As soon as I saw that Paul Hackett had lost his Ohio Congressional race to Bushist apparatchik Jean Schmidt by a razor-thin margin, my first thought was, "Here we go again." When I read on and learned that Schmidt's "victory" came from a last-minute surge of late-counted votes after "technical problems" with the voting machines in a county that had been one of the focal points for the brazen Bushist vote-fixing in the 2004 election -- that gut feeling grew into a dead certainty.
As usual, Billmon at the Whisky Bar was way ahead of me, and he has the disturbing details here: Too Close For Comfort.
Now I certainly don't believe that every time a Democrat loses an election it's solely because the Republicans cheated. And Hackett was fighting an uphill battle in a district that historically votes heavily Republican. It would have been a stunning upset if he had won, and perhaps at any time, against any opponent in that district, the Democrat would have lost the race fair and square. But I also believe there is overwhelming evidence that no Democrat in America loses a key election "fair and square" anymore. I think that all such elections are being gamed by an increasingly sophisticated system that uses a variety of methods to manipulate the final tally in favor of the Bush-backed candidate.
At present, this can only be done in elections where it's obvious that the final result in a straightforward contest would be close in any case. For example, they wouldn't try to pretend that some Republican no-hoper had suddenly closed a 15-point gap to oust a safe-seat Democrat like Ted Kennedy. But I do believe that as this vote-fixing methodology gets more sophisticated -- and as the Bush Faction gets more and more desperate to hold onto power at all costs (to avoid prosecution for its manifold crimes, if nothing else) -- then we will start to see more "stunning upsets" on the Republican side of the equation.
Of course it's good that Hackett came so close. And in ordinary circumstances, one could launch into a lot of vigorous analysis of what his near-victory might portend for national political trends, the 2006 elections, etc. But these are not ordinary circumstances. The "trends and implications" of this result will not be allowed to work themselves out in any natural fashion; they will be subject to the manipulation of the Bush Faction's ruthless suppression of the democratic process.
That's why, to me, there is an element of farce -- grim, tragic farce -- to all the furious speculation and commentary on who will get the Democratic nomination for 2008, and how the Democrats could frame their campaign to attract this or that group of voters, and so on and so forth. Because, deep down, I believe that no Democrat -- no matter who it is -- will be allowed to win the presidency in 2008. I just don't believe that the Bush Faction has built up this monstrous machinery of unrestricted state power and authoritarian rule -- only to turn it over to someone else who might use it against them or their cronies. And I think the Bush gang has proven that it is ruthless enough and bloody-minded enough to "do whatever it takes" to hold on to power. I hope I'm wrong, I really do. But at this point, all the evidence points to the darker scenario.
Wednesday, August 03, 2005
The Revolution Will Be Privatized
From Ukraine comes word that President Viktor Yushchenko is reaping the fruits of his famed Orange Revolution: his 19-year-old son has just been given the lucrative copyright to some of the uprising's most popular and resonant symbols. These logos once spoke for an entire people yearning to oust the old corruption of the past; now they will make money for a few highly-placed, well-connected insiders -- a potent symbol of the new corruption of the present.
Indeed, the younger Yushchenko has become a poster boy for the excesses of Ukraine's new masters. (Do we spy another George W. in the making? Oh, what a lucky land!) Andriy, a college student, swans around town in a $150,000 BMW, brandishing a platinum Vertu mobile phone worth $45,000, and is accompanied by a retinue of beefy bodyguards and buys thousand-dollar bottles of champagne on regular outings with his girlfriend -- who drives a more modest $90,000 Mercedes.
But good lord, what's all the fuss? Yushchenko was part and parcel of the old corruption, having served as Prime Minister under oligarch faction boss Leonid Kuchma. And the "Orange Revolution" leadership was itself top-heavy with oligarchs, including the new Prime Minister, Yulia Tymoshenko, who made a pile in the first wave of murky "privatizations" years ago.
The Orange Revolution was sparked by a presidential election in which exit polls showed that Yushchenko should have won against the Kuchma faction's candidate: the disparity proved that the vote had been fixed, said the international community -- including the Bush administration -- and so a new election was held, giving Yushchenko the presidency. And there's little doubt that the original vote was fixed. But here's an interesting fact: the discrepancy between exit poll and final result in Ukraine was no greater than the similar disconnection between the exit polls that showed, across the board, John Kerry defeating Bush in the U.S. presidential election. Yet while the US media happily jumped on the Yushchenko bandwagon -- "What a travesty of democracy! It must be rectified!" -- they have consistently ridiculed any suggestion that the equal disparity in the American election was also a complete travesty of democracy.
Oh well, what can you say? We're living in the Age of Oligarchy, where it seems every "revolution" is just a falling out among thieves. But perhaps Bush can take some pointers from Yushchenko's family values. Why not assign the copyright to, say, the American flag to young Jen and Barb? Those little gals need a nest egg, too. Maybe Laura -- or Neilsy! -- could have the rights to the national anthem. After all, what's the point of contolling a country if you can't cash in on the dreams and ideals of all the little suckers out there?
Indeed, the younger Yushchenko has become a poster boy for the excesses of Ukraine's new masters. (Do we spy another George W. in the making? Oh, what a lucky land!) Andriy, a college student, swans around town in a $150,000 BMW, brandishing a platinum Vertu mobile phone worth $45,000, and is accompanied by a retinue of beefy bodyguards and buys thousand-dollar bottles of champagne on regular outings with his girlfriend -- who drives a more modest $90,000 Mercedes.
But good lord, what's all the fuss? Yushchenko was part and parcel of the old corruption, having served as Prime Minister under oligarch faction boss Leonid Kuchma. And the "Orange Revolution" leadership was itself top-heavy with oligarchs, including the new Prime Minister, Yulia Tymoshenko, who made a pile in the first wave of murky "privatizations" years ago.
The Orange Revolution was sparked by a presidential election in which exit polls showed that Yushchenko should have won against the Kuchma faction's candidate: the disparity proved that the vote had been fixed, said the international community -- including the Bush administration -- and so a new election was held, giving Yushchenko the presidency. And there's little doubt that the original vote was fixed. But here's an interesting fact: the discrepancy between exit poll and final result in Ukraine was no greater than the similar disconnection between the exit polls that showed, across the board, John Kerry defeating Bush in the U.S. presidential election. Yet while the US media happily jumped on the Yushchenko bandwagon -- "What a travesty of democracy! It must be rectified!" -- they have consistently ridiculed any suggestion that the equal disparity in the American election was also a complete travesty of democracy.
