The Rag Blog

01/20/07 “ICHBlog” President Bush is invoking his “commander in chief” authority to escalate the war in Iraq, and he will likely also invoke it to launch an aerial attack against Iran. Congress has long ago abdicated and delegated to the President its constitutional responsibility to initiate wars. Yet Congress still has one surefire way to influence events: it has the constitutional authority to make the “nuclear option” against Iran illegal. In so doing, it would stop the relentless drive to war against Iran dead in its tracks.

Notwithstanding Joe Biden’s threat of a “constitutional confrontation” if Bush attacks Iran without Congressional authorization, the fact is that such an attack would be perfectly legal: the War Powers Act gives the US President legal authority to wage war against any country for 60 days. It would also be legal for Bush to order nuclear strikes against Iran: under NSC-30 of 1948, “the decision as to the employment of atomic weapons in the event of war is to be made by the Chief Executive”. Neither nor votes to withold funding will have any effect on preventing such events.

However, Congress could pass a law making a nuclear attack on a non-nuclear nation in the absence of Congressional authorization illegal. In so doing, Congress would effectively be preventing Bush from launching any attack against Iran without its authorization, thus reclaiming its broader constitutionally assigned duties. Because Bush will not dare putting 150,000 American lives in Iraq at risk of Iranian retaliation without having the nuclear option on the table. By removing the nuclear option from the Bush toolkit, Congress would be forcefully imposing its will and that of the American people on an administration gone mad.

If Congress chooses not to face the fact that US military action against Iran is likely to lead to the first US use of nuclear weapons since Nagasaki, each one of its members will share responsibility for the nefarious chain of events that is likely to follow, and should be preparing to face his/her very own nuclear Nuremberg trial.

Preparations for the Iran attack

The following recent events have led to widespread suspicions that a US/ Israeli attack on Iran is imminent:

* Additional aircraft carriers deployed to the Persian Gulf.
* US Patriot missiles just deployed to the Persian Gulf.
* F16 fighter planes just deployed to the Incirlik base in Turkey.
* Increased number of US nuclear submarines in Persian Gulf.
* Admiral Fallon named Centcom commander.
* Israeli pilots training for Iran bombing mission.
* Increased rethoric and provocations against Iran.

The F-16’s can deliver B61-11 nuclear bunker busters, and there may be such bombs at Incirlik.

01/20/07 “ICHBlog” — The central question of our time is, can the American people gain enough factual information to determine the truth about the issues that face them?

Sadly, I’m inclined to think not. In the past, America was dotted with newspapers that were owned by people who lived in the community they served – newspapers that were supported by the advertising of businesses that were owned by people living in the community. In both cases, this economic independence translated into independence of thought.

Today, that is far less true. Probably a majority of newspapers, radio stations and television stations are owned by absentee corporations. Most of the businesses whose advertising supports local media are likewise owned by absentee corporations.

To understand what a tremendous change this is, remember that owners decide – everybody else is an employee whose future with the corporation rests solely on pleasing the owners. No employee, whether an executive or a worker, can afford to antagonize the owners if he values his job. And everything except ownership is a job.

Ah, but what about the Internet? In the first place, there are fewer computer owners than you might think, and not all of them are computer literate. A huge amount of the information on the Internet is junk and rubbish and propaganda. There are more information spewers than there are information gatherers. A great deal of it is geek talk, reflecting the endless fascination of some people with gadgets. There is gossip and entertainment hype, and there are the unsubstantiated opinions of people who just want to vent.

As the old saying goes, opinions are like elbows: Most people have at least two. But whether an opinion is of any value or not depends on the amount of research and intelligence behind it. Certainly if you had a heart attack, you wouldn’t go to a car salesman for an opinion about what you should do. A great many opinions are birthed by paycheck and self-interest. You wouldn’t last very long at the Heritage Foundation if you decided that there were serious flaws in capitalism that needed addressing.

It goes back to the golden rule: Those who have the gold rule. Big donors to various foundations and think tanks aren’t supporting pure research; they are subsidizing opinions and interests they already hold. The fact is that despite the communications revolution, or perhaps because of it, finding facts and truth are more difficult today than in the past.

It’s also a fact that government routinely lies, and so do many corporations. That mysterious commitment to the public good, which once joined Americans from many different classes and positions, seems to have dissolved. Integrity, which simply means being true regardless of consequences to one’s own beliefs, seems to have no market value in America today.

