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.
An important ethical question is raised in this piece: Does the value of one American soldier exceed that of one Iraqi? The answer is important in that you may devalue your own life if you answer it wrongly.
Just One U.S. Soldier Outweighs ‘Tens of Thousands’ of Iraqis
“It is Iraqi unity itself that threatens to defeat the entire American agenda.”
Writer’s Name Not Found
Translated By Nicolas Dagher
November 14, 2006
Basaer News – Iraq- Original Article (Arabic)
The life of an American soldier is more important than the lives of tens of thousands of Iraqis. This is not a personal opinion, but one based on facts and truth. Simply put, everyone knows what was done by American forces after one of their soldiers was kidnapped in central Baghdad’s Karada district. They rushed to launch search and rescue operations, prevented people from leaving their homes and searched inside each and every house.
For this operation they massed thousands of troops, hundreds of vehicles and dozens of aircraft, and asked all of their local collaborators to dig up any information that could lead to the location of the kidnapped American soldier. Based on newly-uncovered intelligence, American forces then widened the scope of their operations and redoubled their efforts. The Americans didn’t hesitate to bomb residential areas and homes during these operations, resulting in the deaths of Iraqis – all in an effort to find one kidnapped American.
Read it here.
‘In Saddam’s time I never saw a friend killed in front of my eyes. I never saw neighbours driven out of their homes just for their sect. And I never saw entire families being slaughtered and killed’
Martin Fletcher, Ali Hamdani, Ned Parker
Against a backdrop of spiralling violence in Baghdad, The Times persuaded six ordinary Iraqis to visit its bureau to describe their lives. Sunni or Shia, they all had a strikingly similar tale to tell
Saad Hassam
Street cleaner
Shia
Single
Age 23
Saad was a conscript in Saddam’s army when US tanks rolled into Baghdad in April 2003. He deserted, went home and celebrated with his family. “We were dancing. I felt like I was reborn,” he said. He dreamt of getting a job at the airport that might let him travel.
Today the eyes of this thin young man brim with tears as he recounts what actually happened.
The Americans launched an effort to clear up the rubbish around the capital. Saad risked the charge of collaboration by taking a job as a street cleaner in the Rashid district of west Baghdad for a meagre $5 a day.
That was dangerous enough, but the work became even more perilous when insurgents began seeding roads with improvised explosive devices disguised as rubbish. Street cleaners were blown up, or denounced as informers when they betrayed the location of such devices. “You can’t just turn a blind eye. If you leave them there they might kill innocent passers-by,” Saad said through an interpreter.
One morning in 2005, two cars drew up beside Saad and his four fellow sweepers and opened fire. Two of his colleagues were killed. Saad wept. “It was a bitter feeling. It was such a minor and simple job, yet you were not safe doing it,” he said.
Saad quit. Four months later his older brother and a neighbour were killed in a random attack by Sunni gunmen as they chatted with friends outside the family home in the Hey Amal district of Baghdad. A few days later gunmen opened fire on the funeral.
For a long time Saad did not go out, but eventually he and two younger brothers had to return to work as street cleaners to support their parents and three other siblings. “My friends told me I couldn’t keep going on like that and that I had to go out and start working again.” Saad has since found eight improvised bombs. He knows five street cleaners who have been killed, and hears of many more.
Two months ago Saad was caught in a car bomb as he was buying cooking gas at a petrol station near his home. He now has a festering wound on his right hand, and although a neighbour drives him to hospital, it lacks the right medicine. He cannot afford proper medical treatment and cannot work.
He has told his younger brothers to go and work in a safer area of Baghdad and, even though the pay is derisory, he will return to his old job if his hand heals — because there is no other work and the family has no other income. “Sometimes my brothers and I look at each other when we get home and laugh at what we have earned,” he said.
