a 3.7 percent raise to only 2 percent, claiming the raise was too costly. Only when it appeared the President’s refusal to increase salaries would jeopardize his political future did the President do the Texas Two-Step and spin reality as quickly as a tumbleweed rolls into Crawford. “We have a solemn responsibility to support the servicemen and women who defend us in the field of battle,” said the President. The following year, Bush tried to slice combat pay for persons in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The Bush­Cheney Administration stands convicted of cutting about $1.5 billion for adequate military housing at a time when the Army Times reported that 83,000 barracks units and 129,000 family housing units were substandard.

The Bush­Cheney Administration stands convicted of reducing necessary veterans’ health care benefits by $2 billion, of trying to end health care benefits for almost 175,000 veterans, of requiring several hundred thousand veterans to wait for months to receive medical care because of the lack of funding of VA hospitals, and refusing to allow members of the National Guard to have health care; about 20 percent of all Guardsmen don’t have any health care, according to a Gannett News Service report in 2003.

Only when the “liberal media”-in this case the Washington Post-provided evidence of the conditions at Walter Reed Army Hospital did Bush allow the incoming Secretary of Defense to exercise his authority to take bold action to correct the problems faced by veterans with life-threatening and permanent combat injuries.

Had the $9 billion that was “lost” in Iraq and the billions more that had been misappropriated or wasted been applied to “supporting the troops,” not only would more soldiers have lived through IED explosions, but there would now be adequate medical care for the veterans and their families. There would be enough left over to rebuild New Orleans, give basic health care to the 47 million Americans without adequate insurance, assist the three million homeless (about one-third of them veterans), and probably put a large dent into funds needed to find a cure for cancer.

EDITOR’S NOTE: On April 3rd, Josh Wolf was released from prison. Josh became the longest incarcerated journalist in U.S. history — for refusing to turn in his videotape to a federal grand jury. His case is Exhibit A of why we need a federal shield law — to allow journalist to protect their sources free of harassment. The following was his public statement upon being released.

In his dissenting opinion in the case of US v. Coldwell (1972), Justice William O. Douglas wrote these prescient words which are not only significant to my case — but also reflect the greater state of affairs in the United States today: “As the years pass, the power of government becomes more and more pervasive. It is a power to suffocate both people and causes. Those in power, whatever their politics, want only to perpetuate it. Now that the fences of the law and the tradition that protected the press are broken down, the people are the victims. The First Amendment, as I read it, was designed precisely to prevent that tragedy.”

Contrary to popular opinion, this legal entanglement which has held me in Federal Prision for the past eight months, has never been about a videotape nor is the investigation about the alleged attempted arson of a San Francisco police vehicle as the government claims. While it is true that I was held in custody for refusing to surrender the tape and that the justification for making a federal case out of this was the police car, things are not always as they appear. The reality is that this investigation is far more pervasive and perverse than a superficial examination will reveal.

When I was subpoenaed in February of last year, I was not only ordered to provide my unedited footage, but to also submit to testimony and examination before the secretive grand jury. Although I feel that my unpublished material should be shielded from government demands, it was the testimony which I found to be the more egregious assault on my right and ethics as both a journalist and a citizen.

As there was nothing of a sensitive or confidential nature on my video outtakes, I had no reason to withhold their publication once I had exhausted all my legal appeals. When that point arrived I had already spent three months behind bars. I was advised by my legal team that publishing the video would not lead to my release; instead it would indicate to the court that my imprisonment was having a coercive effect even though it was not.

This hypothesis was verified when one of my attorneys inquired whether the Assistant US Attorney would accept the footage in lieu of my testimony, he was told that the video alone would not suffice and that the US Attorney would accept nothing less than my full compliance with the demands of the subpoena. Things change.

When the judge came to realize the support for my cause was growing and that I was unlikely to waver anytime soon, he ordered both parties to meet with a magistrate judge in the hopes we could reach a solution amenable to everyone. After two rather strenuous sessions of mediation, we at last came to an agreement that not only leaves my ethics intact but actively serves the role of a free press in our so-called free socieity.

WASHINGTON, Apr 5 (IPS) – A year ago, Donald Vance learned what its like to be falsely accused by the U.S. military of aiding terrorists. He was held without charge for more than three months in a high-security prison in Iraq, and interrogated daily after sleepless nights without legal counsel or even a phone call to his family.

On Wednesday, the former private security contractor was honoured for his ordeal in Washington and for speaking out against the incident. At a luncheon at the National Press Club, Vance received the Ridenhour Prize for Truth-Telling, an award named in memory of Army helicopter gunner Ron Ridenhour who struggled to bring the horrific mass murders at My Lai to the attention of Congress and the Pentagon during the Vietnam War.

Vance was joined by former president Jimmy Carter, who won a lifetime achievement award, and journalist Rajiv Chandrasekaran of The Washington Post who was recognised for his recent book, “Emerald City: Inside Iraq’s Green Zone”.

As hundreds at the luncheon finished their lobster salad, Vance, a two-time George W. Bush voter and Navy veteran, recounted the events of his imprisonment and the grief of his fiancé and family. They did not know if he was alive or dead, he said. They were already making inquiries to the U.S. State Department on how to ship his body home.