Oh well, what can you say? We're living in the Age of Oligarchy, where it seems every "revolution" is just a falling out among thieves. But perhaps Bush can take some pointers from Yushchenko's family values. Why not assign the copyright to, say, the American flag to young Jen and Barb? Those little gals need a nest egg, too. Maybe Laura -- or Neilsy! -- could have the rights to the national anthem. After all, what's the point of contolling a country if you can't cash in on the dreams and ideals of all the little suckers out there?
Hit Me Baby, One More Time
Isn't this where we came in?
Iraqis Accuse Kuwait of Stealing Oil
(AP, via Truthout) An excerpt:
"Iraqi legislators accused Kuwait of stealing their oil as well as chipping away at their national territory on the border - allegations similar to those used by Saddam Hussein to justify his invasion of Kuwait that began 15 years ago Tuesday..
'"There have been violations such as digging horizontal oil wells to pump Iraq oil," legislator Jawad al-Maliki, chairman of the parliament's Security and Defense Committee, told the National Assembly on Tuesday....
"In such horizontal wells, instead of drilling straight down, Kuwaitis would drill at an angle either going into subterranean Iraqi territory or sucking oil out of pools from Iraqi territory. He also said Kuwaitis have taken territories up to half a mile inside Iraq."
As the story notes, this is precisely the same thing that Saddam alleged before the first Gulf War -- allegations that happened, by and large, to be true. There was also a huge financial conflict between the two countries: Kuwait had given Saddam some $10 billion during the Iran-Iraq war to help him keep the "Persian horde" (and revolutionary Shiite tide) from sweeping through the region. In those days, Saddam was seen as the bulwark of the Arabs against this threat to their regimes. After the war, the Kuwaiti royals decided that money had been a loan, and they wanted it back; Saddam insisted that it had been a straight-forward payment for services rendered.
All of this -- the oil theft, border encroachments, the debt row -- dovetailed with the long-standing (pre-Saddam) belief among Iraqis that Kuwait was actually part of their national territory, unfairly gouged out by the British colonial map-makers to give their court favorites, the al-Sabahs, a nice accessible oily playground. Of course, the whole region -- including the creation of Iraq itself -- was carved up in similar fashion by a few bureaucrats in London, setting the stage for what will obviously be centuries of rancour and conflict in the region. (The same way the arbitrary, unnatural borderlines throughout much of Africa have led to decades of chaos and war.)
But this is not the place to get into the merits, if any, of these various conflicts. The point is, they existed, and were the root causes of the first Gulf War -- which was itself the spark not only for the second, current war but also for the "war on terror." For it was the installation of American troops on the "sacred" soil of Saudi Arabia that led Osama bin Laden to turn against his former allies and paymasters in the Reagan-Bush administrations, and declare "war" on the United States.
And here's an historical footnote you don't often see -- or rather, you NEVER see it in the mainstream media: another reason for bin Laden's pique is that HE wanted to fight Saddam in Kuwait. Here's how it happened.
Negotiations brokered by the Arab League had come very close to resolving the immediate conflict between Saddam and Kuwait. The talks finally foundered on the Kuwaitis' insistence on getting their $10 billion loan/gift back from Saddam. When a desperate, last-ditch effort by the League was put on the table, with Saddam massing troops on the border, the Kuwaiti royals were unruffled: "We will call in the Americans." (This at a time when Bush officials were testifying under oath before Congress that the US had no obligations or agreement with Kuwait to defend it from attack. This was also the time when Bush's woman in Baghdad, April Glaspie, famously told Saddam that the US would not take sides in this dispute between Arab nations.)
Ah, but you see, there was one other very important connection in the tangled web that led to war: President George H.W. Bush had been a long-time business partner of the Kuwaiti royals, a connection going back 30 years, since the days that his CIA-connected company, Zapata Oil, had drilled Kuwait's first offshore wells. Despite the fact that there was no compelling American interest in jumping into this regional conflict, Bush had no compunction about shedding American blood to protect his partners and his investments.
But how to convince the American people to intervene in a falling out among thugs in the far-off desert? Hit them in the pocketbook, of course. The internal Arab struggle was pitched as a dire threat to the American economy. After the invasion of Kuwait, Cheney solemnly announced that Saddam had massed a huge military force on the Saudi border. In a matter of days, Cheney said, Saddam could seize the Saudi fields and cut off the main U.S. oil supply. Only war would save American jobs.
But it was all a lie. The St. Petersburg Times (Florida) obtained satellite imagery of the Kuwaiti-Saudi border: there were no troop concentrations there, just miles of empty desert. Military intelligence reports confirmed the absence. Yet this phantom border build-up was given as the main reason for ditching negotiations and moving to war. Cheney refused to explain the anomaly.
Then came the atrocity stories. A comely Kuwaiti lass testified before Congress that she had seen Saddam's evil minions ripping innocent babies from hospital incubators. Outraged Congressmen repeatedly cited this abomination in their calls for war. Bush I cried that Saddam was "worse than Hitler." (And given the fact that Bush's father did business with Hitler – even after Germany declared war on America – he perhaps had some unique insights in this regard.)
But the atrocity stories were also a lie, part of a $10 million PR campaign to "sell" the idea of war to the public. The comely lass was in fact the daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador to Washington – where she had safely passed the invasion, having seen neither incubators, dead babies nor a single Iraqi marauder.
Where does Osama come in? After Saddam crossed the border into Kuwait, Osama went to his patrons, the Saudi royals, and offered the services of his CIA-trained army of holy warriors from the Afghan war. Let me fight Saddam and drive him from Kuwait, Osama said. But the Saudis and Kuwaitis refused. They preferred the services of a more powerful warlord: George Bush, who used U.S. forces as his own private militia to bail out his royal business partners. The rest, as they say, is history.
