The Rag Blog

A young John Kerry, testifying for Vietnam Veterans Against the War, was famously asked “how” we could get out of Vietnam.

“Ships and planes, Senator, ships and planes.”

We now know that LBJ also desperately wanted out of Vietnam, but felt that he had inherited a situation where the United States was, as we say in poker, pot-committed. Finding that out reminded me of the old SDS slogan “Part of the way with LBJ,” meaning in context that we could support the war on poverty but not the war on Vietnam.

And it was a war on Vietnam, which is one of the few meaningful distinctions between Vietnam and Iraq. In Vietnam, we were on the wrong side of a nationalist uprising that was easily co-opted by communists because the USSR and China have always opposed imperialism outside their empires. The faux nation of Iraq is more complicated.

The former dictator Hussein, currently being slowly hung rather than speedily tried, has little to recommend him to anyone he hasn’t paid. His demise is no tragedy to anyone save his immediate family, and some of them are better off. So it can’t be said that the current unpleasantness in Iraq constitutes “fighting on the wrong side.” It’s more like fighting in somebody else’s war with no apparent national
interest at stake.

The primary issue in Iraq at this time is who was the proper successor to the Prophet when he ascended without leaving clear instructions. Unlike Sunni and Shi’ia, I am not informed of the Prophet’s intent, but I am informed that the United States has no public policy on the question and cannot until Mr. Bush gets his wish to repeal the First Amendment. The Kurds are a different problem.

The Kurds are our oldest and most reliable allies within Iraq. They have a legitimate historical claim to a homeland, Kurdistan. If the past is any guide, their legitimate claim will disappear off our radar screen now that we do not need them. Another ally, the country that is supposed to answer the trivia question “Can Islam and democracy co-exist?”, is opposed to an independent Kurdistan. Turkey’s wishes will no doubt prevail, and the Kurds can hope at best for regional autonomy within the Iraqi state, something for which they appear to be willing to settle.

Proving, I suppose, that garden variety ethnic and economic interests yield more readily to the political process than theology does. After all, more Irish are willing to kill over whether one may approach God directly or only through the medium of the One True Church than are willing to kill over British imperialism.

If Iraq is to be a viable state, Sunni and Shi’ia are going to have to agree on division of political power and therefore real estate and oil revenues. We cannot make that division, and there is no right or wrong division from North America. What matters is what the Iraqis think is fair or at least what they are willing to tolerate.

My son deploys to Iraq in September. I am not happy about this. If it was Afghanistan, I would still be unhappy but more willing to concede at least the necessity for the original incursion, bungled by the Bush Administration, but not illegal or immoral except in the sense that all war is immoral. I object to my son dying to settle a question of Islamic theology.

It will be said this is really about oil. Indeed, the neocons who first proposed this adventure to President Clinton and had to put it on the shelf until there was a regime change in Washington had no plans to leave while there was still oil. For the people who took us to Iraq on false pretenses, it really was and is about oil. For the American people, though, it is not, and it cannot be sold politically on that
basis. Not even Karl Rove could pull that off, although he might try to argue that the Iraq insurgency is in support of gay marriage.

John Kerry, now a Senator himself, is as able to read the neocon rants as I am. He voted wrong on the war powers resolution and his inability to admit that mistake in a timely fashion cost him the election and, I hope, another nomination. Ironically, he dithered for months about the U.S. commitment to Iraq and how to get out.

Ships and planes, Senator, ships and planes.

Steve Russell

I am writing now from a cafe, in West Beirut’s Hamra district. It is filled with people who are trying to escape the pull of 24 hour news reporting. Like me. The electricity has been cut off for awhile now, and the city has been surviving on generators. The old system that was so familiar at the time of the war, where generators were allowed a lull to rest, is back. The cafe is dark, hot and humid. Espresso machines and blenders are silenced. Conversations, rumors, frustrations waft through the room.

I am better off here than at home, following the news, live, on the spot documentation of our plight in sound bites.

The sound of Israeli warplanes overwhelms the air on occasion. They drop leaflets to conduct a “psychological” war. Yesterday, their sensitivity training urged them to advise inhabitants of the southern suburbs to flee because the night promised to be “hot.” Today, the leaflets warn that they plan to bomb all other bridges and tunnels in Beirut. People are flocking to supermarkets to stock up on food.

This morning, I wrote in my emails to people inquiring about my well-being that I was safe, and that the targets seem to be strictly Hezbollah sites and their constituencies; now, I regret typing that. They will escalate. Until a few hours ago, they had only bombed the runways of the airport, as if to “limit” the damage. A few hours ago, four shells were dropped on the buildings of our brand new shining airport.

The night was harrowing. The southern suburbs and the airport were bombed, from air and sea. The apartment where I am living has a magnificent view of the bay of Beirut. I could see the Israeli warships firing at their leisure. It is astounding how comfortable they are in our skies, in our waters; they just travel around, and deliver their violence and congratulate themselves.

The cute French-speaking and English-speaking bourgeoisie have fled to the Christian mountains. A long-standing conviction that the Israelis will not target Lebanon’s Christian “populated” mountains. Maybe this time they will be proven wrong? The Gulfies, Saudis, Kuwaities and other expatriates have all fled out of the country, in Pullman buses via Damascus, before the road was bombed. They were supposed to be the economic lifeblood of this country. The contrast in their sense of panic as opposed to the defiance of the inhabitants of the southern suburbs was almost comical. This time, however, I have to admit, I am tired of defying whatever for whatever cause. There is no cause really. There are only sinister post-Kissingerian-type negotiations. I can almost hear his hateful voice rationalizing laconically as he does the destruction of a country, the deaths of families, people with dreams and ambitions for the Israelis to win something more, always more.