He then drew a wider circle around his ordeal to include the countless others who have been held falsely without charge and denied normal legal constitutional protections under law. “My name used to be 200343,” Vance said recalling his prisoner ID. “If they can do this to a former Navy man and an American, what is happening to people in facilities all over the world run by the American government?”

Vance’s nightmare began last year on Apr. 15 when he and co-worker Nathan Ertel barricaded themselves in a Baghdad office after their employer, an Iraqi private security firm, took away their ID tags. They feared for their lives because they suspected the company was involved in selling unauthorised guns on the black market and other nefarious activity. A U.S. military squad freed them from the red zone in Baghdad after a friend at the U.S. embassy advised him to call for help.

Once they reached the U.S.-controlled Green Zone, government officials took them inside the embassy, listened to their individual accounts and then sent them to a trailer outside for sleep. Two or three hours later, before the crack of dawn, U.S. military personnel woke them. This time, however, Vance and Ertel, Shield Security’s contract manager, were under arrest. Soldiers bound their wrists with zip ties and covered their eyes with goggles blacked out with duct tape.

The two were then escorted to a humvee and driven first to possibly Camp Prosperity and then to Camp Cropper, a high-security prison near the Baghdad airport where Saddam Hussein was once kept. Vance says he was denied the usual body armour and helmet while traveling through the perilous Baghdad streets outside the safety of the Green Zone or a U.S. military installation.

It was not the way the tall 29-year-old with an easy charm and keen mind had expected to be treated. Vance claims that during the months leading up to his arrest, he worked as an unpaid informant for the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Sometimes twice a day, he would share information with an agent in Chicago about the Iraqi-owned Shield Group Security, whose principals and managers appeared to be involved in weapons deals and violence against Iraqi civilians. One company employee regularly bartered alcohol with U.S. military personnel in exchange for ammunition they delivered, Vance said.

“He called it the bullets for beer programme,” Vance claimed while relating the incident during an interview this week at a cigar bar just walking distance from the White House.

But his interrogators at Camp Cropper weren’t impressed. Instead, his jailers insisted that Vance and Ertel had been detained and imprisoned because the two worked for Shield Group Security where large caches of weapons have been found — weapons that may have been intended for possible distribution to insurgents and terrorist groups, Vance said.

In a lawsuit now pending against former Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and “other unidentified agents,” Vance and Ertel accuse their U.S. government captors of subjecting them to psychological torture day and night. Lights were kept on in their cell around the clock. They endured solitary confinement. They had only thin plastic mattresses on concrete for sleeping. Meals were of powdered milk and bread or rice and chicken, but interrupted by selective deprivation of food and water. Ceaseless heavy metal and country music screamed in their ears for hours on end, their legal complaint alleges.

They lived through “conditions of confinement and interrogation tantamount to torture”, says the lawsuit filed in northern Illinois U.S. District Court. “Their interrogators utilised the types of physically and mentally coercive tactics that are supposedly reserved for terrorists and so-called enemy combatants.”

Rumsfeld is singled out as the key defendant because he played a critical role in establishing a policy of “unlawful detention and torment” that Vance, Ertel and countless others in the “war on terror” have endured, the lawsuit asserts, noting that the former defence secretary and other high-level military commanders acting at his direction developed and authorised a policy that allows government officials unilateral discretion to designate possible enemies of the United States.

Because the incident and allegations are now in litigation, the Pentagon has no comment, spokesman Army Lieut. Col. Mark Ballesteros said. He referred all inquires to the U.S. Justice Department, which also had no comment for similar reasons.

But darker allegations are included in the complaint over false imprisonment. Because he worked with the FBI, Vance contends, U.S. government officials in Iraq decided to retaliate against him and Ertel. He believes these officials conspired to jail the two not because they worked for a security company suspected of selling weapons to insurgents, but because they were sharing information with law enforcement agents outside the control of U.S. officials in Baghdad.

“In other words,” claims the lawsuit, “United States officials in Iraq were concerned and wanted to find out about what intelligence agents in the United States knew about their territory and their operations. The unconstitutional policies that Rumsfeld and other unidentified agents had implemented for ‘enemies’ provided ample cover to detain plaintiffs and interrogate them toward that end.”

It may take some time to sort out the allegations as the legal process grinds forward, but, in the meantime, Vance is raising new questions about his detention. He still wonders why his jailers didn’t just call the FBI and have him cleared. They had access to his computer and cell phone to determine if his claims were true.

“When I told them to do that, they just got angry and told me to stop answering questions I wasn’t being asked,” Vance said. “I think they were butting heads with the State Department. I just snitched on the wrong people. I took the bull by the horns and got the horn.”

And why weren’t managers with the Shield Group held and interrogated?

Interrogators were certainly interested in these other individuals, according to the lawsuit. They wanted to know about the company’s structure, its political contacts, and its owners — most of whom are related to a long-established Iraqi family who fled Iraq during the years the country was ruled by Saddam Hussein, Vance said.

More startling even now is that the company has reformed. At the time they left, Shield Security held U.S.-funded contracts with the Iraqi government, Iraqi companies, NGOs and U.S. contractors. As far as Vance knows, the company still does — but under a different name: National Shield Security.