Self-government only works if the people have access to the truth. If they are lied to and propagandized instead of informed, then they, in fact, live in a dictatorship, though one carefully disguised by their controllers. That’s why Thomas Jefferson said that newspapers that whore for political parties or other interests are no different than newspapers controlled by a government.

Take this little test: Pick out any national issue or any national political figure and ask yourself, What do I really know about this issue or this person? The honest answer in most cases will be not much that hasn’t been spoon-fed to you by liars and propagandists.

The Pentagon is helping to create a grim future for all of us: a struggle for energy primacy abroad and Big Brother at home.

It has once again become fashionable for the dwindling supporters of President Bush’s futile war in Iraq to stress the danger of “Islamo-fascism” and the supposed drive by followers of Osama bin Laden to establish a monolithic, Taliban-like regime — a “Caliphate” — stretching from Gibraltar to Indonesia. The President himself has employed this term on occasion over the years, using it to describe efforts by Muslim extremists to create “a totalitarian empire that denies all political and religious freedom.” While there may indeed be hundreds, even thousands, of disturbed and suicidal individuals who share this delusional vision, the world actually faces a far more substantial and universal threat, which might be dubbed: Energo-fascism, or the militarization of the global struggle over ever-diminishing supplies of energy.

Unlike Islamo-fascism, Energo-fascism will, in time, affect nearly every person on the planet. Either we will be compelled to participate in or finance foreign wars to secure vital supplies of energy, such as the current conflict in Iraq; or we will be at the mercy of those who control the energy spigot, like the customers of the Russian energy juggernaut Gazprom in Ukraine, Belarus, and Georgia; or sooner or later we may find ourselves under constant state surveillance, lest we consume more than our allotted share of fuel or engage in illicit energy transactions. This is not simply some future dystopian nightmare, but a potentially all-encompassing reality whose basic features, largely unnoticed, are developing today.

These include:

* The transformation of the U.S. military into a global oil protection service whose primary mission is to defend America’s overseas sources of oil and natural gas, while patrolling the world’s major pipelines and supply routes.

* The transformation of Russia into an energy superpower with control over Eurasia’s largest supplies of oil and natural gas and the resolve to convert these assets into ever increasing political influence over neighboring states.

* A ruthless scramble among the great powers for the remaining oil, natural gas, and uranium reserves of Africa, Latin America, the Middle East, and Asia, accompanied by recurring military interventions, the constant installation and replacement of client regimes, systemic corruption and repression, and the continued impoverishment of the great majority of those who have the misfortune to inhabit such energy-rich regions.

* Increased state intrusion into, and surveillance of, public and private life as reliance on nuclear power grows, bringing with it an increased threat of sabotage, accident, and the diversion of fissionable materials into the hands of illicit nuclear proliferators.

It takes a “specialist” on “Persian Gulf affairs, with special emphasis on Iran and Iraq” to get at the real reason behind the impending neocon attack on Iran.

Kenneth Katzman, who analyzes U.S. policy and legislation on the Persian Gulf region for members of Congress and their staffs, assigned to the House International Relations Committee, talks the talk across the corporate media spectrum, i.e., he is a neocon propagandist. Katzman tells us “Iran’s ascendancy is not only manageable but reversible,” that is if one “understands the Islamic republic’s many vulnerabilities,” Reuters reports.

As should be obvious by now, the neocon plan to deal with Iran’s “ascendancy” has nothing to do with nukes. It has everything to do with the fact our rulers, in particular the neocon faction, believe Iran is too big for its britches and thus will be cut down to size.

As the Clean Break boys told us a decade ago, an “effective approach, and one with which American can sympathize, would be if Israel seized the strategic initiative along its northern borders by engaging Hizballah, Syria, and Iran.” In this context, we can define “strategic initiative” as back-to-back bombing runs, wanton destruction of civilian infrastructure, and plenty of mass murder and prolonged misery, and not simply along Israel’s northern border.

According to Wayne White, former top Middle East analyst for the State Department’s bureau of intelligence and research, the neocon plan for mass destruction will not be limited to a “surgical strike” against phantom nuke facilities.

“I’ve seen some of the planning,” claims White. “You’re talking about a war against Iran” that likely would destabilize the Middle East for years. “We’re not talking about just surgical strikes against an array of targets inside Iran. We’re talking about clearing a path to the targets” by taking out much of the Iranian Air Force, Kilo submarines, anti-ship missiles that would undoubtedly target “commerce” (i.e., oil tankers) or U.S. warships now parked in the Gulf, patiently waiting for a new Gulf of Tonkin incident to get the World War Four ball rolling. Mr. White, no longer attached to the State Department, is “much more worried about the consequences of a U.S. or Israeli attack against Iran’s nuclear infrastructure,” and rightfully so.

