The Rag Blog

This week has seen the latest example of the US power elite bombing a broken-backed country in the name of the global ‘war on terror’. The phantom menace of ‘Al Qaeda’ has again provided a pretext for the further destruction and destabilization of struggling state, this time Somalia, in order that the Western elite power-mongers can move in and control its valuable resources.

The Bush Administration is essentially asking us to expect to believe that it is bombing a country in an attempt to kill three terrorists– Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, the alleged mastermind behind the 1998 attacks on the U.S. embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, that killed 225 people, and accomplices Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan and Abu Talha al-Sudani.

The Somali government has today claimed that four more airstrikes have been carried out, killing more innocent people. The US has denied this. Also today, a senior Somali politician said US troops were needed on the ground to fight a Muslim extremist threat.

Monday’s strike reportedly killed around 200 people, including Canadian and British citizens.

Critics of the action have said it could misfire by creating strong Somali resentment and feeding Islamist militancy. Analysts fear that US interfering and backing of one Somali faction against another could ignite an Iraqi-style insurgency across a swath of East Africa.

Since the collapse of the Soviet bloc the left has been in crisis worldwide. The rise of the anti-globalisation and anti-war movements and of the Zapatistas could not hide the fact that the left no longer had credibility for most people.

But in the last few years Latin America has begun to inspire hope for change. The Venezuelan revolution has provided a radical challenge to US dominance, and president Hugo Chavez proclaims socialism as the ultimate goal.

In Bolivia president Evo Morales has nationalised natural gas and oil and pushed forward constitutional changes despite reactionary opposition.

Cuba defies predictions of collapse or chaos as Fidel Castro lies ill.

In Venezuela and Bolivia – for the first time since the fall of the Berlin Wall – governments based on working class and popular movements have taken power and begun to construct an alternative social and economic order.

The state is not dead, as the neoliberals claimed, and it is possible to defy international capital and wring major concessions from it.

Cuba – never fundamentally Stalinist despite its dependence on the Soviet Union – has survived and begun to work with Venezuela and Bolivia to create a new type of socialism.

But is Venezuela socialist, or at least beginning a process of transition to socialism? Most readers of Socialist Worker would say no. But eight years ago, when Chavez was first elected, few took his “Bolivarian revolution” seriously.

It is undeniable that Chavez’s government has done more to challenge capitalism and promote popular interests than any regime in the past 20 years.

To understand Venezuela, it is necessary first to understand Cuba. The Cuban revolution was not made by the old Communist Party, but by Fidel Castro and the 26 July Movement.

When the guerrillas triumphed on 1 January 1959, they did not talk about socialism or Marxism-Leninism, or even class struggle – but about social justice, economic independence from the US and Latin American liberation.

It was over two years later, in 1961, that Fidel first used the term socialism.

The Cuban revolution was radicalised by confrontation with the US and the dynamic of the popular movement.

But it would be grossly misleading to suggest – as many Marxists do – that Fidel and the leadership were simply driven forward by the people.

There was a meeting on the weekend of December 9-10 in Cochabamba in Bolivia of major South American leaders. It was a very important meeting. One index of its importance is that it was unreported, virtually unreported apart from the wire services. So every editor knew about it. Since I suspect you didn’t read that wire service report, I’ll read a few things from it to indicate why it was so important.

The South American leaders agreed to create a high-level commission to study the idea of forming a continent-wide community similar to the European Union. This is the presidents and envoys of major nations, and there was the two-day summit of what’s called the South American Community of Nations, hosted by Evo Morales in Cochabamba, the president of Bolivia. The leaders agreed to form a study group to look at the possibility of creating a continent-wide union and even a South American parliament. The result, according to the AP report, left fiery Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, long an agitator for the region, taking a greater role on the world stage, pleased, but impatient. It goes on to say that the discussion over South American unity will continue later this month, when MERCOSUR, the South American trading bloc, has its regular meeting that will include leaders from Brazil, Argentina, Venezuela, Paraguay and Uruguay.