“I built the original web site for Shield Security. All they did was change the name,” he said. “And they are still being awarded millions of dollars in contracts.”

On Tuesday, meeting with the press in the White House Rose Garden, the President responded to a question about House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Syria this way: “[P]hoto opportunities and/or meetings with President Assad lead the Assad government to believe they’re part of the mainstream of the international community, when, in fact, they’re a state sponsor of terror.” There should, he added to the assembled reporters, be no meetings with state sponsors of terror.

That night, Brian Ross of ABC News reported that, since 2005, the U.S. has “encouraged and advised” Jundullah, a Pakistani tribal “militant group,” led by a former Taliban fighter and “drug smuggler,” which has been launching guerrilla raids into Baluchi areas of Iran. These incursions involve kidnappings and terror bombings, as well as the murder (recorded on video) of Iranian prisoners. According to Ross, “U.S. officials say the U.S. relationship with Jundullah is arranged so that the U.S. provides no funding to the group, which would require an official presidential order or ‘finding’ as well as congressional oversight.” Given past history, it would be surprising if the group doing the encouraging and advising wasn’t the Central Intelligence Agency, which has a long, sordid record in the region. (New Yorker investigative journalist Seymour Hersh has been reporting since 2005 on a Bush administration campaign to destabilize the Iranian regime, heighten separatist sentiments in that country, and prepare for a possible full-scale air attack on Iranian nuclear and other facilities.)

The President also spoke of the Iranian capture of British sailors in disputed waters two weeks ago. He claimed that their “seizure… is indefensible by the Iranians.” Oddly enough, perhaps as part of secret negotiations over the British sailors, who were dramatically freed by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Wednesday, an Iranian diplomat in Iraq was also mysteriously freed. Eight weeks ago, he had been kidnapped off the streets of Baghdad by uniformed men of unknown provenance. Reporting on his sudden release, Alissa J. Rubin of the New York Times offered this little explanation of the kidnapping: “Although [Iraqi foreign minister, Hoshyar] Zebari was uncertain who kidnapped the man, others familiar with the case said they believe those responsible work for the Iraqi Intelligence Service, which is affiliated with the Central Intelligence Agency.” The CIA, of course, has a sordid history in Baghdad as well, including running car-bombing operations in the Iraqi capital back in Saddam Hussein’s day.

And don’t forget the botched Bush administration attempt to capture two high Iranian security officials and the actual kidnapping of five Iranian diplomats-cum-Revolutionary-Guards in Irbil in Iraqi Kurdistan over two months ago — they disappeared into the black hole of an American prison system in Iraq that now holds perhaps 17,000 Iraqis (as well as those Iranians) and is still growing. As Juan Cole has pointed out, most such acts, and the rhetoric that goes with them, represent so many favors to “an unpopular and isolated Iranian government attempting to rally support and strengthen itself.”

In addition, just this week, the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz and other ships in its battle group left San Diego for the Persian Gulf. Two carrier battle groups are already there, promising an almost unprecedented show of strength. As the ship left port, U.S. military officials explained the mission of the carriers in the Gulf this way: They are intended to demonstrate U.S. “resolve to build regional security and bring long-term stability to the region.”

And stability in the region, it seems, means promoting instability in Iran by any means possible. So, the President’s Global War on Terror also turns out to be the Global War of Terror. No one has dealt with the way “state sponsorship of terror” works, when it comes to our own country, more strikingly than Noam Chomsky, who considers the larger Iranian crisis below. His latest book, Failed States: The Abuse of Power and the Assault on Democracy, is just out in paperback and couldn’t be more to the point at the present moment. Right now, if the U.S. isn’t already a failing state, it’s certainly a flailing one. Tom

What If Iran Had Invaded Mexico? – Putting the Iran Crisis in Context
By Noam Chomsky

Unsurprisingly, George W. Bush’s announcement of a “surge” in Iraq came despite the firm opposition to any such move of Americans and the even stronger opposition of the (thoroughly irrelevant) Iraqis. It was accompanied by ominous official leaks and statements — from Washington and Baghdad — about how Iranian intervention in Iraq was aimed at disrupting our mission to gain victory, an aim which is (by definition) noble. What then followed was a solemn debate about whether serial numbers on advanced roadside bombs (IEDs) were really traceable to Iran; and, if so, to that country’s Revolutionary Guards or to some even higher authority.

This “debate” is a typical illustration of a primary principle of sophisticated propaganda. In crude and brutal societies, the Party Line is publicly proclaimed and must be obeyed — or else. What you actually believe is your own business and of far less concern. In societies where the state has lost the capacity to control by force, the Party Line is simply presupposed; then, vigorous debate is encouraged within the limits imposed by unstated doctrinal orthodoxy. The cruder of the two systems leads, naturally enough, to disbelief; the sophisticated variant gives an impression of openness and freedom, and so far more effectively serves to instill the Party Line. It becomes beyond question, beyond thought itself, like the air we breathe.