Although I am unable to see it, I am told left, right and center that there is a rhyme and reason, grand design, and strategy. The short-term military strategy seems to be to cripple transport and communications. And power stations. The southern region has now been reconfigured into small enclaves that cannot communicate between one another. Most have enough fuel, food and supplies to last them until tomorrow, but after that the isolation of each enclave will lead to tragedy. Mayors and governors have been screaming for help on the TV.

This is all bringing back echoes of 1982, the Israeli siege of Beirut. My living nightmare, well one of my living nightmares. It was summer then as well. The Israeli army marched through the south and besieged Beirut. For 3 months, the US administration kept dispatching urges for the Israeli military to act with restraint. And the Israelis assured them they were acting appropriately. We had the PLO command in West Beirut then. I felt safe with the handsome fighters. How I miss them. Between Hezbollah and the Lebanese army I don’t feel safe. We are exposed, defenseless, pathetic. And I am older, more aware of danger. I am 37 years old and actually scared. The sound of the warplanes scares me. I am not defiant, there is no more fight left in me. And there is no solidarity, no real cause.

I am furthermore pissed off because no one knows how hard the postwar reconstruction was to all of us. Hariri did not make miracles. People work hard and sacrifice a lot and things get done. No one knows except us how expensive, how arduous that reconstruction was. Every single bridge and tunnel and highway, the runways of that airport, all of these things were built from our sweat and brow, at 3 times the real cost of their construction because every member of government, because every character in the ruling Syrian junta, because the big players in the Hariri administration and beyond, were all thieves. We accepted the thievery and banditry just to get things done and get it over with. Every one of us had two jobs (I am not referring to the ruling elite, obviously), and paid backbreaking taxes and wages to feed the “social covenant.” We fought and fought that neoliberal onslaught, the arrogance of economic consultants and the greed of creditors just to have a nice country that functioned at a minimum, where things got done, that stood on its feet, more or less. A thriving Arab civil society. Public schools were sacrificed for roads to service neglected rural areas and a couple Syrian officers to get richer, and we accepted, that road was desperately needed, and there was the “precarious national consensus” to protect. Social safety nets were given up, healthcare for all, unions were broken and co-opted, public spaces taken over, and we bowed our heads and agreed. Palestinian refugees were pushed deeper and deeper into forgetting, hidden from sight and consciousness, “for the preservation of their identity” we were told, and we accepted. In exchange we had a secular country where the Hezbollah and the Lebanese Forces could co-exist and fight their fights in parliament not with bullets.

We bit hard on our tongues and stiffened our upper lip, we protested and were defeated, we took the streets, defied army-imposed curfews, time after time, to protect that modicum of civil rights, that modicum of a semblance of democracy, and it takes one air raid for all our sacrifices and tolls to be blown to smithereens. It’s not about the airport, it’s what we built during that postwar.

As per the usual of Lebanon, it’s not only about Lebanon, the country has paradigmatically been the terrain for regional conflicts to lash out violently. Off course speculations abound. There is rhetoric, and a lot of it, but there are also Theories.

1) Theory Number One. This is about Syria, Hamas and Hezbollah negotiating an upper hand in the negotiations with Israel. Hezbollah have indicated from the moment they captured the Israeli soldiers that they were willing to negotiate in conjunction with Hamas for the release of all Arab prisoners in Israeli jails. Iran is merely providing a back support for Syria plus Hamas.

2) Theory Number Two. This is not about solidarity with Gaza or strengthening the hand of the Palestinians in negotiating the release of the prisoners in Israeli jails. This is about Iran’s nuclear bomb and negotiations with the Europeans/US. The Iranian negotiator left Brussels after the end of negotiations and instead of returning to Tehran, he landed in Damascus. Two days later, Hezbollah kidnapped the Israeli soldiers. The G8 Meeting is on Saturday, Iran is supposed to have some sort of an answer for the G8 by then. In the meantime, they are showing to the world that they have a wide sphere of control in the region: Afghanistan, Iraq and Lebanon. In Lebanon they pose a real threat to Israel. The “new” longer-reaching missiles that Hezbollah fired on Haifa are the message. The kings of Jordan and Saudi Arabia issued statements holding Hezbollah solely responsible for bringing on this escalation, and that is understood as a message to Iran. Iran on the other hand promised to pay for the reconstruction of destroyed homes and infrastructures in the south. And threatened Israel with “hell” if they hit Syria.

3) Theory Number Three. This is about Lebanon, Hezbollah and 1559 (the UN resolution demanding the disarmament of Hezbollah and deployment of the Lebanese army in the southern territory). It stipulates that this is no more than a secret conspiracy between Syria, Iran and the US to close the Hezbollah file for good, and resolve the pending Lebanese crisis since the assassination of Hariri. Evidence for this conspiracy is Israel leaving Syria so far unharmed. Holders of this theory claim that Israel will deliver a harsh blow to Hezbollah and cripple the Lebanese economy to the brink of creating an internal political crisis. The resolution would then result in Hezbollah giving up arms, and a buffer zone between Israel and Lebanon under the control of the Lebanese army in Lebanon and the Israeli army in the north of Galilee. More evidence for this theory are the Saudi Arabia and Jordan statements condemning Hezbollah and holding them responsible for all the horrors inflicted on the Lebanese people.