There is one — has been one point of hostility in South America. That’s Peru, Venezuela. But the article points out that Chavez and Peruvian President Alan Garcia took advantage of the summit to bury the hatchet, after having exchanged insults earlier in the year. And that is the only real conflict in South America at this time. So that seems to have been smoothed over.

The new Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa proposed a land and river trade route linking the Brazilian Amazon Rainforest to Ecuador’s Pacific Coast, suggesting that for South America, it could be kind of like an alternative to the Panama Canal.

Chavez and Morales celebrated a new joint project, the gas separation plant in Bolivia’s gas-rich region. It’s a joint venture with Petrovesa (PDVSA, Petroleos de Venezuela, SA. Pronounced “pedevesa”), the Venezuelan oil company, and the Bolivian state energy company. And it continues. Venezuela is the only Latin American member of OPEC and has by far the largest proven oil reserves outside the Middle East, by some measures maybe even comparable to Saudi Arabia.

There were also contributions, constructive, interesting contributions by Lula da Silva, Brazil’s president, Michelle Bachelet of Chile, and others. All of this is extremely important.

This is the first time since the Spanish conquests, 500 years, that there have been real moves toward integration in South America. The countries have been very separated from one another. And integration is going to be a prerequisite for authentic independence. There have been attempts at independence, but they’ve been crushed, often very violently, partly because of lack of regional support. Because there was very little regional cooperation, they could be picked off one by one.

That’s what has happened since the 1960s. The Kennedy administration orchestrated a coup in Brazil. It was the first of a series of falling dominoes. Neo-Nazi-style national security states spread across the hemisphere. Chile was one of them. Then there were Reagan’s terrorist wars in the 1980s, which devastated Central America and the Caribbean. It was the worst plague of repression in the history of Latin America since the original conquests.

George W. Bush has purged senior military and intelligence officials who were obstacles to a wider war in the Middle East, broadening his options for both escalating the conflict inside Iraq and expanding the fighting to Iran and Syria with Israel’s help.

On Jan. 4, Bush ousted the top two commanders in the Middle East, Generals John Abizaid and George Casey, who had opposed a military escalation in Iraq, and removed Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte, who had stood by intelligence estimates downplaying the near-term threat from Iran’s nuclear program.

Most Washington observers have treated Bush’s shake-up as either routine or part of his desire for a new team to handle his planned “surge” of U.S. troops in Iraq. But intelligence sources say the personnel changes also fit with a scenario for attacking Iran’s nuclear facilities and seeking violent regime change in Syria.

Bush appointed Admiral William Fallon as the new chief of Central Command for the Middle East despite the fact that Fallon, a former Navy fighter pilot and currently head of the Pacific Command, will oversee two ground wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The choice of Fallon makes more sense if Bush foresees a bigger role for two aircraft carrier groups now poised off Iran’s coastline, such as support for possible Israeli air strikes against Iran’s nuclear targets or as a deterrent against any overt Iranian retaliation.

Though not considered a Middle East expert, Fallon has moved in neoconservative circles, for instance, attending a 2001 awards ceremony at the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, a think tank dedicated to explaining “the link between American defense policy and the security of Israel.”

Bush’s personnel changes also come as Israel is reported stepping up preparations for air strikes, possibly including tactical nuclear bombs, to destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities, such as the reactor at Natanz, south of Tehran, where enriched uranium is produced.

The Sunday Times of London reported on Jan. 7 that two Israeli air squadrons are training for the mission and “if things go according to plan, a pilot will first launch a conventional laser-guided bomb to blow a shaft down through the layers of hardened concrete [at Natanz]. Other pilots will then be ready to drop low-yield one kiloton nuclear weapons into the hole.”

The Sunday Times wrote that Israel also would hit two other facilities – at Isfahan and Arak – with conventional bombs. But the possible use of a nuclear bomb at Natanz would represent the first nuclear attack since the United States destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan at the end of World War II six decades ago.