Now we see that -- surprise, surprise! -- the same old national interests and concerns and conflicts have re-emerged in the "new" government of Iraq. Doubtless in good time the new government of Iraq -- of whatever political or religious stripe -- will the feel the pressing need to acquire weapons of mass destruction to defend itself from outside threats and assert its importance in the region. And the whole ungodly bloody mess can start anew.
History doesn't just repeat itself: it comes back up again and again, like a bad case of botulism from gobbling raw meat.
Iraqis Accuse Kuwait of Stealing Oil
(AP, via Truthout) An excerpt:
"Iraqi legislators accused Kuwait of stealing their oil as well as chipping away at their national territory on the border - allegations similar to those used by Saddam Hussein to justify his invasion of Kuwait that began 15 years ago Tuesday..
'"There have been violations such as digging horizontal oil wells to pump Iraq oil," legislator Jawad al-Maliki, chairman of the parliament's Security and Defense Committee, told the National Assembly on Tuesday....
"In such horizontal wells, instead of drilling straight down, Kuwaitis would drill at an angle either going into subterranean Iraqi territory or sucking oil out of pools from Iraqi territory. He also said Kuwaitis have taken territories up to half a mile inside Iraq."
As the story notes, this is precisely the same thing that Saddam alleged before the first Gulf War -- allegations that happened, by and large, to be true. There was also a huge financial conflict between the two countries: Kuwait had given Saddam some $10 billion during the Iran-Iraq war to help him keep the "Persian horde" (and revolutionary Shiite tide) from sweeping through the region. In those days, Saddam was seen as the bulwark of the Arabs against this threat to their regimes. After the war, the Kuwaiti royals decided that money had been a loan, and they wanted it back; Saddam insisted that it had been a straight-forward payment for services rendered.
All of this -- the oil theft, border encroachments, the debt row -- dovetailed with the long-standing (pre-Saddam) belief among Iraqis that Kuwait was actually part of their national territory, unfairly gouged out by the British colonial map-makers to give their court favorites, the al-Sabahs, a nice accessible oily playground. Of course, the whole region -- including the creation of Iraq itself -- was carved up in similar fashion by a few bureaucrats in London, setting the stage for what will obviously be centuries of rancour and conflict in the region. (The same way the arbitrary, unnatural borderlines throughout much of Africa have led to decades of chaos and war.)
But this is not the place to get into the merits, if any, of these various conflicts. The point is, they existed, and were the root causes of the first Gulf War -- which was itself the spark not only for the second, current war but also for the "war on terror." For it was the installation of American troops on the "sacred" soil of Saudi Arabia that led Osama bin Laden to turn against his former allies and paymasters in the Reagan-Bush administrations, and declare "war" on the United States.
And here's an historical footnote you don't often see -- or rather, you NEVER see it in the mainstream media: another reason for bin Laden's pique is that HE wanted to fight Saddam in Kuwait. Here's how it happened.
Negotiations brokered by the Arab League had come very close to resolving the immediate conflict between Saddam and Kuwait. The talks finally foundered on the Kuwaitis' insistence on getting their $10 billion loan/gift back from Saddam. When a desperate, last-ditch effort by the League was put on the table, with Saddam massing troops on the border, the Kuwaiti royals were unruffled: "We will call in the Americans." (This at a time when Bush officials were testifying under oath before Congress that the US had no obligations or agreement with Kuwait to defend it from attack. This was also the time when Bush's woman in Baghdad, April Glaspie, famously told Saddam that the US would not take sides in this dispute between Arab nations.)
Ah, but you see, there was one other very important connection in the tangled web that led to war: President George H.W. Bush had been a long-time business partner of the Kuwaiti royals, a connection going back 30 years, since the days that his CIA-connected company, Zapata Oil, had drilled Kuwait's first offshore wells. Despite the fact that there was no compelling American interest in jumping into this regional conflict, Bush had no compunction about shedding American blood to protect his partners and his investments.
But how to convince the American people to intervene in a falling out among thugs in the far-off desert? Hit them in the pocketbook, of course. The internal Arab struggle was pitched as a dire threat to the American economy. After the invasion of Kuwait, Cheney solemnly announced that Saddam had massed a huge military force on the Saudi border. In a matter of days, Cheney said, Saddam could seize the Saudi fields and cut off the main U.S. oil supply. Only war would save American jobs.
But it was all a lie. The St. Petersburg Times (Florida) obtained satellite imagery of the Kuwaiti-Saudi border: there were no troop concentrations there, just miles of empty desert. Military intelligence reports confirmed the absence. Yet this phantom border build-up was given as the main reason for ditching negotiations and moving to war. Cheney refused to explain the anomaly.
Then came the atrocity stories. A comely Kuwaiti lass testified before Congress that she had seen Saddam's evil minions ripping innocent babies from hospital incubators. Outraged Congressmen repeatedly cited this abomination in their calls for war. Bush I cried that Saddam was "worse than Hitler." (And given the fact that Bush's father did business with Hitler – even after Germany declared war on America – he perhaps had some unique insights in this regard.)
But the atrocity stories were also a lie, part of a $10 million PR campaign to "sell" the idea of war to the public. The comely lass was in fact the daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador to Washington – where she had safely passed the invasion, having seen neither incubators, dead babies nor a single Iraqi marauder.
Where does Osama come in? After Saddam crossed the border into Kuwait, Osama went to his patrons, the Saudi royals, and offered the services of his CIA-trained army of holy warriors from the Afghan war. Let me fight Saddam and drive him from Kuwait, Osama said. But the Saudis and Kuwaitis refused. They preferred the services of a more powerful warlord: George Bush, who used U.S. forces as his own private militia to bail out his royal business partners. The rest, as they say, is history.
Now we see that -- surprise, surprise! -- the same old national interests and concerns and conflicts have re-emerged in the "new" government of Iraq. Doubtless in good time the new government of Iraq -- of whatever political or religious stripe -- will the feel the pressing need to acquire weapons of mass destruction to defend itself from outside threats and assert its importance in the region. And the whole ungodly bloody mess can start anew.
History doesn't just repeat itself: it comes back up again and again, like a bad case of botulism from gobbling raw meat.
Tuesday, August 02, 2005
Highway to Hell
From wise man Juan Cole, a brilliant, succinct, devastatingly true exposition on how we got to where are today -- trapped in the blood-soaked mire of an endless, mindless "war on terror." Read this -- and pass it on.
