Curl up with the popcorn, candy, and soft drinks. But you might want a barf-bag handy. This has some graphic stuff. We believe it’s a BBC special analysing the reason the Iraq war is the least-reported war in history. Hmmm … You decide why.
“I [believe] that journalism, particularly television journalism, by its failure to show the real horror of war, has become a lethal weapon, supporting governments that want to go to war.” — Robert Fisk
A Symbol of “Extraordinary Rendition” Returns to the U.S.
Tomorrow, a German man arrives at John F. Kennedy international airport. This seemingly unremarkable event is in fact a moment of personal bravery that ought to spur national contrition.
Khaled El-Masri, the arriving German national, tried to come to the United States once before. When he arrived, he was hauled aside, imprisoned, and then promptly deported back to his home in Germany.
His crime? Being a danger to the United States? On one of the federal government famous (and multitudinous) watch lists? Hardly. Khaled El-Masri was declined entry because he had been mistakenly kidnapped by the United States in 2003, taken to a U.S. base in Afghanistan, brutally interrogated, and detained long after the government — at its highest levels — knew him to be wholly innocent of any wrongdoing, or even tangential connection to terrorism. Khaled El-Masri was refused entry because he was an embarrassment: A public symbol, renowned across the world outside American borders, of the wretched consequences of America’s “extraordinary rendition” policy.
Despite Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s promise that intelligence errors would be addressed, and when necessary remedied through the federal courts, Mr. El-Masri has been denied any meaningful acknowledgment of his ordeal. While declining to comment on the El-Masri case in particular, the American ambassador to Germany has offered regrets for any mistakes that “may have been made.” And the German government reports that American officials tried to buy Mr. El-Masri’s silence, rather than acknowledging their terrible incompetence.
The Bush Administration’s approach to national security is one of “take no prisoners, have no regrets.” Claims of unfettered executive power, after all, fit ill with the mounting evidence of incompetence and sloppiness that the El-Masri case too acutely illustrates.
Read the rest of it here.
The MSM outdoes itself daily. They trip over each other to print the propaganda of the state. Here is a fine example of it, and a paper that could do better if it tried. But that’s the key word, isn’t it – “try.” They don’t.
U.S. Finds Iraq Insurgency Has Funds to Sustain Itself
By JOHN F. BURNS and KIRK SEMPLE
November 26, 2006
BAGHDAD, Nov. 25 — The insurgency in Iraq is now self-sustaining financially, raising tens of millions of dollars a year from oil smuggling, kidnapping, counterfeiting, connivance by corrupt Islamic charities and other crimes that the Iraqi government and its American patrons have been largely unable to prevent, a classified United States government report has concluded.
The report, obtained by The New York Times, estimates that groups responsible for many insurgent and terrorist attacks are raising $70 million to $200 million a year from illegal activities. It says $25 million to $100 million of that comes from oil smuggling and other criminal activity involving the state-owned oil industry, aided by “corrupt and complicit” Iraqi officials.
As much as $36 million a year comes from ransoms paid for hundreds of kidnap victims, the report says. It estimates that unnamed foreign governments — previously identified by American officials as including France and Italy — paid $30 million in ransom last year.
A copy of the seven-page report was made available to The Times by American officials who said the findings could improve understanding of the challenges the United States faces in Iraq.
The report offers little hope that much can be done, at least soon, to choke off insurgent revenues. For one thing, it acknowledges how little the American authorities in Iraq know — three and a half years after the invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein — about crucial aspects of insurgent operations. For another, it paints an almost despairing picture of the Iraqi government’s ability, or willingness, to take steps to tamp down the insurgency’s financing.
No way I’m passing this one up. Artist isn’t known, but we do know who’s vaguely responsible for it: http://www.spaff.com/. And are we ever grateful to keep finding these great folks who do such creative, clever stuff. Thanks, ya’ll. And thanks to Late Night Liz and Mariann Wizard for bringin’ it to our attention.
Here’s the link to the words.
Federal judges are suffocating the right to strike
By Chris Kutalik
Nov 25, 2006, 01:00
From auto parts to carhauling to airlines, employers have used bankruptcies to gut union contracts over the last five years. Now airline union members are beating the drums about another disturbing trend emerging from bankruptcy courts: throwing out unions’ right to strike.
Northwest Airlines flight attendants were angry at the injunction forbidding them from striking, and many thought they should have struck anyway. In September and October, federal judges issued anti-strike injunctions that derailed threatened work actions at two bankrupt airlines, Northwest (NWA) and Mesaba. Lost, along with the threat of a strike, was most of these workers’ leverage in negotiations. Their unions have been scrambling to come up with an effective response.