The debate over Iranian interference in Iraq proceeds without ridicule on the assumption that the United States owns the world. We did not, for example, engage in a similar debate in the 1980s about whether the U.S. was interfering in Soviet-occupied Afghanistan, and I doubt that Pravda, probably recognizing the absurdity of the situation, sank to outrage about that fact (which American officials and our media, in any case, made no effort to conceal). Perhaps the official Nazi press also featured solemn debates about whether the Allies were interfering in sovereign Vichy France, though if so, sane people would then have collapsed in ridicule.

In this case, however, even ridicule — notably absent — would not suffice, because the charges against Iran are part of a drumbeat of pronouncements meant to mobilize support for escalation in Iraq and for an attack on Iran, the “source of the problem.” The world is aghast at the possibility. Even in neighboring Sunni states, no friends of Iran, majorities, when asked, favor a nuclear-armed Iran over any military action against that country. From what limited information we have, it appears that significant parts of the U.S. military and intelligence communities are opposed to such an attack, along with almost the entire world, even more so than when the Bush administration and Tony Blair’s Britain invaded Iraq, defying enormous popular opposition worldwide.

“The Iran Effect”

The results of an attack on Iran could be horrendous. After all, according to a recent study of “the Iraq effect” by terrorism specialists Peter Bergen and Paul Cruickshank, using government and Rand Corporation data, the Iraq invasion has already led to a seven-fold increase in terror. The “Iran effect” would probably be far more severe and long-lasting. British military historian Corelli Barnett speaks for many when he warns that “an attack on Iran would effectively launch World War III.”

What are the plans of the increasingly desperate clique that narrowly holds political power in the U.S.? We cannot know. Such state planning is, of course, kept secret in the interests of “security.” Review of the declassified record reveals that there is considerable merit in that claim — though only if we understand “security” to mean the security of the Bush administration against their domestic enemy, the population in whose name they act.

Even if the White House clique is not planning war, naval deployments, support for secessionist movements and acts of terror within Iran, and other provocations could easily lead to an accidental war. Congressional resolutions would not provide much of a barrier. They invariably permit “national security” exemptions, opening holes wide enough for the several aircraft-carrier battle groups soon to be in the Persian Gulf to pass through — as long as an unscrupulous leadership issues proclamations of doom (as Condoleezza Rice did with those “mushroom clouds” over American cities back in 2002). And the concocting of the sorts of incidents that “justify” such attacks is a familiar practice. Even the worst monsters feel the need for such justification and adopt the device: Hitler’s defense of innocent Germany from the “wild terror” of the Poles in 1939, after they had rejected his wise and generous proposals for peace, is but one example.

The most effective barrier to a White House decision to launch a war is the kind of organized popular opposition that frightened the political-military leadership enough in 1968 that they were reluctant to send more troops to Vietnam — fearing, we learned from the Pentagon Papers, that they might need them for civil-disorder control.

Captured Iraqi documents and intelligence interrogations of Saddam Hussein and two former aides “all confirmed” that Hussein’s regime was not directly cooperating with al-Qaeda before the U.S. invasion of Iraq, according to a declassified Defense Department report released yesterday.

The declassified version of the report, by acting Inspector General Thomas F. Gimble, also contains new details about the intelligence community’s prewar consensus that the Iraqi government and al-Qaeda figures had only limited contacts, and about its judgments that reports of deeper links were based on dubious or unconfirmed information. The report had been released in summary form in February.

The report’s release came on the same day that Vice President Cheney, appearing on Rush Limbaugh’s radio program, repeated his allegation that al-Qaeda was operating inside Iraq “before we ever launched” the war, under the direction of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the terrorist killed last June.

“This is al-Qaeda operating in Iraq,” Cheney told Limbaugh’s listeners about Zarqawi, who he said had “led the charge for Iraq.” Cheney cited the alleged history to illustrate his argument that withdrawing U.S. forces from Iraq would “play right into the hands of al-Qaeda.”

Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.), who requested the report’s declassification, said in a written statement that the complete text demonstrates more fully why the inspector general concluded that a key Pentagon office — run by then-Undersecretary of Defense Douglas J. Feith — had inappropriately written intelligence assessments before the March 2003 invasion alleging connections between al-Qaeda and Iraq that the U.S. intelligence consensus disputed.

The Bush administration repeatedly made the presence in Iraq of Abu Musab Zarqawi a pretext for invading the country and overthrowing Saddam Hussein. They implied that he was a client of Saddam and that Saddam had arranged for hospital care for him.

Newly released documents from the captured Iraqi archives show that Saddam had put out an APB for Zarqawi and was trying to have him arrested as a danger to the Baath regime!

‘ However, one of the documents, a letter from an Iraqi intelligence official, dated August 17, 2002, asked agents in the country to be on the lookout for Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and another unnamed man whose picture was attached. ‘

Update: This is the original pdf document as released by the USG. It is at Blackvault.com but does not appear to be listed any longer at the original Ft. Leavenworth site. (Update 9/9/06).

Dear Peter Pace,

As a lesbian, I often turn, in my quest for moral guidance, to the Joint Chiefs of Staff. You, Peter Pace, being Chairman of the JCS, are to me a virtual guru of ethical enlightenment! So, naturally, I was struck by your recent Chicago Tribune interview, in which you said, “I believe homosexual acts between two individuals are immoral and that we should not condone immoral acts.”