Fisking the "War on Terror."
A very brief excerpt:
"The American Right, having created the Mujahideen and having mightily contributed to the creation of al-Qaeda, abruptly announced that there was something deeply wrong with Islam, that it kept producing terrorists."
Fisking the "War on Terror."
A very brief excerpt:
"The American Right, having created the Mujahideen and having mightily contributed to the creation of al-Qaeda, abruptly announced that there was something deeply wrong with Islam, that it kept producing terrorists."
Monday, August 01, 2005
Lamb Chops and Confetti
From the always-informative, impeccably erudite Limited, Inc., a glimpse into the future for America's working people:
I Have Seen the Future, and it is United
Excerpt:
Here's how the movie goes: Wall Street persuades a viable pension fund to redo its safe strategy of investing for a much more groovy strategy of growth growth growth in equities. Big money is made by everybody on the Street as the pension fund shrinks, disappears, goes into a black hole. Everybody is very sorry that the beneficiaries of the fund have nothing left, but everybody also points out – the beneficiaries are scum. Mere workers. Pilots, for god’s sakes. Imagine, some stewardess somewhere is bawling cause her measely 200 thou went to some really nice Manhattan bistros. As if she deserved it. The best and the brightest, in the new Hobbesian Randian world, feast upon such little lambs.
Bush’s plan has those advantages too. By targeting middle America’s vast wealth and accelerating the burgling of it, in a record amount of time the top 10 percent income percentile can capture even more of America’s wealth. This money will be used much more efficiently. For instance, many retiring congressmen will be able to find lobbying jobs that will launch them into the higher regions of financial security when the theft is completed. Meanwhile, in a blow against the French, Americans will work harder. They will have to, as their retirement will be approximately equal, in value, to the price you can get for confetti that’s been cleaned off of streets and sidewalks after the parade is over.
I Have Seen the Future, and it is United
Excerpt:
Here's how the movie goes: Wall Street persuades a viable pension fund to redo its safe strategy of investing for a much more groovy strategy of growth growth growth in equities. Big money is made by everybody on the Street as the pension fund shrinks, disappears, goes into a black hole. Everybody is very sorry that the beneficiaries of the fund have nothing left, but everybody also points out – the beneficiaries are scum. Mere workers. Pilots, for god’s sakes. Imagine, some stewardess somewhere is bawling cause her measely 200 thou went to some really nice Manhattan bistros. As if she deserved it. The best and the brightest, in the new Hobbesian Randian world, feast upon such little lambs.
Bush’s plan has those advantages too. By targeting middle America’s vast wealth and accelerating the burgling of it, in a record amount of time the top 10 percent income percentile can capture even more of America’s wealth. This money will be used much more efficiently. For instance, many retiring congressmen will be able to find lobbying jobs that will launch them into the higher regions of financial security when the theft is completed. Meanwhile, in a blow against the French, Americans will work harder. They will have to, as their retirement will be approximately equal, in value, to the price you can get for confetti that’s been cleaned off of streets and sidewalks after the parade is over.
Bush's Bastards: Blowback, Blunder and Blair
Again from the Guardian: David Clark, once one of Tony Blair's top advisers, renders harsh but true judgment on his former boss -- and on the ungodly mess Blair and his boss have made of their Babylonian Conquest.
Even When We Leave Iraq, We Face Years of Blowback
Some excerpts:
When Tony Blair says we should not "give one inch" to the terrorists, what he really means is that he isn't prepared to give one inch to those who say he blundered by invading Iraq. It's difficult to respect a prime minister who is prepared to put his own hunger for vindication before a serious attempt to understand where the war on terror is going wrong...
...The likely shape of things to come has been the rise of the Shia Islamist bloc that now controls a majority in the Iraqi parliament. Coalition strategists are putting a brave face on this by stressing the supposedly moderate and democratic credentials of these "new Islamists". But you do not need to look very far into the past to see how unlikely this is. The new prime minister, Ibrahim al-Jaafari, was feted on a recent trip to the White House, but his hosts conveniently chose to forget that fact that his Dawa party was suspected of involvement in a string of terrorist attacks against western interests, including the 1983 bombings of the US embassy in Kuwait and the US marine barracks in Beirut. The latter, the worst act of terrorism against the US prior to 9/11, killed 241 American peacekeepers. In those days Dawa acted under the guidance of the Iranian intelligence services.
...Today both he and Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the spiritual leader of the main Shia party, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (Sciri), make all the right noises about pluralism and national unity. But this is so out of step with their ideology and backgrounds that it is hard to see it as a sincere account of their plans for Iraq.
It is also demonstrably out of step with the reality on the ground. Where they are already in control, the Shia parties are enforcing an increasingly repressive religious code. In Basra, formerly one of the most liberal cities in Iraq, there has been a clampdown on the sale of alcohol, singing in public, short haircuts and women without headscarves. Beatings have been administered to male doctors who treat female patients and students attending a mixed-sex picnic. These measures are enforced by militias such as the Badr Brigade, affiliated to Sciri, which also controls the local police....
...The invasion of Iraq has frequently been described as the biggest diplomatic blunder since Suez. This already looks like a considerable understatement. On a worst-case scenario that now seems possible, it could very well come to be seen as one of the greatest foreign-policy own goals of all time.
Even When We Leave Iraq, We Face Years of Blowback
Some excerpts:
When Tony Blair says we should not "give one inch" to the terrorists, what he really means is that he isn't prepared to give one inch to those who say he blundered by invading Iraq. It's difficult to respect a prime minister who is prepared to put his own hunger for vindication before a serious attempt to understand where the war on terror is going wrong...
...The likely shape of things to come has been the rise of the Shia Islamist bloc that now controls a majority in the Iraqi parliament. Coalition strategists are putting a brave face on this by stressing the supposedly moderate and democratic credentials of these "new Islamists". But you do not need to look very far into the past to see how unlikely this is. The new prime minister, Ibrahim al-Jaafari, was feted on a recent trip to the White House, but his hosts conveniently chose to forget that fact that his Dawa party was suspected of involvement in a string of terrorist attacks against western interests, including the 1983 bombings of the US embassy in Kuwait and the US marine barracks in Beirut. The latter, the worst act of terrorism against the US prior to 9/11, killed 241 American peacekeepers. In those days Dawa acted under the guidance of the Iranian intelligence services.