There are more theories… There is also the Israeli government reaching an impasse and feeling a little wossied out by Hezbollah and Hamas, and the Israeli military taking the upper hand with Olmert.

The land of conspiracies… Fun? I can’t make heads or tails. But I am tired of spending days and nights waiting not to die from a shell, on target or astray. Watching poor people bludgeoned, homeless and preparing to mourn. I am so weary…

Rasha

by Bill Meacham

I have been reading works by radical Christian theologians John Dominic Crossan and Marcus Borg, and recently attended a conference featuring them both. Crossan in particular is a very rigorous historian who uses textual analytics, history, sociology and archeology to paint a picture of Jesus much different from that of the evangelical Right and of white-bread mainstream Christianity. According to Crossan, Jesus was an illiterate Jewish peasant who had profound experiences of the presence of God and consequently did radical things. He broke social boundaries: he would eat with anybody, regardless of caste and class. He could evidently heal people, and did so on the Sabbath, when Jews weren’t supposed to exert any effort. He refused to settle down (which would have given him a geographical base from which to gather a following). Instead he walked around from town to town with no possessions proclaiming that Kingdom of God was at hand, and told his followers to do the same.

In the context of the day, which was that Judea was an occupied territory of the Roman Empire, to speak of a Kingdom of God other than the Kingdom of Caesar was revolutionary. Caesar was spoken of in words that Paul used to desribe the Christ: Saviour, Son of God, etc. Caesar was seen as divine; in the Roman ideology, the dominion of Caesar and the dominion of God were identical. So when Jesus proclaimed a Kingdom of God that was different from the Empire, it was seditious.

I had an insight about what this might have meant for the people listening to Jesus and experiencing his presence. Suppose you feel like an oppressed nobody. Then you get a taste of the presence of God, and you get this taste when you hang around this guy who tells you that the Kingdom of God is at hand, right here, right now. Put the Kingdom of God in your heart and you’ll be somebody. So you do, and you feel happy, confident, filled with a certain wonder, and not at all inclined to put up with Roman bullshit.

The Romans killed him because he was a political troublemaker. Crossan and Borg do not believe that the laws of physics were suspended and a corpse woke up and walked around, but Jesus’ followers certainly felt his presence very strongly in the days and weeks after his death. And in the early years after his death, Jesus’ followers were radically egalitarian, living communally and sharing meals. After a few centuries, of course, it all changed, when Christianity became the new official religion of the Empire.

What this means for progressives today is that it would be smart to counteract the sappiness (at best) of fundamentalist Christianity by allying ourselves with Christians who are waking up to who Jesus really was. One of the goals of the recent conference I attended was to get mainstream Christians off their butts and active for social justice. There was a lot of energy there.
 

As the Iraqi single mother writes on her blog, An Iraqi Tear:

“hear the song in the link below and see the photos, then ask your self: WHY?”

Or as a seventeen year old Iraqi girl writes in her blog:

“It just needs a strong man like my father to forget it, I am not a man and I am not strong. When the danger is around me, my family or around my friend I can’t sit watching. It’s not war against Saddam or against the terror only; it’s a war about us, it’s a psychology war. To live or not to live this is the question. Bye bye peace of mind, see you in heaven: maybe.”

Find emotional appeals and anecdotal evidence annoying and woefully inadequate, despite the veracity and accurate reflection of reality on the ground in Iraq? Let’s try one simple fact from the folks who run the show (courtesy of the Huffington Post), something that without doubt could be multiplied ten-fold in other related categories of coalition military activity without any special effort:

“The gruesome 60-out-of-1000 stat popped up in another talk, this one by an earthy corporal, a trainer himself. ‘This statistic’s roughly a month old now, but over 1000 Iraqi civilians have been killed at traffic control points, VCPs [vehicle check points], blocking positions, and out of those — this was in a 12-month period — and out of those, only sixty-something were declared bad guys on the spot — so, had explosives, weapons anything like that. So obviously 900-something innocent Iraqis have been killed. That’s pretty shitty numbers, right?'”

I raise my voice in unequivocal opposition to this unjust, and unjustifiable, war in Iraq. Stop the carnage and jail the perpetrators of this international crime against Humanity.

Richard Jehn

Liars                                   liars said we were against our troops.

they said it then.

they’re saying it now.

it’s harder, this time, to be real supportive.

things have changed.

you’re all volunteers.

your Mamas should have told you what was going on.

half of you there in the war zone aren’t even

really in the service;

you’re contractors, hired help,

what we used to call

“mercenaries” except more supply side functionary

than grunt.

but I read ‘Channeling’ when it meant

something besides a guy who communes

with the Other Side,

and you can’t tell me any of you are there

of your own free will;

no more than the boys I knew

who joined right out of high school

even though their Mamas cried,

because they’ve been lied to

by liars

who make a living lying

to silly children

who think they’re smart;

who are allowed into our schools

to tell lies and lies and more lies.

they chewed us up and spat us out like pistachio shells;

our brothers live under the bridge

and their children were born deformed.

we brought everybody home we could

–- with amnesty and M.I.A. bracelets –-

but to what?

to whelp cannon fodder for the present hostilities,

because we don’t know how to make men of boys without killing them;

because the empire still runs on blood,

and now it needs girl blood, too.

they don’t have to be virgins

and this isn’t Paradise.