At first, your words threw me into a panic of denial. Does this mean, I asked myself, that I am basically good, and bad only when I am performing acts of a homosexual nature? What if there were more than two individuals getting it homosexually on – if I were part of an orgy of, say, 3 to 11,847 people – would I be less immoral? And what if I joined the Army and shot a lot of Iraqi insurgents, along with a few innocent civilians – would Peter Pace at last condone me?

Then I stopped bargaining with myself. I realized that you, Peter Pace, are right. Just as I have accepted the fact of my homosexuality, I now must accept the fact that I am morally depraved. Thank you for informing me of my innate evil. I will try to keep this in mind the next time I engage in acts of sordid, sin-soaked muff diving with my homosexual girlfriend.

I shall now endeavor to go on with my life, with perhaps slightly lower self-esteem, but also with joy in the knowledge that that you and I share a common humanity. For you, too, Peter Pace, have stood alone as an outcast, scorned and snickered at by your peers. In 2005, you had the guts to stand up to then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, to argue that it was the duty of American troops to prevent torture. Wow. It’s one thing to have humanitarian (or, “humo”) tendencies – but actually opposing torture in this Administration must make you feel like some noncom Army fag with his head stuffed into a barracks toilet.

Speaking of epithets, did you hear that, at the Conservative Political Action Conference, pundit Ann Coulter called Presidential hopeful John Edwards a “faggot”? I’m sure she meant that in a good way. In fact, in a recent appearance on “Hannity and Colmes,” Ann explained that her use of the word “isn’t offensive to gays; it has nothing to do with gays.”

Ann must mean that she sees John Edwards not as a homosexual, but as an annoying, effete, wussy kind of guy – a guy who possibly wouldn’t like to be tortured. After all, Ann is unwavering in her anti-wuss position, and has made her name with such actual, alpha-femme statements as: “I think the government should be spying on all Arabs, engaging in torture as a televised spectator sport, dropping daisy cutters wantonly throughout the Middle East and sending liberals to Guantánamo.”

Ann is not pretty when she’s mad. So I worry, Peter Pace. I worry that Ann Coulter will find out about your stance against torture and call you, at some nationally-televised gathering, a “faggot.” I mean, we homosexuals can take it when we’re called names, but you people are more delicate. It’s good, then, that you reclaimed the moral high ground with your defense of the use of white phosphorous – an incendiary chemical that burns down to the bone when exposed to oxygen – in flushing out insurgents during the American siege on Fallujah. “It is a legitimate tool of the military,” you said.

I guess “legitimate,” here, is a code word for “moral.” Which is a code word for “heterosexual.” Which is the preferred libidinal default of you and God and Ann Coulter and all good people. It is natural, then, that when we meet a person, we assume she or he is heterosexual – or “moral” – unless, of course, we ask and are then told that the person we have just met is a godlessly debauched queer.

So, given that there are, according to the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, approximately 65,000 gay men and lesbians serving in our military, your endorsement of the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy makes perfect sense. I feel truly proud, truly grateful, knowing that none of our soldiers who caused the deaths of at least 60,411 (and counting) Iraqi civilians were immoral enough to admit that they were queer.

Perhaps, in order for us all to sleep nights, Peter Pace, we Americans – straight and gay – should apply the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy to you, as well. For instance, we won’t ask you just what the military did at Fallujah and other places in Iraq, and you won’t tell us, OK? It’s one way of maintaining our national morality at its current level.

Well, gotta go. My girlfriend wants to have sex again. This time, she’s asked me to dress up as Ann Coulter. As if that could wash away the stain…

We’ve been complaining about the top-down bureaucratic agenda of the colonizers. Do we have something to replace it? Yes we do. It’s called the “Kaianerehkowa/Great Law of Peace” [the constitution of the Six Nations Iroquois Confederacy].

Our philosophy can be used to build a society based on peace, power and righteousness. These words have meanings that are deeply rooted in our culture and completely different from the kinds of expectations they raise among the colonized. Our understanding of these concepts has nothing in common with the command and obedience model of predatory capitalism or the exploitation of ordinary people for the power and profit of a few. The new (colonial) world order is opposite to our way of life based on the principles of fully informed consent and consensus in all our relationships.

Stephen Lendman, in CounterCurrent.org, describes how Hugo Chavez of Venezuela has “constructed socialism from below”, built “from the base” in the communities.” He has found a way to rebuild Venezuelan society. He wants a coalition of smaller parties whose power comes from the communities.

Chavez thinks this is the way democracy should work. A lot of ordinary people agree.

There are presently 16,000 regional federations of Communal Councils organized across the country that deal with local issues. Each represent 200 to 400 families. That number is expected to grow to 21,000 councils by the end of 2007. This new state is driven by the same basic philosophy of egalitarian human respect that underlies the Kaianerehkowa.

A decentralized government will distribute billions of dollars to these Councils. If the people so chose, billions can be put into a “National Development Fund.” Yellow journalism has been attacking this thinking. They put fear into people’s minds, calling it “nationalization”, which is a dirty word to capitalists and colonialists. Capitalism is a one way road for the privileged few. Development of democratic programs look threatening to those who are at the top of the old hierarchal heap.