Iran’s illusory nukes, not dissimilar from Iraq’s nonexistent weapons of mass destruction, are simply a pretext, as the idea is to “shock and awe” the target population into submission.

“The logic of targeting civilian infrastructure appears in the book from which the Bush Administration drew its bombing strategy in 2003. Military researchers at the National Defense University wrote Shock and Awe: Achieving Rapid Dominance in 1996. The text suggested applying U.S. military ‘resources to controlling, affecting, and breaking the will of the adversary to resist,’” writes William Van Wagenen. “Through Shock and Awe, the authors hoped that ‘the non-nuclear equivalent of the impact that the atomic weapons dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki had on the Japanese’ would result. President Bush responded enthusiastically to the concept of ‘Shock and Awe’ when Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld introduced it to him in the lead up to the war…. As a war against Iran may be upon us in the coming years, we need to keep in mind the effects of U.S. military tactics on civilian populations. Targeting civilians is still terrorism, whether undertaken for the best of motives or the worst.” For the neocons, nuclear “shock and awe” is perfectly acceptable, even preferable.

Meanwhile, as “speculation over whether the American President was considering a nuclear strike against Tehran grew after his remarks in which he said that the U.S. will take any steps to halt Tehran’s alleged meddling in Iraq, Democratic leaders in Congress stepped up warning against what they said were White House plans to launch an attack against the Islamic Republic without first seeking approval from Congress,” reports Alijazeera.

Note the Democrats are not opposed to attacking Iran, but rather irked by Bush’s insistence on going it alone in solitary unitary decider fashion.

“The president does not have the authority to launch military action in Iran without first seeking congressional authorization,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Democrat version of a warmonger, complained. Reid apparently had nothing to say about the morality or sanity of such an attack.

We’ve heard a lot about the bombing of Samarra’s Golden Mosque lately. Bush has brought it up twice in the last week alone. It’s a critical part of the administration’s rationale for the occupation of Iraq, so we can expect to be reminded of it nearly as often as 9-11.

The destruction of the Golden-dome Mosque took place in February 2005 and has been identified as the “catalyzing event” that plunged the country into sectarian violence. That, at least, is just the official version. No one knows really what happened because the administration refused to conduct an independent investigation and the media excluded any account that didn’t square with the Pentagon’s spin on events.

What we’re left with is mere speculation.

Here’s what we know: Less than 4 hours after the explosion, the Bush public relations team cobbled together a statement that the bombing was the work of Sunni extremists or al Qaida terrorists. But, how did they know? They didn’t have witnesses on the ground in Samarra and they’ve never produced a scintilla of evidence to support their claims. It may be that the administration simply saw the bombing as an opportunity to twist the facts to suit their own purposes?

After all, the incident has been a propaganda-bonanza for the Bush team. They’ve used it to support their theory that Iraq is “the central battle in the war on terror” and that “we must fight them there if we don’t want to fight them over here”. It’s become one of the main justifications for the occupation; implying that the US military is needed as a referee to keep the warring factions from killing each other. It’s all just nonsense that’s designed to advance the administration’s political agenda.

If there had been an investigation, it would have shown whether the perpetrators were experts or not by the placement of the explosives. There’s a good chance they would’ve found bomb-residue which could have determined the composition of the material used. Forensics experts could have easily ascertained whether the explosives came from Iraqi munitions-dumps (as suggested) or from outside the country (like the USA, perhaps?)

The incident may well have been a “false flag” operation carried out by US intelligence agencies to provoke sectarian violence and, thus, reduce the number of attacks on American troops.

In any event, as soon as the mosque was destroyed the media swung into action focusing all of its attention on sectarian violence and the prospect of civil war. The media’s incessant “cheerleading” for civil war was suspicious, to say the least.

In the first 30 hours after the blast, more than 1,500 articles appeared on Google News providing the government version of events without deviation and without any corroborating evidence; just fluff that reiterated the Pentagon’s account verbatim and without challenge.

1500! Now that’s a well-oiled propaganda system!

Most of the articles were “cookie cutter-type” stories which used the same buzzwords and talking points as all the others; no interviews, no facts, no second opinions; simple, straightforward stenography—nothing more.