06/12/06

Mariann Wizard

If I had seen this film while I was in Iraq , things would have been much different. -Garett Reppenhagen, Army Sniper and OIF Veteran. Co-Founder of Iraq Veterans Against the War

This is powerful stuff, offering us not only a new look at the past, but unavoidably relevant insights into the present. –Elizabeth Weitzman, New York Daily News

A film that threatens the war movement with every showing, the Bush administration should outlaw it from all theatres within fifty miles of an armed forces recruiting station.— Ron Wilkinson , Monsters and Critics

On July 15, Sir! No Sir! will be available on DVD**

Over the last three months, Sir! No Sir! has played in theaters in more than 50 cities, generating excitement, controversy, and rave reviews. All reviews are posted at http://www.sirnosir.com/home_filmpress_main.html

Thousands have seen it, but millions need to.

Now, in response your calls to get this film out everywhere, a limited edition DVD of Sir! No Sir!, along with the powerful flash animation by Not Your Soldier and Ruckus Productions, Punk Ass Crusade, will be available starting July 15 for $19.95 plus shipping and handling.

EXCLUSIVELY AT WWW.SIRNOSIR.COM.

From the beginning, word-of-mouth and the internet have been the main way news of this film has spread. Over the holiday weekend, please help spread it even farther. Please send this email out to your own lists, and download the flyer available at:

http://sirnosir.com/home_filmdownloads_dvd_poster.html

to hand out at your events this weekend and beyond!

And starting July 15 you can…

***Buy the DVD
***Host house parties to show and spread it further

***Register online to set up activist screenings

***Use the film to support the growing number of soldiers who are resisting the Iraq war, and

***Turn this summer into The Summer of Sir! No Sir!

And that’s only the beginning. Also for sale will be a CD Soundtrack of the film with the stirring and innovative score written by Buddy Judge, and all of the songs in the film including Soldier We Love You by Rita Martinson. This is the only CD available with Rita Martinson’s incredible tribute to GI resisters that stirs audiences at every screening of the film. The unstoppable pirate DJ Dave Rabbit of “Radio First Termer” fame also makes several appearances.

As a special bonus, my film, A Night of Ferocious Joy, will also be available–a film that chronicles an audacious, in-your-face concert held on Mother’s Day, 2002, to confront the “war on terror” that brought together Ozomatli, The Coup, Blackalicioius, Dilated Peoples, Saul Williams, Mystic and many others. A film for everyone looking for inspiration and hope in a dark world.

In coming months, additional great films, music and books relevant to GI resistance then and now will be added to the list of products available at the site. And while you’re there, take some time to roam through the newly completed, stunning archives featuring thousands of underground papers, cartoons, audio recordings and photographs illustrating the depth and breadth of the GI Movement.

And in the fall, an expanded DVD of Sir! No Sir!, with a wealth of additional material included, will be available at stores and on web sites everywhere. Included will be several additional stories from that GI Movement, an exclusive interview with pirate radio DJ Dave Rabbit, the court-martial of Iraq war resister Camilo Mejia, and presentations by Jane Fonda, Cindy Sheehan, and many more.

Finally, I want to thank all of you once again for the support you have given to Sir! No Sir! and hope you will continue to spread the film far and wide.

David Zeiger
www.sirnosir.com
Displaced Films
www.displacedfilms.com

“Sir! No Sir!” combines exceptional artistry and insightful analysis with great story telling. This is no facile agitprop piece, but a careful dissection of a growing military rebellion that permanently altered American society, but has largely been forgotten. ~ International Documentary Magazine

TWO THUMBS UP!® Ebert & Roeper–Click HERE to hear their review!

Nominated for the Independent Spirit Award for Best Documentary

Click here to watch the trailer!

Audience Award Best Documentary–Los Angeles Film Festival

Jury Award Best Documentary–Hamptons International Film Festival

Seeds of War Award–Full Frame Documentary Film Festival

Jury Award Best Film on War and Peace–Vermont International Film Festival

Nominated for a Gotham Award and International Documentary Association Award

Click HERE to see the trailer.

A serious confrontation is developing between the US and Venezuela over the next seat open on the UN Security Council to be filled by a Latin American country. This change is to take place January 2007. The decision is to be made by October.

Venezuela is actively campaigning for the position. No other country is campaigning for the position on its own. However, the US, which does not have a vote in the decision, is pressuring Latin American nations to support Guatemala.

In January I wrote that Guatemala was sending its foreign minister to Caracas because two years of the Berger government sucking up to the US had not produced meaningful results. Apparently, that was a ploy to get the US to do something for Guatemala. It seems that the payoff is US sponsorship of a 2-year term on the UN Security Council for small, impoverished Guatemala. Cost to the US – zero. Of course, as the Venezuelan ambassador to the UN stated clearly, everyone knows that

Guatemala has no agenda of its own. It’s just a pawn of the US. Still, the US has gone so far as to threaten Chile, which just bought a bunch of US F-16 fighter planes, that it would withhold training of Chilean pilots to fly them if Chile didn’t support Guatemala’s candidacy. The US denies pressuring its Latin American “allies”, which means that they are, of course, doing it.