...Today both he and Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the spiritual leader of the main Shia party, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (Sciri), make all the right noises about pluralism and national unity. But this is so out of step with their ideology and backgrounds that it is hard to see it as a sincere account of their plans for Iraq.
It is also demonstrably out of step with the reality on the ground. Where they are already in control, the Shia parties are enforcing an increasingly repressive religious code. In Basra, formerly one of the most liberal cities in Iraq, there has been a clampdown on the sale of alcohol, singing in public, short haircuts and women without headscarves. Beatings have been administered to male doctors who treat female patients and students attending a mixed-sex picnic. These measures are enforced by militias such as the Badr Brigade, affiliated to Sciri, which also controls the local police....
...The invasion of Iraq has frequently been described as the biggest diplomatic blunder since Suez. This already looks like a considerable understatement. On a worst-case scenario that now seems possible, it could very well come to be seen as one of the greatest foreign-policy own goals of all time.
Plenty of Food -- But the Poor Are Starving
The Guardian gives us this low-down on the catastrophe in Niger, where the poor face starvation even while markets are stuffed with food. Once again, we see an appalling confirmation of the underlying -- and universally ignored -- truth about hunger and starvation in the world: the problem is not a lack of food -- there is more than enough food to feed everyone on the globe; the problem is greed, the rapacious economics of food distribution. Some excerpts:
"...This is the strange reality of Niger's hunger crisis. There is plenty of food, but children are dying because their parents cannot afford to buy it.
"The starvation in Niger is not the inevitable consequence of poverty, or simply the fault of locusts or drought. It is also the result of a belief that the free market can solve the problems of one of the world's poorest countries.
"The price of grain has skyrocketed; a 100kg bag of millet, the staple grain, costs around 8,000 to 12,000 West African francs (around £13) last year but now costs more than 22,000 francs (£25). According to Washington-based analysts the Famine Early Warning System Network (Fewsnet), drought and pests have only had a "modest impact" on grain production in Niger. The last harvest was only 11% below the five-yearly average. Prices have been rising also because traders in Niger have been exporting grain to wealthier neighbouring countries, including Nigeria and Ghana....."
One major problem is that the Niger government, eager to curry favor with the G8 nations who had just written off some of the country's debt, refused to allow free food distribution to the hardest-hit areas when the effects of drought and pest infestation first began emerging. Why the reluctance? Niger's leaders wanted to prove their "free market" bona fides to the G8 crew -- who had of course imposed draconian conditions on their "generous" cancellation of some African loans. Niger's government was backed by the UN in this refusal to distribute food; such an act of mercy would "interfere with the free market," the UN said.
Now, months later, with more than 3 million people going hungry -- and almost 1 million needing immediate emergency aid just to stay alive -- the government and the UN have relented, and are trying to mobilize a massive international relief effort. This is a grim necessity which will doubtless be repeated, as the West's massive subsidies to its own farmers destroy local economies in developing countries -- which, in order to obtain aid and debt relief, are not allowed to "interfere in the free market" for agriculture the way the G8 nations do. And thus, as always, the food will go where the money is -- in this case, to wealthier neighbors in Africa -- while, as always and forever, the weakest go to the wall.
"...This is the strange reality of Niger's hunger crisis. There is plenty of food, but children are dying because their parents cannot afford to buy it.
"The starvation in Niger is not the inevitable consequence of poverty, or simply the fault of locusts or drought. It is also the result of a belief that the free market can solve the problems of one of the world's poorest countries.
"The price of grain has skyrocketed; a 100kg bag of millet, the staple grain, costs around 8,000 to 12,000 West African francs (around £13) last year but now costs more than 22,000 francs (£25). According to Washington-based analysts the Famine Early Warning System Network (Fewsnet), drought and pests have only had a "modest impact" on grain production in Niger. The last harvest was only 11% below the five-yearly average. Prices have been rising also because traders in Niger have been exporting grain to wealthier neighbouring countries, including Nigeria and Ghana....."
One major problem is that the Niger government, eager to curry favor with the G8 nations who had just written off some of the country's debt, refused to allow free food distribution to the hardest-hit areas when the effects of drought and pest infestation first began emerging. Why the reluctance? Niger's leaders wanted to prove their "free market" bona fides to the G8 crew -- who had of course imposed draconian conditions on their "generous" cancellation of some African loans. Niger's government was backed by the UN in this refusal to distribute food; such an act of mercy would "interfere with the free market," the UN said.
Now, months later, with more than 3 million people going hungry -- and almost 1 million needing immediate emergency aid just to stay alive -- the government and the UN have relented, and are trying to mobilize a massive international relief effort. This is a grim necessity which will doubtless be repeated, as the West's massive subsidies to its own farmers destroy local economies in developing countries -- which, in order to obtain aid and debt relief, are not allowed to "interfere in the free market" for agriculture the way the G8 nations do. And thus, as always, the food will go where the money is -- in this case, to wealthier neighbors in Africa -- while, as always and forever, the weakest go to the wall.
The Child is Father to the Man
Profiles in Political Courage: Young Reaganite John Roberts is forced to treat with perfidious Jewry (from Newsweek):
"In a 1981 cover note to a Justice Department boss, entitled 'Correspondence With American Jewish Committee,' Roberts inquired: 'Is this draft response okay—i.e., does it succeed in saying nothing at all?'"
That's the way to do it, Johnny boy; why waste time with those lib-symps? They're all going to hell anyway.
"In a 1981 cover note to a Justice Department boss, entitled 'Correspondence With American Jewish Committee,' Roberts inquired: 'Is this draft response okay—i.e., does it succeed in saying nothing at all?'"
That's the way to do it, Johnny boy; why waste time with those lib-symps? They're all going to hell anyway.
Sunday, July 31, 2005
Same As It Ever Was
TOASTMASTER: What is this war about, Jack Reed?
Reed stands. The assembled banqueteers -- prosperous burghers, their bellies bulging beneath the white fronts of their tuxedos -- look up at the reporter just returned from the front.
REED: Profits.
Reed sits down.