SULAIMANIYAH, Iraq – As the Iraqi government attempts to secure a capital city ravaged by conflict between Sunni and Shiite Muslim Arabs, its decision to bring a third party into the mix may cause more problems than peace.

Kurdish soldiers from northern Iraq, who are mostly Sunnis but not Arabs, are deserting the army to avoid the civil war in Baghdad, a conflict they consider someone else’s problem.

The Iraqi army brigades being sent to the capital are filled with former members of a Kurdish militia, the peshmerga, and most of the soldiers remain loyal to the militia.

Much as Shiite militias have infiltrated the Iraqi security forces across Arab Iraq, the peshmerga fill the ranks of the Iraqi army in the Kurdish region in the north, poised to secure a semi-independent Kurdistan and seize oil-rich Kirkuk and parts of Mosul if Iraq falls apart. One thing they didn’t bank on, they said, was being sent into the “fire” of Baghdad.

“The soldiers don’t know the Arabic language, the Arab tradition, and they don’t have any experience fighting terror,” said Anwar Dolani, a former peshmerga commander who leads the brigade that’s being transferred to Baghdad from the Kurdish city of Sulaimaniyah.

Dolani called the desertions a “phenomenon” but refused to say how many soldiers have left the army.

A genocide is engulfing the people of Gaza while a silence engulfs its bystanders. “Some 1.4 million people, mostly children, are piled up in one of the most densely populated regions of the world, with no freedom of movement, no place to run and no space to hide,” wrote the senior UN relief official, Jan Egeland, and Jan Eliasson, then Swedish foreign minister, in Le Figaro. They described people “living in a cage”, cut off by land, sea and air, with no reliable power and little water and tortured by hunger and disease and incessant attacks by Israeli troops and planes.

Egeland and Eliasson wrote this four months ago as an attempt to break the silence in Europe whose obedient alliance with the United States and Israel has sought to reverse the democratic result that brought Hamas to power in last year’s Palestinian elections. The horror in Gaza has since been compounded; a family of 18 has died beneath a 500-pound American/Israeli bomb; unarmed women have been mown down at point-blank range. Dr David Halpin, one of the few Britons to break what he calls “this medieval siege”, reported the killing of 57 children by artillery, rockets and small arms and was shown evidence that civilians are Israel’s true targets, as in Lebanon last summer. A friend in Gaza, Dr Mona El-Farra, emailed: “I see the effects of the relentless sonic booms [a collective punishment by the Israeli air force] and artillery on my 13-year-old daughter. At night, she shivers with fear. Then both of us end up crouching on the floor. I try to make her feel safe, but when the bombs sound I flinch and scream …”

The little company in Texas with the big hope has peaked out of the woodwork again.

Here is part of the press release:

“The first commercial application of the EESU is intended to be used in electric vehicles under a technology agreement with ZENN Motors Company. EEStor, Inc. remains on track to begin shipping production 15 kilowatt-hour Electrical Energy Storage Units (EESU) to ZENN Motor Company in 2007 for use in their electric vehicles.

The production EESU for ZENN Motor Company will function to specification in operating environments as sever as negative 20 to plus 65 degrees Celsius, will weigh less than 100 pounds, and will have ability to be recharged in a matter of minutes. (clip)

I watched the performance, and I had the strong impression of a man reading a text from a Teleprompter and, who, having never seen it before being pushed to the podium, was attempting to understand it while reading it for the first time, and was quietly horrified, to the extent he understood anything at all about its implications. It was like a child being handed a Mapquest printout and told to open it and read it for Daddy, once the family is on the road. He starts reading it as the car backs out of the driveway and does so, knowing Daddy has his meal ticket. But as he’s reading, he’s thinking, ” ‘Then right turn off of road into Hell, arrive in Hell…..two-tenths of a mile.’ Is that a GOOD place, Daddy? We’re going straight to Hell?”

Bill’s bicycle whisked through city traffic, mounted the first countryside hill and glided to La Julia in Batabano municipality.

I cycled the 50 kilometers by noon so intent was I on taking a break from noisy Havana and the many Yankee T-shirt-clad unconscionable people. I especially looked forward to revisiting the farm where I had often volunteered in the first half of the 1990s.

GIA-2 was the state collective (granja) nomenclature before it became Colonel Mambi Juan Delgado contingente, later changed to the José A Fernández UBPC (Basic Units of Production Cooperation) cooperative.