As we assert our sovereignty, we have lots to think about. What can we Onkwehonwe do with all our land and resources and all the squatters who are here? The land belongs to us and our future generations. It always will. All our resource revenues can be used to compensate the colonists fairly. The rest can be put towards rebuilding a safe and healthy environment.

U.S., Canada and Mexico will, of course, become irrelevant. These cancerous organizations don’t belong. They are trying to kill the hosts. That’s us. Then they’ll kill everybody else! Where will that leave them?

The old hierarchies will cling to their delusional powers. They will keep their guns pointed at us and try to invent more lethal weapons. We’ll have to bring out the feathers and start tickling them so they can let down their defenses and so they can grab a shovel and take part. If they don’t, we might have to ask them to leave. Their hysterical megalomania is getting them involved in serious violations of international accords. If they’re not careful, they could be declared persona non grata worldwide.

With all the money from our land and resources, we could buy out the big corporations so that we have the major shares, say 40%, as Chavez is doing. The rest can be joint ventures with us. In other words, we want all these companies under the control of the people. The colonists can have shares after we take everything out of private control.

The people must control the energy sector, including oil production. Private investors can still play a role. But it will be based on joint ventures that include the people as decision makers, not just consumers.

The money should be put back into our hands, out of the hands of private for-profit bankers. We would invest it into worthwhile projects that restore and protect the land so that the coming generations can be healthy, happy and prosperous. The days of genocide and exploitation are over. We must benefit from our resource revenues and other businesses that provide essential services like public utilities. Clean drinking water and fresh air to breathe would be top priorities.

It goes without saying that Indian Affairs terrorism has to go. There is no excuse for that organization to exist. Its very existence is founded on a misinterpretation of the BNA Act, the constitution of Canada. Britain could only give Canada the authority to negotiate with us. There is no authority under the BNA Act, under international law, or under any treaty to make laws for us.

We have to dismantle the “Tower of Terror” in Hull. Communal power at the grass roots will be the order of the day. Kaianerehkowa can make this happen and can be the start of a real egalitarian and humanistic society.

All social structures will have to be reorganized. Selections of local officials, the economy, finance, banking, transportation, security, public safety and policies related to energy are part of this. There is no need for a top heavy governmental structure when everyone takes responsibility at all levels.

The current colonial bureaucracy will have to be dismantled. Corruption and greed are major problems. They are products of hierarchy. They will naturally disappear when egalitarian democratic structures are put in place.

The changes needed aren’t such a big deal. As long as existing representatives are carrying out the will of the people, they may remain in their positions.

All procedures and decision-making must be public and the work of all administrative officials will be subject to constant review. They have to look out for the people and their directions, instead of looking up to the artificial bosses. They can be removed from office if they do not follow the people’s directions or heed our warnings. All must be given the experience of being a representative so that we can all learn how to help the people. It is important for everyone to learn how difficult it is to serve.

Social justice and economic independence must be based on equitable distribution of national wealth. Education is most important. The habit of censorship has to end. Racism must be eliminated from all school curricula. All students need to learn our points of view on history. They have to know what really happened to us. They have to know that this land belongs to us and our future generations. Science and technology has to benefit all of the people. So must health, the environment, biodiversity, industry, quality of life and security. We have to take up our responsibility and take charge of our own lives.

Social issues can and must be resolved through consensus. We will have to rethink the need for a judiciary. We cannot give anyone power to harm civil or human rights of our people or even of our opponents. Resources must be taken care of, not exploited. The products of the land must be distributed fairly. No one will become desperate enough to want to sell their soul to the devil.

Our young people have a job to do. They can be part of the first wave of reeducation. Every person has a responsibility throughout their lives to educate the people they meet and the coming generations.

Our way is to manage our own relations with all other countries. The colonial states are squatting on our land. They do not represent us.

The people they brought here do not need to fear us. We will not expropriate private property. Right of occupancy can be given to people. The land will always belong as it always has to the future generations of the Onkwehonwe.

We are hoping that the last days of the colonial system are at hand. Democracy and colonialism cannot coexist. Colonialism is a military or civilian “dictatorship” derived from a combination of isolation, overarching greed and an attempt to pull local and global forces together to control all the people and the resources of the world.

Savage capitalism is in its death throes. It is fighting to stay alive. Because of this, it’s becoming more and more vicious. It is important for everyone to stay grounded at this time. We are all working for each other and for the future generations.

The colonial nations are on the tipping edge of fascism. They combine elements of corporatism, patriotism, nationalism and the delusion of an Almighty-directed mission. It requires an iron-fisted militarist agenda with thugs like “Homeland Security” illegally spying on everyone. In this system everything is for sale to the few who can pay.

Colonialism is out of date, illegal and so yesterday. No longer will the armies oppress and kill for the key resources, markets and cheap labor where “might makes right” and any difference of opinion will not be tolerated.