Saad’s dreams were dashed a long time ago. “We always say, ‘Inshallah, there will be a solution’, but realistically we can’t see any hope.” Would he like Saddam back? “Yes,” he says. “For many reasons. During Saddam’s time I never saw a friend killed in front of my eyes, I never saw neighbours driven out of their homes just for their sect, and I never saw entire families being slaughtered and killed.”
Read it all here.
Prediction: these assholes will keep training mercenaries in Honduras until the Honduran government makes it clear, via a meaningful sanction, that they’d best stop. Twenty-five thousand bucks is nothing to these types.
Honduras fines U.S. company subsidiary, saying it illegally trained mercenaries
Published on Saturday, November 25, 2006.
Associated Press
TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras: The Honduran government said Friday it has fined the local subsidiary of a U.S. company US$25,000 (€19,000) for allegedly training more than 300 Hondurans and foreigners last year to work as mercenaries in Iraq.
The company Your Solutions trained 340 Hondurans, Chileans and Nicaraguans in violation of labor laws, Public Safety Department spokesman Santos Flores told a news conference.
“The fine was imposed because the company was training mercenaries, and the act of being a mercenary is a form of violating labor rights in whatever country,” Flores said, adding that the company, which he said is based in Chicago, llinois, “operated without permission in Honduras.” Benjamin Canales, general manager of the Honduras-based subsidiary of Your Solutions, fled the country six months ago, Flores said.
The company could not immediately be reached in Chicago for comment late Friday.
In September 2005, Canales, a retired member of the Honduran military, said the company’s trainees were private security guards “not mercenaries, as some people have called them.”
“These are just people who want a job, and we have offered them one,” Canales said.
Friday’s fine was the second action the Honduran government has taken against the company. In September 2005, authorities — citing a federal law that prohibits security and military training for foreigners on Honduran soil — said that they were deporting 211 Chileans who came to Tegucigalpa to be trained by the company.
Read it here.
Bayer’s GMO rice safe without oversight, USDA says
Fri Nov 24, 2006 7:01pm ET140
By Missy Ryan
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Department of Agriculture on Friday formally approved a strain of genetically engineered rice whose discovery in commercial stocks earlier this year triggered a food market dispute with the European Union and Japan.
“The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) today announced that after a thorough review of scientific evidence it will deregulate genetically engineered LLRICE601 based on the fact that it is as safe as its traditionally bred counterparts,” USDA said in a statement.
Rachel Iadiciccio, a USDA spokesman, said the LLRICE601 rice had been found to be safe for the environment and could now be grown without USDA oversight.
Read it here.
We’ve already had a few things to say about this guy, such as here and here. We still anticipate some ugliness south of the border in the coming two years if he’s approved for Defense Secretary by the Senate.
Gates Advocated Air Strikes on Nicaragua
Published on Saturday, November 25, 2006.
Associated Press
WASHINGTON — In 1984, Robert Gates, then the No. 2 CIA official, advocated U.S. airstrikes against Nicaragua’s pro-Cuban government to reverse what he described as an ineffective U.S. strategy to deal with communist advances in Central America, previously classified documents say.
Gates, President Bush’s nominee to be defense secretary, said the United States could no longer justify what he described as “halfhearted” attempts to contain Nicaragua’s Sandinista government, according to documents released Friday by the National Security Archive, a private research group.
In a memo to CIA Director William Casey dated Dec. 14, 1984, Gates said his proposed airstrikes would be designed “to destroy a considerable portion of Nicaragua’s military buildup” and be focused on tanks and helicopters.
He also recommended that the United States prevent delivery to the Sandinistas of such weapons in the future. The administration, he said, should make clear that a U.S. invasion of the country was not contemplated.
The target of Gates’ anxieties was Nicaragua’s leftist president, Daniel Ortega.
Ironically, Gates’ nomination to succeed Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld was announced just days after Ortega capped off a surprise political comeback by winning election as Nicaraguan president after three previous bids were rejected by the voters.
Read the rest of it here.
Thorne Webb Dreyer, Editor