-- From the film "Reds," by Warren Beatty
Halliburton Announces 284 Percent Increase in War Profits
Reed stands. The assembled banqueteers -- prosperous burghers, their bellies bulging beneath the white fronts of their tuxedos -- look up at the reporter just returned from the front.
REED: Profits.
Reed sits down.
-- From the film "Reds," by Warren Beatty
Halliburton Announces 284 Percent Increase in War Profits
Wednesday, July 27, 2005
Past Imperfect, Present Trace
On hiatus at the moment, with limited computer access (and a stripped-down, largely useless version of Blogger). Back on the track in three or four days. Meanwhile, feel free to peruse this compendium of our regular feature, "Past Imperfect": articles which provide some history and context for present horrors. See you shortly on down the line.
Sunday, July 24, 2005
Mob Rule in London: Five Shots to the Head for Fashion Mistake
So here's what happened. Jean Charles de Menezes, 27, a man from Brazil, working in London as an electrician, walks out of an apartment building that the police were casing as part of a terrorist investigation. The cops don't like the look of his bulky coat, so they come after him. But these are not uniformed officers strolling up to ask him some questions – it's a gang of up to 20 armed undercover agents in plain clothes coming toward him, the BBC reports. That's right; a foreigner living in London sees a mob of 20 men coming at him, shouting at him to stop, telling him they are the police. What if they're not the police? What if they're a gang of yobs, rightwing hooligans looking to stomp some convenient foreigner? What should he do, what's the best course of action in this situation? He only has a second or two to decide. [Yes, the very same rationale later offered incessantly for the officers' actions in the shooting.] He decides: he runs. They chase him into an Underground station – a mob of 20 men with guns. He jumps the ticket counter, runs into the tunnel, tries to hop onto a train, with the gunmen only a couple of steps him. He stumbles, they tackle him. They hold him down and one of the officers pumps five bullets into his head.
Maybe de Menezes had some other reason to run. Maybe he was involved in some dodgy business. Maybe he had drugs on him. Maybe his work papers weren't in perfect order. Or maybe he just decided that he didn't want to trust in the good will of 20 armed men in plainclothes running at him on a fine English summer morning.
It doesn't matter now. He's dead. And now we know that he wasn't armed, didn't have a bomb, and, according to the police themselves "was not connected in any way" to the recent London bombings. He just wore the wrong coat. He just ran when a gang of men in ordinary clothes told him to stop. He's just another piece of "collateral damage" in the "war on terror." Killed with the best of intentions, for the noblest cause. Just like the tourists in Egypt murdered by the dozens the next day. Just like the people of Iraq every day.
Is there anyone on any side in this hydra-headed "war" who is not killing people in the name of some higher principle – for justice, security, morality, freedom? Is there any side that is not invoking divine sanction for their actions? Is there any hope of ending this mad and maddening cycle of violence as long the most primitive and destructive aspects of our human nature – sectarianism, greed, fear, revenge and the bestial desire for domination over others – remain in the ascendant on every side?
Rolling Thunder
Wise man John Pilger speaks in thunder: Blair's Bombs, in the New Statesman. An excerpt:
The gravity of the bombing of London, said a BBC commentator, "can be measured by the fact that it marks Britain's first suicide bombing". What about Iraq? There were no suicide bombers in Iraq until Blair and Bush invaded. What about Palestine? There were no suicide bombers in Palestine until Ariel Sharon, an accredited war criminal sponsored by Bush and Blair, came to power. In the 1991 Gulf "war", American and British forces left more than 200,000 Iraqis dead and injured, and the infrastructure of their country in "an apocalyptic state", according to the United Nations. The subsequent embargo, designed and promoted by zealots in Washington and Whitehall, was not unlike a medieval siege. Denis Halliday, the United Nations official assigned to administer the near-starvation food allowance, called it "genocidal".
I witnessed its consequences: tracts of southern Iraq contaminated with depleted uranium, and cluster bomblets waiting to explode. I watched dying children, some of the half a million infants whose deaths Unicef attributed to the embargo - deaths which the US secretary of state Madeleine Albright said were "worth it". In the west, this was hardly reported. Throughout the Muslim world, the bitterness was like a presence, its contagion reaching many young British-born Muslims.
In 2001, in revenge for the killing of 3,000 people in the twin towers, more than 20,000 Muslims died in the Anglo-American invasion of Afghanistan. This was revealed by Jonathan Steele in the Guardian but never became news, to my knowledge...Bush and Blair wanted a "war on terror" and they got it. Omitted from public discussion is that their state terror makes al-Qaeda's appear minuscule by comparison. More than 100,000 Iraqi men, woman and children have been killed not by suicide bombers, but by the Anglo-American "coalition", says a peer-reviewed study published in the Lancet, and largely ignored...
...On 19 July, while the BBC governors were holding their annual general meeting at Television Centre, an inspired group of British documentary film-makers met outside the main gates and conducted a series of news reports of the kind you do not see on television. Actors played famous reporters doing their "pieces to camera". The "stories" they reported included the targeting of the civilian population of Iraq, the application of the Nuremberg Principles to Iraq, America's illegal rewriting of the laws of Iraq, and theft of its resources through privatisation, the everyday torture and humiliation of ordinary people and the failure to protect Iraqis' archaeological and cultural heritage.
The gravity of the bombing of London, said a BBC commentator, "can be measured by the fact that it marks Britain's first suicide bombing". What about Iraq? There were no suicide bombers in Iraq until Blair and Bush invaded. What about Palestine? There were no suicide bombers in Palestine until Ariel Sharon, an accredited war criminal sponsored by Bush and Blair, came to power. In the 1991 Gulf "war", American and British forces left more than 200,000 Iraqis dead and injured, and the infrastructure of their country in "an apocalyptic state", according to the United Nations. The subsequent embargo, designed and promoted by zealots in Washington and Whitehall, was not unlike a medieval siege. Denis Halliday, the United Nations official assigned to administer the near-starvation food allowance, called it "genocidal".
I witnessed its consequences: tracts of southern Iraq contaminated with depleted uranium, and cluster bomblets waiting to explode. I watched dying children, some of the half a million infants whose deaths Unicef attributed to the embargo - deaths which the US secretary of state Madeleine Albright said were "worth it". In the west, this was hardly reported. Throughout the Muslim world, the bitterness was like a presence, its contagion reaching many young British-born Muslims.