Hungry farmers milled before the camp kitchen. Benito, the tall lanky Microjet drummer, approached me. Microjet was the irrigating system—hoses fixed in the air or on the ground from which comes a fine spray. Benito had been a contingent member, who had formed the Microjet band with other volunteers.

“The Microjets are gone, Ron. I’m the only one remaining. But others you knew are still here and most have their houses. I’m way down on the list since I am single. But Edgardo and Guillermina got theirs.

“The camp is improved. We are fewer here now so we can share a room with only one person instead of six. And we got rid of that fucking sex restriction. Now we can have a woman in bed,” old Benito grinned.

I biked the kilometer to the concrete-block housing compound, which I witnessed started with four houses. As I gazed at the identical grey structures, a woman walked out of one. Despite her sombrero, I recognized the muscular Guillermina Montero. Surprised lit up her face. After embracing, we walked into her house to see her husband, Edgardo Rochet. They insisted I stay for lunch.

Most workers have their own houses now, and those who have no longer eat at the camp cafeteria. If they do eat there, a meal costs 50 centavos. Guillermina and Edgardo showed me their home and insisted I stay with them. They have plenty of space: four rooms, bathroom and kitchen. Since they live alone, one room is used to store fresh harvested foods and three unused bicycles, all lacking tires and tubes, “which cannot be found”, lamented Edgardo.

Their kitchen is charred black from an accident with the kerosene cooking apparatus.

“We should use gas but it is not as available as is kerosene. We are all to get the new electric plates this month, and then I’ll `find´ some paint to brighten up the kitchen,” Edgardo said.

“The state says it will be making refrigerators available to us also,” interjected Guillermina enthusiastically. “We haven’t had one for years since ours broke down and there were no parts.”

The bathroom light burns constantly because of a broken fixture, which will soon be replaced with the new energy-saving filaments and bulbs. The sink is broken. More often than not there is no running water for showering or flushing the toilet. Buckets are kept filled for both functions. The residential compound gets its water from the well at the nearby countryside school, but there are no set times for water flow. Since many of the couples both work, it is often a house-wife neighbor who fills up empty buckets for others.

The living room is the centre of attention, because of the Chinese Atec-Panda television set, which Guillermina “won” for being voted destacada (distinguished) worker many times. She is paying half price (4000 pesos) on a three-year time plan without interest. Her average wage is 500 pesos a month, which supplements her 262-peso retirement. Guillermina retired last year. At 56, she is the oldest woman worker.

“I like to work and helping out the banana plantation crews, plus we put away a little extra for some future event,” the broad-faced woman said, showing youthful white teeth. After lunch, she returned to her bananas.

“Now, that we have specific work responsibilities, I’ve decided to take the afternoon off. I’m caught up with weeding our papayas,” explained Edgardo. He wanted to talk with me while cleaning house and preparing for dinner.

Edgardo, now 50 years old gets 700 pesos monthly. These “wages” are advances based upon the previous year’s income. The crews earn according to the product results they cultivate. All workers spend some time on the libreta (rations) crops like potatoes plus their own designated crops.

At the end of each season, sales are divided amongst the workers after the cooperative takes its cut for maintenance, administration and new investments. Last year, Edgardo earned 8000 pesos over the advance monthly “wage”. Workers in the more demanding guayaba fruit plantation earned twice that. Some crops require less work and bring in less income.

“We can feel the differences, Ron. We are more comfortable since share-profiting was introduced and since we got our house, in 1997. We’re earning three times what we did when you were here. We pay a pittance for the house until we own it outright (they can’t be thrown out by law), and nothing for gas, water or electricity.

“Of course, not all is roses. They didn’t come near their promise of housing construction and we still don’t have more say running things but the system is more open. So I decided to join the party. I’m now a militant.”

Guillermina came in with a small chicken in one hand and a bottle of my name in the other. She had taken off work early to buy her favorite meat at 60 pesos, and a cheap rum at 30 pesos.

“We celebrate your return, Ron. Cheers,” and we downed a tingling shot.

Guillermina caressed our dinner with a large callused hand. Its eyes closed peacefully and she twisted its neck in one motion. Not a pip. It took Guillermina just minutes to pluck and cut up the chicken. As it simmered in a pan, and as the sweet potatoes, rice and beans were cooking—which Edgardo had prepared along with a fresh green and tomato salad—the loving couple took a bucket bath together. Edgardo had heated the water with a Chinese spiral electrical heater.

Dinner was delicious and festive.