“The courts seem obsessed with blocking airline strikes,” said Daniel Grey, a flight attendant at Northwest’s Detroit hub. “The line between court and company is further blurred—and it all seems to happen with the blessing of the federal government. Losing the legal right to strike means losing a great rallying force during tough contract negotiations.”
According to David Borer, general counsel for Association of Flight Attendants (AFA), which represents flight attendants at NWA, the NWA ruling took away the union’s most effective weapon. “The immediate effect was to take pressure off management and make the prospect of a new tentative agreement less likely,” said Borer.
Read it here.
Expecting the Lightening Bolt Momentarily. But why do I have an uneasy feeling that Angus is Grace Slick’s mutt? Southern California, wants privacy, …. Thanks to David Hamilton for this.
An Open Letter to the People and Government of the US (And a Reply to the FARC)
By James Petras
Nov 26, 2006, 13:01
On a November 9, 2006, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia-Peoples Army, (FARC-EP) sent an “Open Letter to the People of the United States”. It was specifically addressed to several Hollywood producers and actors (Michael Moore, Denzel Washington and Oliver Stone) as well as three leftist academics (James Petras, Noam Chomsky and Angela Davis) and a progressive politician (Jessie Jackson). The purpose of the open letter was to solicit our support in facilitating an agreement between the US and Colombian governments and the FARC-EP on exchanging 600 imprisoned guerrillas (including 2 on trial in the US) for 60 rebel-held prisoners including 3 US counter-insurgency experts.
FARC-EP: Terrorist Band or Resistance Movement?
Contrary to the US government position characterizing the FARC-EP as a ‘terrorist organization’, it is the longest standing, largest peasant-based guerrilla movement in the world today. Founded in 1964 by two dozen peasant activists, as a means for defending autonomous rural communities from the violent depredations of the Colombian military and paramilitary, the FARC-EP has grown into a highly organized 20,000 member guerrilla army with several hundred thousand local militia and supporters, highly influential in over 40% of the country. Up until September 11, 2001, the FARC-EP was recognized as a legitimate resistance movement by most of the countries of the European Union, Latin America and for several years was in peace negotiations with the Colombian government headed by President Andrés Pastrana. Prior to 9/11 FARC leaders met with European heads of state to exchange ideas on the peace process. Numerous prominent business leaders from Wall Street, City of London and Bogotá and notables like Queen Noor of Jordan met with FARC leaders in the demilitarized zone during the aborted peace negotiations (1999-2002).
Under heavy pressure from the White House, particularly its leading spokespersons, the right-wing extremists like the notorious Otto Reich, Roger Noriega and, John Bolton, the Pastrana regime abruptly broke off negotiations and in less than 24 hours sent the Colombian Army into the demilitarized area, in an attempt to capture the FARC leaders engaged in negotiations. The ‘surprise’ attack failed but did set the stage for the escalation of the conflict.
US Role in Conflict
Beginning with President Clinton in 2000 and continuing with Bush, the US has poured over $4 Billion dollars in military aid to the Colombian regime in order to destroy the guerrilla army and its suspected social base among peasants, urban trade unions and professionals (especially teachers, lawyers, human rights activists and intellectuals). Washington vigorously pushes a military solution by subverting any peace negotiations, through a substantial number of military advisers, contracted mercenaries, Drug Enforcement operatives, CIA agents, Special Forces commandos and a host of other undercover personnel. Between the early 1980’s to the late 1990’s, Washington maintained the fiction that its military programs were part of an anti-narcotic campaign, though it failed to explain why it concentrated most of its efforts in FARC-influenced regions and not in the vast coca-growing areas controlled by the Colombian military and paramilitary forces. With the launching of Plan Colombia in 2000, Washington explicitly underlined the counter-insurgency nature of its military aid and presence. Profoundly disturbed by President Pastana’s acceptance of peace negotiations and the advances of the social and guerrilla movements, Washington backed a rightwing politician with a history of ties to Colombia’s death squads for President, Álvaro Uribe. His electoral victory inaugurated one of the bloodiest extermination campaigns in the violent history of Colombia.
Read the rest of it here.