In 2001, in revenge for the killing of 3,000 people in the twin towers, more than 20,000 Muslims died in the Anglo-American invasion of Afghanistan. This was revealed by Jonathan Steele in the Guardian but never became news, to my knowledge...Bush and Blair wanted a "war on terror" and they got it. Omitted from public discussion is that their state terror makes al-Qaeda's appear minuscule by comparison. More than 100,000 Iraqi men, woman and children have been killed not by suicide bombers, but by the Anglo-American "coalition", says a peer-reviewed study published in the Lancet, and largely ignored...
...On 19 July, while the BBC governors were holding their annual general meeting at Television Centre, an inspired group of British documentary film-makers met outside the main gates and conducted a series of news reports of the kind you do not see on television. Actors played famous reporters doing their "pieces to camera". The "stories" they reported included the targeting of the civilian population of Iraq, the application of the Nuremberg Principles to Iraq, America's illegal rewriting of the laws of Iraq, and theft of its resources through privatisation, the everyday torture and humiliation of ordinary people and the failure to protect Iraqis' archaeological and cultural heritage.
Friday, July 22, 2005
Them Belly Full
From the always intriguing Limited Inc., a glimpse into the true face of Bushist Man: predatory, pitiless, sick with envy and fear of the Good. Bloodsucking for Fun and Profit.
Endless Nightmare, Ever Darker
An alert but anonymous commenter pointed me to this story, which I see now has been picked up by many others, but since it fits so perfectly with the column I posted below on America's new military autocracy and John Roberts' role in upholding it, I thought I'd give it an airing here as well.
White House threatens veto on detainee policies. Excerpt from AP:
"The White House on Thursday threatened to veto a massive Senate bill for $442 billion in next year's defense programs if it moves to regulate the Pentagon's treatment of detainees or sets up a commission to investigate operations at Guantanamo Bay prison and elsewhere. The Bush administration, under fire for the indefinite detention of enemy combatants at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba and questions over whether its policies led to horrendous abuses at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, put lawmakers on notice it did not want them legislating on the matter.
"'If legislation is presented that would restrict the president's authority to protect Americans effectively from terrorist attack and bring terrorists to justice,' the bill could be vetoed, the [White House] statement said."
It really defies belief. Bush is openly telling the elected representatives of the American people that he will not allow them to put any fetters on his power to treat captives in any way he sees fit. He will not allow them to outlaw barbaric practices that stain the nation's honor and stir hatred against its people around the world. He will not even allow them to examine the allegations. He must have a free hand -- an iron hand -- to do what he pleases, to whom he pleases.
Oh, how he delights in his raw power, in his brutality, this nasty little man, this vile, soul-crippled creature. How the thought of war and torture makes him strut. What have we come to? How much deeper must we fall? When and how will we ever wake up from this nightmare?
White House threatens veto on detainee policies. Excerpt from AP:
"The White House on Thursday threatened to veto a massive Senate bill for $442 billion in next year's defense programs if it moves to regulate the Pentagon's treatment of detainees or sets up a commission to investigate operations at Guantanamo Bay prison and elsewhere. The Bush administration, under fire for the indefinite detention of enemy combatants at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba and questions over whether its policies led to horrendous abuses at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, put lawmakers on notice it did not want them legislating on the matter.
"'If legislation is presented that would restrict the president's authority to protect Americans effectively from terrorist attack and bring terrorists to justice,' the bill could be vetoed, the [White House] statement said."
It really defies belief. Bush is openly telling the elected representatives of the American people that he will not allow them to put any fetters on his power to treat captives in any way he sees fit. He will not allow them to outlaw barbaric practices that stain the nation's honor and stir hatred against its people around the world. He will not even allow them to examine the allegations. He must have a free hand -- an iron hand -- to do what he pleases, to whom he pleases.
Oh, how he delights in his raw power, in his brutality, this nasty little man, this vile, soul-crippled creature. How the thought of war and torture makes him strut. What have we come to? How much deeper must we fall? When and how will we ever wake up from this nightmare?
Live From London -- or Rather, Dead From London
Eyewitnesses say undercover security officers have just shot a man dead at a London Underground station, apparently a suspected suicide bomber. Reports are still sketchy at the moment, but from eyewitness accounts, it looks like the UK police are now applying "Bush rules" when it comes to handling suspects. From the BBC:
"...[Underground passenger Mark] Whitby told BBC News: "I was sitting on the train reading my paper. I heard a load of noise, people saying, 'Get out, get down!' I saw an Asian guy run onto the train hotly pursued by three plain-clothes police officers. One of them was carrying a black handgun - it looked like an automatic - they pushed him to the floor, bundled on top of him and unloaded five shots into him. "I saw the gun being fired five times into the guy - he is dead," he said."
"...[Underground passenger Mark] Whitby told BBC News: "I was sitting on the train reading my paper. I heard a load of noise, people saying, 'Get out, get down!' I saw an Asian guy run onto the train hotly pursued by three plain-clothes police officers. One of them was carrying a black handgun - it looked like an automatic - they pushed him to the floor, bundled on top of him and unloaded five shots into him. "I saw the gun being fired five times into the guy - he is dead," he said."
Thursday, July 21, 2005
Master Plan:The Rise of the Commander-in-Chief State
*Note: Here is the column I spoke of a few days ago, giving a broader context to Bush's nomination of John Roberts to the Supreme Court. (More on Roberts here.) A version of this piece will be printed in the July 22 edition of The Moscow Times. This version was first posted at Counterpunch.org.*
The United States long ago ceased to be anything like a living, thriving republic. But it retained the legal form of a republic, and that counted for something: as long as the legal form still existed, even as a gutted shell, there was hope it might be filled again one day with substance.
But now the very legal structures of the Republic are being dismantled. The principle of arbitrary rule by an autocratic leader is being openly established, through a series of unchallenged executive orders, perverse Justice Department rulings and court decisions by sycophantic judges who defer to power – not law – in their determinations. What we are witnessing is the creation of a "Commander-in-Chief State," where the form and pressure of law no longer apply to the president and his designated agents. The rights of individuals are no longer inalienable, nor are their persons inviolable; all depends on the good will of the Commander, the military autocrat.