With their typical, unfailing genius for failure, the Bushits have likely picked another fight they cannot win. But they are desperate to keep Venezuela, i.e., Hugo Chavez, off the UN Security Council, especially at a time when the US is trying to manipulate the UN to support its aggression against Iran. As a rotating member of the Security Council, Venezuela would not have a veto, but it could raise a lot of hell and cause the US major problems.

The current breakdown of votes shows Venezuela in the lead, but without the consensus that is usually required. Columbia and most Central American countries are supporting Guatemala. Peru may also. Chile is not saying, although the Chilean government is reported to have “signaled” support for Venezuela. On the other hand, Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Bolivia, Paraguay, Cuba and most of the Caribbean countries are supporting Venezuela. Notably, Belize, which has a long-running border dispute with Guatemala, is supporting Venezeula too. Mexico’s vote hinges on the outcome of the July 2 presidential election. Lopez Obrador would support Venezuela and Calderon would support Guatemala. If there is not a consensus by October, the matter will be referred to the UN General Assembly, where the chances of the US winning with Guatemala would be still worse. So, most likely, the last couple of years of the Bush regime will feature Hugo Chavez’s perspective stated loudly and clearly on the UN Security Council, just at a time when the US is pushing for sanctions or worse against Iran. For one month of that period, Venezuela would be president of the Council and able to set the agenda.

Maybe the Bushits actually want Venezuela to win and are only putting up opposition for domestic consumption. Venezuela on the Security Council would give the Bushits some cover when they ultimately ignore the UN and act against Iran unilaterally. So what that such an act would lead to even greater isolation and condemnation of the US by the rest of the world? These guys are not known for long-range planning or concern about the opinions of others.

David Hamilton

The article below is from upsidedownworld.org. It explains why Guatemala hasn’t got a chance.

The Race for Latin America’s Security Council Seat
Written by Cyril Mychalejko
Sunday, 25 June 2006

The United States has launched a diplomatic offensive to block Venezuela’s bid for a two-year rotating seat on the United Nations Security Council. The U.S. instead is lobbying heavily for Guatemala to take over the seat being vacated by Argentina.

U.S. officials claim that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is a threat to democracy in Latin America and that his presence within Security Council circles would be counter-productive for the world body.

“It should come as no surprise that we believe Venezuela would not contribute to the effective operation of the Security Council, as demonstrated by its often disruptive and irresponsible behavior in multilateral forums,” said State Department spokesman Eric Watnick.

In contrast, Washington believes Guatemala is a “viable candidate.” State Department officials cite Guatemala’s previous work with the U.N. and its contribution of peacekeepers as evidence of its qualifications.

Guatemala’s Qualifications

U.N. High Commisioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour after an official visit to Guatemala last month expressed concern that democratic reforms were “progressing slowly.” Guatemala is 10 years removed from the 1996 Peace Accords which ended a 36-year civil war that left over 200,000 people (mostly indigenous) either dead or disappeared.

“Nothing can exemplify this better than the delay encountered by victims of the armed conflict in obtaining justice and reparation,” said Arbour. “Where impunity is the rule for past violations, it should come as no surprise that it also prevails for current crimes.” Arbour cited a list of problems plaguing the country, which include: ongoing threats and violence directed at human rights workers, the government’s meager investment in social services (the lowest in the region), the continued discrimination and marginalization of indigenous peoples, as well as the continued rise of homicides. Also, after 10 years, Guatemala has failed to adopt and enforce the Peace Accord on the Identity and Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

The U.N. is not alone in its criticism and concern about the Guatemalan government’s failure to address discrimination, violence and impunity. Amnesty International issued a report in April 2006 that examines Guatemala’s enforcement of the U.N. Convention Against Torture and Inhuman Treatment and Punishment.

“The vast majority of human rights violations committed in the present remain unpunished with the vast majority [of those violations] lacking thorough investigation,” Amnesty’s report stated.

Concerned about a spike in the murder rate of Guatemalan women, the Amnesty report focuses on violence against women and the government’s failure to bring perpetrators to justice. Sexual violence and mutilation are associated with a large percentage of the killings. Yet, despite the rapid rise of these gruesome crimes, there has been no increase in prosecutions by the state. Amnesty cites a report that reveals that “between 2001 and 2005, only five of the 1,897 cases had been resolved in the courts.”

Amnesty attributes this failure to gender discrimination and reports that prosecutors and police often blame victims and falsely accuse them of being prostitutes or gang members. The government’s inability to expeditiously prosecute these murders and the subsequent suffering this inflicts on victims’ families amounts to violations of the U.N. convention. In addition, Amnesty raised concerns about Guatemalan government policies of home demolition and violent eviction of campesinos (subsistence farmers) as a method of settling land disputes. Guatemala counted 1,052 disputed land claims as of December 2005. In the small Central American country, less than two percent of the population own 60 percent of the land. This disparity in land ownership resulted from land tenure policies carried out by successive dictatorships during the county’s civil war and led to widespread internal displacements of Guatemala’s rural poor. The International Displacement Monitoring Centre, an international body monitoring conflict-induced internal displacement, estimates that as many as one million people have been displaced in Guatemala, most of them indigenous.

Under current President Oscar Berger, a former businessman and wealthy landowner, forced evictions marked by violence, house burnings and demolitions have been used to settle these disputes. Not only does this amount to violations of the Convention against torture, it also fails to meet obligations under the Peace Accords which guaranteed land redistribution and resettlement for poor people uprooted during the war. In addition, human rights and indigenous activists have suffered threats, attacks and executions.