While some observers believe Israel may be leaking details of its plans as a way to frighten Iran into accepting international controls on its nuclear program, other sources indicate that Israel and the Bush administration are seriously preparing for this wider Middle Eastern war.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has called the possibility of an Iranian nuclear bomb an “existential threat” to Israel.

After the Sunday Times article appeared, an Israeli government spokesman denied that Israel has drawn up secret plans to bomb Iranian nuclear facilities. For its part, Iran claims it only wants a nuclear program for producing energy.

Negroponte’s Heresy

Whatever Iran’s intent, Negroponte has said U.S. intelligence does not believe Iran could produce a nuclear weapon until next decade.

Negroponte’s assessment in April 2006 infuriated neoconservative hardliners who wanted a worst-case scenario on Iran’s nuclear capabilities, much as they pressed for an alarmist view on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction before the U.S. invasion in 2003.

Unlike former CIA Director George Tenet, who bent to Bush’s political needs on Iraq, Negroponte stood behind the position of intelligence analysts who cited Iran’s limited progress in refining uranium.

“Our assessment is that the prospects of an Iranian weapon are still a number of years off, and probably into the next decade,” Negroponte said in an interview with NBC News. Expressing a similarly tempered view in a speech at the National Press Club, Negroponte said, “I think it’s important that this issue be kept in perspective.”

Some neocons complained that Negroponte was betraying the President.

Can a marginal increase in the US troop presence in Iraq pave a new way forward? Or is it a detour — a marginal diversion from our present, failed course?

Even if we were to accept, at this late date, that our troubles in Iraq are due to our having invested too few bodies, why should we believe that a small increment can turn the tide?

These are among the questions raised by the Bush administration’s new initiative and they point to a more fundamental one:

What is the problem that has bedeviled the US effort in Iraq for nearly four years?

Few outside the administration would contest that the mission’s “measurables” are miserable. The progress in Iraq reconstruction has been glacial and the security situation has steadily deteriorated, despite a great expenditure of time, money, and lives. But why? Critics have variously targeted the administration’s strategy, planning, priories, and level of effort — which suggests that there might be a better way. And, indeed, the administration now claims to have discovered one.

Democrats’ own Rules Commmittee chair criticizes exemption, bill architecture

WASHINGTON — A major loophole in the Democrats’ recently unveiled ethics package will allow non-profit arms of controversial lobbying organizations to fund travel excursions for members of Congress, RAW STORY has discovered.

Though tasked with authoring the legislation, Rules Committee Chair Louise Slaughter (D-NY) said she disagreed with the exemption in an exclusive interview.

“I would’ve done it straight out,” Slaughter said, noting that the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and the Aspen Institute are exempt from many of its harshest restrictions.

Slaughter didn’t say who, if anyone, had pushed for the exemption. As chair, the New York Democrat was responsible for pulling together the ethics reform package, which was hammered out between members of the Democratic caucus.

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) declined to comment.

Media coverage of Gerald Ford’s death likely boosted President Bush’s decision to escalate America’s war in Iraq. Why? Because Bush made a point of strongly praising Ford for his politically unpopular pardon of Richard Nixon, saying Ford did what was best for America even though the action likely cost him the 1976 election. Bush sees escalating the Iraq war as analogous to Ford’s pardon— a decision unpopular at its time but for which history will vindicate him. The media whitewashing of Ford—which followed even greater historical reinventions after the deaths of Nixon and Ronald Reagan —confirms Bush’s view that history will absolve him for the deaths of thousands of Americans and Iraqis, and that expanding the war will not endanger his post-death legacy.

George W. Bush would likely have proposed escalating the Iraq War even if Gerald Ford had not died in December. But there’s no question that media coverage of Ford’s death, and that of other recent presidents, reaffirmed Bush’s view that the war will not hurt his legacy.