Our youth are precious to us. The Los Angeles Times did a story about “A wildly successful Venezuelan program that makes musical instruments and training available, free of charge, to all children.” This gives children something constructive to do. Unlike the U.S. model that Canada copies, the kids are exercising their minds instead of exercising their thumbs playing video games.

Instead of a make-work program for police and social workers who try to slot kids into a system of jail and imprisonment, Chavez created a musical education program called “El Sistema.” 500,000 children from all strata of society get training at more than 120 centers around the country. More than 200 youth orchestras have been created. Training in music is known to develop math skills in the young to prepare them later for professional training. There’s no problem keeping guns out of the kids’ hands. They’re too busy making music. That Chavez knows what he is doing.

Instead of punishing youth, we inspire them. As the author, Paul Cummins, put it, “We reap what we sow, and we don’t harvest what we don’t plant.”

The Chavez approach is actually much less expensive than the multi-billion dollar state-sponsored iron-fisted prison system and militarist Homeland Security “thuggery.”

Another savage effect of the capitalist hierarchy is homelessness. One-way wealth distribution siphons everything upwards except for a few crumbs that are handed to the middle class while nothing goes to the millions on the bottom who are the most in need. They all hope we will just go away. We won’t. Neither will our needs. We come from a participatory tradition which can eliminate the greedy fantasies of colonialism.

Many who come from repressive societies are unable to see a bottom-up model of relationships. We have shown that we always resisted enslavement.

Free expression is part of an open democratic society. No more secrecy or lies. No more corporate media support for capitalists and colonial states. No more thought-control police to mock our efforts at free expression which is vital to a healthy transition from tyranny to democracy. The “thought police” don’t want us to say what is on our minds. They don’t want us to think. We can and will do it because the Kaianerehkowa mandates it. People in the far south of the border are trying to get back on the natural path that has always been there, for us and for everyone. This can be done without a war and without global interference.

An earlier version of this article was published on Mohawk Nation News on February 26th 2007.–Socialist Voice

Kahentinetha Horn is a longtime indigenous rights activist from the Mohawk Nation. She was involved in the 1962 Conference on Indian Poverty in Washington D.C., the blocking of the International Bridge at Akwesasne in 1968, and other indigenous rights campaigns.

In the summer of 1990, she was behind the Canadian Army razor wires that surrounded the Mohawk compound in Kanehsatake. This was the historic Mohawk land rights struggle that became known as the “Oka Crisis.” After almost 20 years of service, Kahentinetha was fired by the Department of Indian Affairs for her involvement there.

More recently Kahentinetha has been involved with the Kahnawake Elders Council, and was active at the Six Nations Land reclamation near Caledonia, Ontario, publishing and distributing almost daily accounts of the developments there.

Note from “Firefly” – Unbelievable but true! These organic farmers in Bukidnon, Philippines are being EVICTED by a state owned university so the rice planted land can be leased to a CORPORATION to promote chemicalized farming!!!

ORGANIC farmers need the support of all human beings who are against the toxic chemicalized environment that PROFIT DRIVEN corporations are fast tracking into this globalized world.

Firefly
Tawo Seed Carrier
POB 1456
South Pasadena, CA 91031

SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE RICE FARMING COMMUNITY TO DEFY EVICTION
By Ilang-Ilang D. Quijano

Only defiance will turn these rice fields gold.

A rice farming community in the province of Bukidnon, Southern Philippines is once again facing eviction from a 400-hectare land they have long struggled to till. But now they have more to lose than 20 years ago, when a state-owned university first tried, unsuccessfully, to take away their land.

Six hundred farming families in the municipality of Magalang do not simply cultivate rice fields: they are in control of a thriving sustainable agriculture (SA) farm and a community seedbank with hundreds of traditional rice varieties (TRVs) that have disappeared elsewhere in the country.

Yet the significance of this courageous leap from chemical-dependent rice farming to SA is lost on the Central Mindanao University (CMU), which wants to lease the land to big agri-businesses.

Harassment comeback

Last March 28, more than 20 security agents of CMU, at gunpoint, prevented farmers from working the fields. They confiscated several farming tools and machines, including a small tractor.

“CMU’s harassment is making a comeback. But we have already made a decision. We will not leave our lands. If we do not plant rice, what will our families eat?” said Jun Macote, chairperson of Buffalo-Tamaraw-Limus (BLT), a farmers association affiliated with Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) or Peasant Movement of the Philippines.

Macote came to Manila to participate in Pesticide Action Network’s Week of Rice Action culmination events and to relate to other farmers and the international community their community’s SA practice and current land problem.

Failed land reform program

The BLT farmers experience is a classic case of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program’s (CARP) failure to redistribute land to poor farmers and wrest it from the control of landlords and agri-businesses.

In 1987, the farmers, mostly former CMU employees, were awarded Certificate of Land Ownership Awards (CLOAs) by the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR). The CLOAs were issued under CARP, implemented by former president Corazon Aquino after the People Power uprising that toppled the Marcos dictatorship.

The CMU brought the case to the Court of Appeals in 1991, and lost. It elevated the case to the Supreme Court, which in 1992 overturned the lower court’s decision and ruled in favor of CMU on the grounds that land use “for educational purposes” were among CARP’s many exemptions. The farmers’ CLOAs were subsequently revoked.