Berger’s propensity for violence-as-conflict-resolution was exposed again in January 2005 over a disputed World Bank mining project. Indigenous protestors raised a blockade to prevent Canada’s Glamis Gold from bringing in its mining equipment. Berger sent in the military and police, who opened fire on protestors, killing one person and injuring dozens of others. Like the U.N.’s commissioner for human rights pointed out, since impunity rules for crimes in the past, the current situation in Guatemala should come as no surprise.

According to Amnesty International, “Those responsible for past human rights violations, including policies of systematic torture, forced ‘disappearances’ and genocide, remain at large, unaccountable for their actions, in some cases enjoying considerable political influence in present day Guatemala.”

One notable example is Efrain Rios Montt, the military man who became president in 1982 after launching a military coup. Upon winning power, Montt, with a nod from Washington, launched a scorched-earth campaign against the Mayan population that killed and “disappeared” thousands of indigenous. In recent years, Montt has served as head of Congress and ran for president in 2004 before losing to Berger.

Rhetoric and Reality

U.S. concerns over Venezuela’s bid has nothing to do with democracy and respect for international law. What’s at stake is Washington’s waning influence over the region, its ability to call the shots globally and the U.N.’s institutional acquiescence in maintaining a global hierarchy marked by violence, discrimination and impunity –much like in Guatemala. Recent elections throughout the region have left many leaders in Washington (both corporate and political) reminiscing for the good old days when Latin American heads of state could be counted on to push through neoliberal reforms and support U.S. foreign policy, even if it meant these same leaders had to use violence and oppression. Former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet and the aforementioned Montt serve as good examples.

Leaders representing the new Latin America, such as Venezuela’s Chavez, Bolivia’s Evo Morales and, to a lesser degree, Argentina’s Nestor Kirchner and Brazil’s Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva are a threat to the current global hierarchy led by Washington and supported by the U.N. These countries, along with Uruguay and Paraguay, are expected to support Venezuela’s bid for the open seat. The U.S is using diplomatic pressure to urge Chile, seen as a critical vote, to push Guatemala through. But if the 2005 OAS election, where the U.S.-backed candidate lost to Chile’s José Miguel Insulza, is any indicator, Washington may be in for another disappointment and dose of reality.

And even though the Security Council doesn’t rubber-stamp everything coming out of Washington, like the war in Iraq, the war still happened (in violation of the U.N. Charter), over 100,000 Iraqis are dead and the U.S. government has yet to be held accountable. Other U.N. crimes that come to mind are the sanctions that left over 500,000 Iraqi children dead, and more recently its support of the coup in Haiti and the use of death squads in that country.

Venezuela’s election to the Security Council could very well challenge this inhumane system and global hierarchy that smaller nations have fallen prey to. It is feared that the Venezuelan government’s outspoken and harsh criticisms directed toward U.S. foreign policy could prove to be contagious. Chavez has even called out the U.N. for its institutional failures.

In September 2005 he spoke before the U.N. and demanded a “re-founding” of the organization. Part of the institutional changes he suggested were terminating the veto vote and expanding the Security Council to include newly developed and developing nations. This is why Washington objects to Venezuela’s candidacy.

Cyril Mychalejko is the assistant editor of www.UpsideDownWorld.org and is currently based in Ecuador.

I always feel sad leaving Paris. Our most recent visit of a month was the longest continuous time I’ve ever spent there. My Francophilia did not diminish with more prolonged exposure. Sally has become infected, too.

Our apartment was on the ancient Rue de Temple, just one block from the Hotel de Ville, the dazzling architectural extravaganza that serves as the city hall of Paris. Having been seriously torched by the Paris Commune in 1871, it was rebuilt, replicating the original neo-Renaissance style, complete with 146 statues of illustrious Frenchmen that adorn its façades.

It was there after the July Revolution in 1830 that La Fayette gave the throne to the Duc d’Orleans under constitutional restrictions acknowledging ultimate sovereignty resting with the citizenry. This act ended the restoration of the Bourbon monarchy after Napoleon, the final termination of a dynasty that had ruled France since the mid-15th century. This Duc d’Orleans, thereafter King Louis-Phillipe I, only lasted in power until 1848, when a new generation of Parisian insurrectionarists overthrew him as well, establishing a new republic, declared at the same Hotel de Ville.

The broad open area in front of it is the Place de Grève where, according to Victor Hugo’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame (Notre Dame de Paris), Quasimodo’s beloved La Esmeralda met her fate in 1482. Stroll from there up the Rue de Rivoli past the Louvre to the Place de la Concorde and stand on the spot where Louis XVI, Marie Antoinette and Robespierre all lost their heads, along with a few thousand others during “the Terror” of 1793. Then turn south just across the Seine into the Left Bank neighborhood to visit the house where Karl Marx spent some of his most formative years or the café where Lenin worked as a waiter or Gertrude Stein’s place where Hemingway, Picasso, and Joyce hung out, or have an existential coffee at the Deux Magots on Sartre/de Beauvoir Place, or tour the medieval Abbey de Cluny with its Roman baths. Then turn back north on the Boulevard St. Michel, where the main battles of the 1968 student uprising took place, cross over the river via the Ile de la Cité where Julius Caesar camped in 63 BC, stopping in front of Notre Dame, built between 1163 and 1300, where Napoleon crowned himself emperor in 1804, and you’ve returned to the Hotel de Ville, having walked a couple of miles, with waves of history washing over you every step. Described as the world’s finest outdoor museum, the consistent architectural antiquity of central Paris provides the perfect setting for your stroll.