There must be a story that goes with this post. I suppose there are several, interwoven stories buried in it. Leo is a recording engineer and musical instrument repair person. And he’s a musician, cancer survivor, and really nice guy. He’s one of the first people I got to know when I moved to Port Angeles. It was a difficult time for me, and Leo helped it be a little easier just by being who he is. What I may not have known is that he has a nice voice and an uncanny knack of making excellent recordings of a symphony that leaves something to be desired. And he’s introduced me to a few really cool people, so my circle of acquaintances has grown through knowing Leo. But I should shut up and let Leo and Lorrie sing, because they’re more entertaining than my story. Richard Jehn
I meant to post this two days ago. It’s a recipe designed for the day after T-day. And although I say that using smoked turkey is important, that was just my inflated ego talking a few years ago. Use the leftover turkey you have. Richard Jehn
Turkey and Cabbage Molé Enchiladas (December 1997)
This is a rich, earthy dish designed with leftover turkey, after Thanksgiving or Christmas, in mind. The molé is a traditional Mexican style and may not suit some North American tastes; however, it does provide a unique culinary experience. And you will certainly feel like you’ve been to Oaxaca after you have eaten it. It is quite important to use smoked, barbequed bird for this recipe.
For the turkey stock, put on a small pot with a smoked, barbequed turkey wing in it (a couple of wings if you’re using smoked barbequed chicken, duck or capon, or if it’s a small turkey – see chapter 6 for techniques), well covered with water – simmer it for about 3 hours. You can then dip out bits of stock as you need it. Dice about 2-1/2 cups of the meat from the turkey (mix dark and white meat equally, or whatever you prefer) for the enchiladas (don’t use the meat used to make stock, which can be frozen for use later in a soup or stew).
4 ancho chiles, stemmed, seeded, sliced in half, and rehydrated
2 large cloves garlic (preferably elephant), finely diced
7 or 8 shallots, or one large onion, diced (shallots are best, if you can get them)
6 Roma tomatoes, roasted until soft, but not blackened
1/2 teaspoon oregano
1/4 teaspoon thyme
1/4 teaspoon marjoram
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon coriander
3/4 teaspoon cumin
1/4 teaspoon fresh ground pepper
1/8 cup of toasted and salted pumpkin seeds
1 block of semi-sweet chocolate (Baker’s) or Ibarra chocolate, chopped
A dash or two of salt
Juice of 1 lime
In a small pot, sauté the finely diced shallots and garlic in a tablespoon of olive oil, while you are rehydrating the chiles [To rehydrate chiles, pour water that is not quite boiling over the stemmed and seeded chiles and let soak for 15 or 20 minutes.] and roasting the tomatoes in a very hot oven. Add all the spices to the frying shallots, then immediately add the now much softened and roasted tomatoes. Smash the tomatoes a bit with your wooden spoon to get some liquid in the pot. Of course, you have a cup of Richard’s special barbequed, smoked turkey stock available, which you need to add to the stuff in the pot. Add the pumpkin seeds. By now, the anchos are nicely rehydrated and should be chopped into small bits and added to the mixture, along with the soaking water. [Boiling water or over-roasting the chiles will make the chiles and soaking water bitter.] Simmer for 40 to 45 minutes, then stir in the chopped chocolate and keep stirring until it melts. [A word about the two recommended chocolates – Baker’s is truly semi-sweet and I prefer it for this recipe, while Ibarra is a Mexican sweet, sugary chocolate, and will still give a good result, but sweeter and a bit different.] This should be a wonderful smelling, earthy, rich, deep reddish-brown sauce. Pour it into a blender, perhaps after it has cooled for a few minutes, adding the salt and lime juice, then pulse until it turns into a pasty liquid.
Grate a cup-and-a-quarter of fresh cabbage, and add 3 medium-sized fresh diced Sandia or 2 poblano chiles (poblano chiles are frequently available at the corner market and make a fine substitute for the delicious Sandias, but since they are larger, use just two; note that in many places, fresh poblanos are called pasilla chiles). Mix the cabbage and chiles well. [Do not use jalapeños or habañeros, or any chile so hot for this dish, unless you really want spice.]
You will need 14 to 16 tortillas*, depending on how big you make each enchilada. Lightly coat the baking dish with butter, margarine or olive oil. Spread molé on the inside of each tortilla, then add turkey and the cabbage mix. Roll the tortillas and place them side-by-side in the baking dish until it is full. Pour the remaining molé over the top of the enchiladas and add 3/4 cup of turkey stock. Cover the baking dish with foil and bake them for 45 minutes at 400# F. Five minutes before they are finished baking, uncover them and crumble a half-cup of queso fresco evenly over the top of the enchiladas.