But the farmers defied the Supreme Court and refused to vacate the land and asserted their rights through collective and militant struggle, even when these led to direct confrontations with CMU’s security agents.

In 2001, the Congressional Committee on Agrarian Reform visited the community to help settle the land dispute. The committee declared it a “stable area” and saw no reason to take the land away from the farmers.

Editorial Note: Israel’s foray into Lebanon last year resulted a resounding military defeat for the Zionist state. According to a confidential French Foreign Office report, seen by Brian Harring, far from losing from 116 to 120 men, as it claims, IDF losses totalled 2300 – Ranimar

Author’s Note: On a business trip to Moscow for a conference with my publishers, I stopped in Paris for four days for business, research and sightseeing. During that time, one of my French friends in their Foreign Office gave me a copy of an official report and summary of the causes, actions and losses of the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 2006. This document runs to over three hundred pages and is complete with charts, graphs and many photographs. Here is a translation and condensation of that report for your interest. – Brian Harring

Subject: Causes of the attack

Both the State of Israel and the United States viewed Syria as a potentially dangerous enemy. Joint intelligence indicated that Syria was a strong supporter of the Hezbollah Shiite paramilitary group. Israel had planned a punitive military operation into Lebanon both to clip Hezbollah’s wings and send a strong message to Syria to cease and desist supplying arms and money to the anti-Israel group. Because of its involvement in Iraq, the United States indicated it would be unable to supply any ground troops but would certainly supply any kind of weapon, to include bombs, cluster bombs and ammunition for this projected operation.

A casus belli was created by the Israeli Mossad’s assassination of Rafik Haarri, a popular Lebanese politician and subsequent disinformation promulgated and instigated by both Israel and the United States blamed Syria for the killing.

The IDF was being supplied faulty and misleading intelligence information, apparently originating from Russian sources, that gave misinformation about Hezbollah positions and strengths and therefore the initial planning was badly flawed.

In full concert with the American president, the IDF launched its brutal and murderous attack on July 12, 2006 and continued unabated until the Hezbollah inflicted so many serious casualties on the Israeli forces and also on the civilian population of Israel, that their government frantically demanded that the White House force a cease fire through the United Nations. This was done for Israel on August 14, 2007 and the last act of this murderous and unprovoked assault was when Israel removed their naval blockade of Lebanese ports.

The contrived incident that launched the Israeli attack was an alleged attack by Hezbollah into Israeli territory where they were alleged to have ‘kidnapped” two Israeli soldiers and subsequently launched a rocket attack to cover their retreat.

The conflict killed over six thousand people, most of whom were Lebanese, severely damaged Lebanese infrastructure, displaced 700,000-915,000 Lebanese, and 300,000-500,000 Israelis, and disrupted normal life across all of Lebanon and northern Israel. Even after the ceasefire, much of Southern Lebanon remained uninhabitable due to unexploded cluster bombs. As of 1 December 2006, an estimated 200,000 Lebanese remained internally displaced or refugees

During the campaign Israel’s Air Force flew more than 12,000 combat missions, its Navy fired 2,500 shells, and its Army fired over 100,000 shells. Large parts of the Lebanese civilian infrastructure were destroyed, including 400 miles of roads, 73 bridges, and 31 other targets such as Beirut International Airport, ports, water and sewage treatment plants, electrical facilities, 25 fuel stations, 900 commercial structures, up to 350 schools and two hospitals, and 15,000 homes. Some 130,000 more homes were damaged.

Israeli Defense Minister Amir Peretz ordered commanders to prepare civil defense plans. One million Israelis had to stay near or in bomb shelters or security rooms, with some 250,000 civilians evacuating the north and relocating to other areas of the country.

On 26 July 2006 Israeli forces attacked and destroyed an UN observer post. Described as a nondeliberate attack by Israel, the post was shelled for hours before being bombed. UN forces made repeated calls to alert Israeli forces of the danger to the UN observers, all four of whom were killed. Rescuers were shelled as they attempted to reach the post. According to an e-mail sent earlier by one of the UN observers killed in the attack, there had been numerous occasions on a daily basis where the post had come under fire from both Israeli artillery and bombing. The UN observer reportedly wrote that previous Israeli bombing near the post had not been deliberate targeting, but rather due to “tactical necessity,” military jargon which retired Canadian Major General Lewis MacKenzie later interpreted as indicating that Israeli strikes were aimed at Hezbollah targets extremely close to the post.

On 27 July 2006 Hezbollah ambushed the Israeli forces in Bint Jbeil and killed eighteen soldiers. Israel claimed, after this event, that it also inflicted heavy losses on Hezbollah.

On 28 July 2006 Israeli paratroopers killed 5 of Hezbollah’s commando elite in Bint Jbeil. In total, the IDF claimed that 80 fighters were killed in the battles at Bint Jbeil. Hezbollah sources, coupled with International Red Cross figures place the Hexbollah total at 7 dead and 129 non-combattant Lebanese civilian deaths.

On 30 July 2006 Israeli airstrikes hit an apartment building in Qana, killing at least 65 civilians, of which 28 were children, with 25 more missing. The airstrike was widely condemned.