On our last night in Paris, we made the mistake of visiting our friends Billy and Jean-Luc, a French-American couple together more than 20 years, in their Marais apartment. Billy came to gay Paris from Austin in the 70’s “to dance at the Lido in a g-string with a feather up my ass.” Along the way, he qualified for a French government pension. We drank a few 1664’s, France’s best mass beer, while they showed us the new photos of their cute-to-die-for 200 year-old country cottage two hours south of Paris and we played with their cute-to-die-for French bulldogs. The cottage’s thick, stuccoed walls and sloping tile roof are set in a bucolic idyll, appropriate subject matter for an impressionist masterpiece. Not a good way to prepare to return to Amerika.

Separation anxiety sets in as the cab to the airport rolls out of central Paris and into the suburbs, where the attractive old housing thins out, replaced by modern, unimaginative, high-rise apartment blocks. These boxes are usually described in grim tones, but they look at least a couple of steps up from public housing in the US, not infrequently with adjacent areas of kitchen gardens, and with very culturally diverse inhabitants.

Entering De Gaulle airport, you’re suddenly swallowed up by the concrete, glass and steel modernism distinctive of nowhere and the US-inspired paranoid security apparatus. It’s getting painful, but there remain a couple of French frills scattered about the airport to staunch the psychic wounds. You don’t have to take your shoes off. Café staff still speak French first and English badly enough to successfully piss off one already angry American dad with very expensive blonde brood in tow when they missed his order in English on the first try. I relished the reconfirmation of my stereotypes. One more double expresso and a copy of “Liberation” and it’s a bientot, hopefully not au revoir. Henceforth, speaking French becomes an affectation.

Waves of undesirable change in ambiance increasingly roll over you. The size of the average person increases about 50% between Charles de Gaulle and Bush League International, especially outward. Unlike de Gaulle, Houston’s airport has pedestrian safety issues due to overbearing motorized carts for the variously infirm and terminally lazy speeding up behind you and demanding right of way. I pretend I’m deaf. Fox News once again blares its repulsiveness into my reality. Baseball caps are suddenly back in fashion, even indoors, even at night. The airport food court welcomes you with a full blast of Americana, including an imitation Italian food stall with a sign saying “God Bless America” (and fuck everyone else?), run by Mexicans serving processed carbo-fat while defanged R&B hums subliminally. On numerous large flat screens, some golf tournament and a baseball game have replaced the World Cup, where the US team started off by getting ripped 3-0 by a Czech Republic team which then lost 2-0 to Ghana.

Back in the US, I drive, not walk, through the city in my very own car, not a taxi or a bus, and everything looks unaestheticly modern, temporary and disposable. This part of the world has exponentially more and more space devoted to the requirements of large, mechanized, individual mobility devices, which Paris and many other European cities are struggling to restrain. Here these vehicles are typically of an entirely different nature, as there are almost no pick-up trucks, Hummers or maxed-out SUV’s in Europe. Gasoline there costs more than twice as much as here, primarily because of taxes that support public transportation and restrain the unfettered growth of car fetishism, forced collectivization unthinkable here. As a result, Paris has highly efficient and overlapping bus, boat, metro, regional computer train and high speed international train systems, not to mention lots of Smart cars.

Here, the urban geography has been developed so as to render almost impossible all alternatives to car addiction.

It’s culture shock time. The immigration man stamped my passport and welcomed me back home with a smile. I told him he cannot imagine how happy I am to be here.

David Hamilton

When I read this on Today in Iraq, I knew I had to ask Cervantes to let me post it here. It is an argument that is seldom articulated, and one too easily forgotten in the mess that this illegal, misguided war has become. My thanks to Cervantes and Today in Iraq for granting permission.

I’m going to do something we seldom do here [on “Today in Iraq,” that is], and that is to make an extended personal statement — the reason being that the available reporting on this is so warped that I can’t let it stand on its own. The discussion, both here and in Iraq, over Maliki’s suggestion of a possible amnesty for resistance fighters who have attacked occupation forces, has been truly Orwellian. People in the U.S., including I am sorry to say much of the Democratic congressional delegation and a good part of the liberal blogosphere and chattering classes, apparently do not understand that the United States attacked and invaded Iraq. The Iraqi army fought back. Ultimately much of it went underground and continued to fight in guerilla mode. There has been no peace settlement. In fact, although as far as I know nobody has pointed this out, the government of Iraq never surrendered.

Meanwhile, back in the U.S.A., in the warped Congressional debate on Iraq staged by the Republicans, Republican Senators defended the amnesty idea – which I suppose they have to do since the administration line is that the new Iraq government is sovereign and legitimate — while Democrats and their supporters attack them for supporting amnesty for “terrorists” who have “murdered” American forces “serving heroically in Iraq to provide all Iraqis a better future.” Listen folks — get this straight. It’s a war. That’s what happens in wars, people try to kill each other. If Iraqi resistance fighters who attack U.S. forces are terrorists and murderers, then by the precise same standard, U.S. troops in Iraq are terrorists who have murdered tens of thousands of Iraqis. You can’t have it both ways.

Cervantes (of Today in Iraq)

I sometimes get led into these things. I meet people that are way too real. They all know me for what I am – a guy who will work his ass off to help them out.