Excessive media coverage of Ford’s death has typically been attributed to a slow news week. But Frank Rich argued in the New York Times that it was an attempt to make the current President Bush look bad. Rich observed that all of Ford’s attributes highlighted by the media—his bipartisanship, lack of ideological rigidity, willingness to listen and be influenced by the opinions of others—are precisely those qualities missing in our current President.

But based on news clips I heard, Bush had his own interpretation of Ford’s death. He lauded Ford for putting the nation’s interests ahead of his own political needs, an interpretation of Ford’s pardoning of Richard Nixon that reverberated through the media. Bush said that Ford’s action cost him the 1976 presidential election, but that it was the right thing to do.

When Ford pardoned Nixon, most Americans were irate. The level of ongoing anger was not as great or sustained as that accompanying the Iraq war, but the fact that Bush and others believe it cost Ford the 1976 election against Jimmy Carter shows that—contrary to recent media spin—Americans did not appreciate the pardon for allegedly “putting our long national nightmare behind us.”

That latter view was the “spin” by Nixon defenders. Now its become the conventional wisdom for most of the American media.

If post-death historical revisionism can transform Ford’s pardon into a selfless act of political courage—rather than part a secret backroom deal that first enabled Ford to become Vice-President and then President— than Bush’s Iraq invasion and occupation can be similarly reinterpreted.

Maysan: Five People Die Amongst Them A Teenager and Two Children Die Scavenging For Copper

Five people were killed today by exploding ordinance from previous wars in two separate incidents.

In the first incident in West Amarah three brothers Hussein Sabri Matanch (Aged 18) and Rafael Qasim (Aged 12) and Jasim (Aged 9) were trying to dismantle a mortar shell to get at the copper inside it so that they could sell it to scrap dealers. Here’s how eyewitnesses to their deaths describe what happened:

“they were trying to dismantle a mortar shell to get at the copper to sell it to scrap dealers when it exploded in their hands and they died on the spot”

In the second incident this one 45 Km west of Amarah two people were killed extracting the contents of a mortar shell again to sell the copper inside to scrap dealers. It exploded. They died. Source: Aswat al Iraq [Arabic]

Commentary:

I started to translate the news from Arabic late this afternoon – I do have other things to do, and this was the first report to hit my screen. Increasingly frequently I want to scream as I do this and I’m not publishing anything else tonight I’m simply too revolted.

The report on Aswat al Iraq concludes by pointing out that there are many such incidents in Maysan every year. This is because it borders Iran and there’s lots and lots of unexploded ordinance littering the landscape just waiting for poverty stricken desperate people to try their luck at earning a few cents from scrap dealers.

Iraqi children scavenging for food: I get reports like this every week from Iraq, sometimes I get several reports a day. Most often they come from the border provinces. Erdla and myself have written here and published photographs like the one you see now time and time and again. We’ve written about the desperate plight of the people of Iraq. We’ve written repeatedly about children living in garbage dumps scavenging for food. Every time I go to Iraq I see children risk their lives by doing what as a former felix I can tell you is one of the most difficult and dangerous things you can do – defuse, by hand, corroded ordinance. That’s why you mostly don’t try to do it by hand. You get a sharpshooter, like Declan or Anto or Smurph to shoot the damned thing from a very safe distance and explode it that way. Only if that can’t be done do you go in and try to defuse it by hand.

Every time I’ve been to Iraq since the Americans invaded I’ve seen something I never saw before – children scavenging in garbage dumps for food. There is now a thriving trade of children being kidnapped, sold, and exported to paedophile brothels. My last few trips I’ve seen something that I’ve never ever ever seen before in Iraq. Children with the tell-tale red rash around their mouths. That’s not even the worst of it.

Once they arrive in her camp Maryam routinely now has to lock up some of the kids that Ali manages to talk off the streets and into one of her refugee convoys. She locks them in the Mosque basement while they undergo withdrawal symptoms. Several of them have died in convulsions because they’re simply too weakened to survive cold turkey.