Serve with refried black beans, fresh chopped cilantro, a salsa rojo, a salsa verde, and diced onion or scallions (whichever you prefer). This will serve six adults comfortably, with the beans.
* A word about tortillas – if you have home-made, you will, of course, bake them in a dry cast-iron skillet (or on a cast-iron griddle) on the stove-top. If they are the packaged, store-bought variety, heat them for a minute a side to soften them, again without oil. I turn the burner to medium to medium-high. If you use a non-stick skillet, be cautious about making it too hot.
Iraq just wasn’t enough for this all-Amerikan giant!
First Iraq, Then the World!
Halliburton Wrecks Mexico
By JOHN ROSS
Macaspana, Tabasco.
The billboard posted along the scrubby highway running east in sultry, southern Tabasco state displays lush jungle, a sun-dappled iguana, and a flock of dazzling macaws. “We’re working for a better environment” the giant road sign radiates.
The leafy graphic contrasts starkly with the blighted scenery of this tropical state whose rivers have been contaminated, the fish envenomed, and the corn fields blasted as the acid rain drips from the polluted sky thanks to the efforts of PEMEX, the national oil monopoly and its multiple transnational sub-contractors–Tabasco holds Mexico’s largest land-based petroleum deposits.
But the billboard here in Macaspana, swampy oil-rich Chontal Indian land, was not posted by the Environmental Secretariat to inspire conservationism or even by PEMEX to burnish its tarnished image. No, this pristine scene is signed off by a familiar U.S. name, in fact PEMEX’s largest subcontractor: Halliburton de Mexico, the Houston-based petroleum industry titan’s south-of-the-border subsidiary. Vice president Dick Cheney’s old mega corps and the largest oil service provider on the planet, has been doing business in Mexico for a score of years.
The privatization of PEMEX, nationalized in 1938 after depression-era president Lazaro Cardenas expropriated Caribbean coast oil enclaves from Anglo-American owners, was right at the heart of Mexico’s still-questioned July 2nd presidential election. Right-winger Felipe Calderon, a former energy secretary, is committed to selling off –or at least entering into joint agreements that would guarantee the contemporary version of the Seven Sisters a substantial quotient of Mexico’s diminishing reserves (only 10 more years according to the worst case scenario.)
Read the rest of it here.
Israel rejects landmark truce offer
November 24 2006 at 01:33AM
By Nidal al-Mughrabi
Gaza – Palestinian militant groups offered to stop firing rockets into Israel in exchange for a cessation of all attacks on the Gaza Strip and the occupied West Bank, an official said on Thursday.
But an Israeli government official swiftly rejected the offer, demanding that militants lay down their weapons first.
Khader Habib, a leader of the Islamic Jihad, said the main Palestinian factions including the governing Hamas, President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah and other smaller groups reached the understanding while meeting Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh.
“For the good of the national Palestinian interest … there is a position supporting calm (a ceasefire) by stopping rocket fire in return for an end to the aggression against our people in Gaza and the West Bank,” Habib told reporters.
Read the rest of it here.
Giving Thanks in the Shadow of the Terror War
Written by Chris Floyd
Thursday, 23 November 2006
The “War on Terror” represents a horribly, monstrously wrong turn for the United States, Britain, and the world. Like its offshoot, the aggression in Iraq, the Terror War is a strategic disaster of mind-boggling proportions, a moral, political and cultural failure so immense as to be almost unfathomable, an all-corrupting, counterproductive policy of resounding stupidity. We have not even begun to comprehend the scope and depth — and duration — of the harm that this reckless, witless, ignorant campaign has wrought. Tyranny, bankruptcy, decay, division, murder, cowardice and deceit — these have been the hallmarks and the products of the Terror War launched by George W. Bush and Tony Blair, in supposed reaction to the criminal acts of a small gang of cranks.
Short of an all-out nuclear attack, no enemy of the United States today could have ever damaged the nation as badly as Bush has done with his Terror War. No enemy could have deranged America’s core constitutional system as badly as Bush has done, turning the government into a lurid perversion of its founding principles. No enemy could have bled America’s treasury as dry has Bush has done; not even World War II or the half-century of Cold War left the nation as bankrupt and debt-ridden as it is today, its economy left completely at the mercy of foreign bondholders. No enemy could have devised a better program for undermining the security, solvency and liberty of the United States than Bush’s “War on Terror” has proved to be.
Read the rest here.
Thorne Webb Dreyer, Editor