I am frightened that I can’t do this without help. And I don’t know too many people who might actually see this vision that I have seen. It is very different to be the one White confidante among the 1000 African Americans.

The White guy who is invited out to dinner, who sits at the table with the rich guys in pin stripe suits and the guys in flip flops at the place that serves the best greasey food in Atlanta. Where the waitress says the collards aren’t up to par tonight so stick with the gumbo and hush puppies, and the shrimp is excellent. And everone says grace and they all drink Bud. The waitress even stood with a bowed head, she knew she was in the presence of some really different folks, and I do really mean that.

Morehouse College is a big deal. MLK was here and Andrew Young and the movement, as they say, started here. Which may or may not be true, but the legend has it.

Here is the order that has been given to me this week and I am very serious about this and I do mean this. I have to make a concerted effort to perform this task. Barak O’Bama and the rest of the power brokers who are strong in the East need and want an entry into the West and they see Texas as a stepping stone. I said Houston because of all its Blacks but they said no, they want the young Hispanics to come together with us. We have to do something to dissolve the mistrust that exists between the Black and the Brown, we have to form a coalition, a coalition that would be powerful enough to get something done.

One man, at one of my sessions (and that is going to sound very strange, ‘my session’) said he is tired, very tired of burying his children, be it from street violence, and now from the Iraq war which is the work of Satan. He is a Baptist preacher from South Carolina. And he is right. It is time to turn the country around. And he said he was 72 and he is too old to pick cotton anymore and too old to march to Washington, but we have to train the new ones to do the work. And they have to be trained well.

But I want to set up a South Texas meeting of NPLC Fatherhood development group for the helping and developing of Fragile Families in San Antonio. We have the national organizations who will cooperate. I am sure we can get Wade Horn on board.

We need a venue. UTSA maybe? Or Trinity or even Seguin? The Convention Center, of course, if it were reasonable. Morehouse and the University of Detroit were gratis to our organization. But I think San Antonio would be the best place to do this. Of course, it wouldn’t be free, but the people at the college in Seguin or Texas State could cooperate with the big boys in San Antonio?

Then the second part after we get some funding to get this off the ground is to get jobs. Get people like Toyota and Samsung and so forth to teach the young people what it takes to get a job. Train the youngstere to be able to work and to be able to talk to people in an understandable language.

I met last night at a bar (I am good at that), with a haberdasher from New York – a very rich Black guy who is devoted to the project. We discussed religion, of all things, for an hour or two. They feel they are mandated from God to do this.

There are others, too, who want to work on this, many. We have talked and we have come up with a plan of which I am a big, big part. Why me? Don’t ask, but this has got to fly, it just has to and there are a hundred reasons why.

Our youth, Black, White, Hispanic are losing the battle of getting ready for the job market. Yes, 30 percent or so go to college, but 70 percent are under the radar, working for low wages, and they are not meeting their obligations to family. There are 70 percent, 70 percent of the births in this country that are just that. No family, no marriage, not that marriage is the all encompassing answer, but it helps. But to make it all work we need kids with jobs and that whole thing starts at a very young age…middle school, and grade school. We are talking about saving the nation here.

I know that sounds damn stupid coming from a scatterbrain like me, but I need help and I need your input. You might help organize, you can help find the people who you know who have the power to make it work and let me and my people who have the ideas and clout talk to them. We need the Michael Dells and Henry Cisneroses and the San Antonio Spurs, the George Gervinss of the world to move this forward and it is so imperative that it be done now before it is too late.

I went to the church where Martin Luther King was the preacher, I went to the church where they held the service for Correta Scott King. I talked to Denzel Washington. I saw that the movement for a better and stronger America is eroded, it is stagnant and there has to be something done and it has to be done by us. Hell, as I told the men I was with, we are all gray beards, we all marched.

I can truthfully say that. One of my very best friends and I were told to get the hell out of here with a .45 in our faces. We were tear-gassed and chased by the police. We went to Chicago and so on and so forth, so we have a feel for it. We know that there are still Confederate flags flying and there is still that sickness in the country that we delude ourselves into thinking is free.

The Katrina refugees (and I call them that) are not a bunch of freeloaders. They want to rebuild. But they can’t. I talked to a large group of them and heard their stories. It was so heart-wrenching that I actually cried with them. These are hard-hearted men who worked for years. They were never rich, they were never what we would consider well off, but they fed their families and paid their rent and had homes and jobs, be it playing a sax at a club or tending bar or cooking hush puppies and catfish. They worked and were content with their place in life; oh, I am sure they wished they might win the lotto, but they were real. Now they are the living dead. It is horrible, horrible, horrible. No society that is as rich as ours should allow this to happen.

It isn’t only New Orleans, and it isn’t only African-Americans. Mississippi, Alabama, and parts of Texas are in the same struggle. Why?

I can come up with a few answers and the people here have a few answers, too. One, of course, is red tape, which is attached to greed.

Have I said enough?

Charles Rangel told me yesterday, when I told him I listened to his speech at the Democratic Convention, that I must have been the only White guy that did. He was joking, but impressed that I had heard every word. I didn’t tell him it was mostly by accident, as I was driving to Syracuse, NY, but still I did not turn to another station. He is a smart man, perhaps a tad corrupt, but then who in Washington isn’t? He also has a vision and it is becoming the same as mine. Heaven help me now.

There is work to be done. A lot of work. Am I thinking over the top here?

Charlie Loving