George W. Bush has granted himself the power to declare anyone on earth – including any American citizen – an "enemy combatant," for any reason he sees fit. He can render them up to torture, he can imprison them for life, he can even have them killed, all without charges, with no burden of proof, no standards of evidence, no legislative oversight, no appeal, no judicial process whatsoever except those that he himself deigns to construct, with whatever limitations he cares to impose. Nor can he ever be prosecuted for any order he issues, however criminal; in the new American system laid out by Bush's legal minions, the Commander is sacrosanct, beyond the reach of any law or constitution.
This is not hyperbole. It is simply the reality of the United States today. The principle of unrestricted presidential power is now being codified into law and incorporated into the institutional structures of the state, as Deep Blade Journal reports in an excellent compendium of recent outrages against liberty.
For example, on July 15, a panel of federal appellate court judges upheld Bush's sovereign right to dispose of "enemy combatants" any way he pleases, the Washington Post reports. In a chilling decision, the judges ruled that the Commander's arbitrarily designated "enemies" are non-persons: neither the Geneva Conventions nor American military and domestic law apply to such garbage. Bush is now free to subject anyone he likes to the "military tribunal" system he has concocted – a brutal sham that some top retired military officials have denounced as a "kangaroo court" that will be used by tyrants around the world to "hide their oppression under U.S. precedent."
One of the kowtowing jurists on the appeals panel was none other than John G. Roberts. Four days after he affirmed Bush's autocratic powers, Roberts was duly awarded with a nomination to the Supreme Court. Now he will be sitting in final judgment on this case – and any other challenges to Bush's peremptory commands. This is what is known, in the tyrant trade, as "a safe pair of hands."
The ruling by Roberts and his fellow Republican jurists ignores the fact that the Geneva Conventions – which lay down strict guidelines for the handling of any person detained by military forces, regardless of the captive's status – have been incorporated into the U.S. legal code, as Deep Blade points out. They cannot be abrogated by presidential fiat. And anyone who commits a "grave breach" of the Conventions – by facilitating the killing, torture or inhuman treatment of detainees (e.g., stripping them of all legal status and subjecting them to rigged tribunals) – is subject to the death penalty under American law.
This is why the Bush Faction labored so mightily to advance the absurd fiction that the Geneva Conventions are somehow voluntary – while simultaneously promulgating the sinister Fuhrerprinzip of unlimited presidential authority. The fiction was a temporary sop to the crumbling legal form of the Republic, a cynical perversion of existing law to keep justice at bay until the Fuhrerprinzip could be firmly established as the new foundation of the state.
It doesn't matter anymore if the president's orders to suspend the Conventions, construct a worldwide gulag, torture captives, spy on Americans, fabricate intelligence and wage aggressive war are illegal under the "quaint" strictures of the old dispensation; the courts, packed with Bushist cadres, are now affirming the new order, the "critical authority" of the Commander, beyond law and morality, on the higher plane of what Bush calls "the path of action."
This phrase – with its remarkable Mussolinian echoes – was incorporated into the official "National Security Strategy of the United States," promulgated by Bush in September 2002. That document in turn was drawn largely from a manifesto issued in September 2000 by a Bush Faction group whose members included Dick Cheney, Don Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz and Jeb Bush. Their plan, often detailed here, envisioned the transformation of America into a militarized state: planting "military footprints" throughout Central Asia and the Middle East, invading Iraq (even if Saddam Hussein was already gone), expanding the nuclear arsenal, massively increasing the defense budget – and predicating all these "revolutionary" changes on the hopes for "a new Pearl Harbor" that would "catalyze" the lazy American public into supporting the militarist agenda.
This agenda is designed, the group said, to establish "full spectrum dominance" over geopolitical affairs, assuring control of world energy resources and precluding the rise of "any potential global rival" that might threaten the unchecked wealth and privilege of the American elite. The rule of law could only be a hindrance to such a scheme; hence its replacement by the Fuhrerprinzip and the "path of action."
There has been virtually no institutional resistance to this open coup d'etat. It's now clear that the American Establishment – and a significant portion of the American people – have given up on the democratic experiment. They no longer wish to govern themselves; they want to be ruled, by "strong leaders" who will "do whatever it takes" to protect them from harm and keep them in clover. They have sold their golden birthright of American liberty for a mess of coward's pottage.
Annotated sources can be found here.
Chris Floyd
The United States long ago ceased to be anything like a living, thriving republic. But it retained the legal form of a republic, and that counted for something: as long as the legal form still existed, even as a gutted shell, there was hope it might be filled again one day with substance.
But now the very legal structures of the Republic are being dismantled. The principle of arbitrary rule by an autocratic leader is being openly established, through a series of unchallenged executive orders, perverse Justice Department rulings and court decisions by sycophantic judges who defer to power – not law – in their determinations. What we are witnessing is the creation of a "Commander-in-Chief State," where the form and pressure of law no longer apply to the president and his designated agents. The rights of individuals are no longer inalienable, nor are their persons inviolable; all depends on the good will of the Commander, the military autocrat.
George W. Bush has granted himself the power to declare anyone on earth – including any American citizen – an "enemy combatant," for any reason he sees fit. He can render them up to torture, he can imprison them for life, he can even have them killed, all without charges, with no burden of proof, no standards of evidence, no legislative oversight, no appeal, no judicial process whatsoever except those that he himself deigns to construct, with whatever limitations he cares to impose. Nor can he ever be prosecuted for any order he issues, however criminal; in the new American system laid out by Bush's legal minions, the Commander is sacrosanct, beyond the reach of any law or constitution.
This is not hyperbole. It is simply the reality of the United States today. The principle of unrestricted presidential power is now being codified into law and incorporated into the institutional structures of the state, as Deep Blade Journal reports in an excellent compendium of recent outrages against liberty.
For example, on July 15, a panel of federal appellate court judges upheld Bush's sovereign right to dispose of "enemy combatants" any way he pleases, the Washington Post reports. In a chilling decision, the judges ruled that the Commander's arbitrarily designated "enemies" are non-persons: neither the Geneva Conventions nor American military and domestic law apply to such garbage. Bush is now free to subject anyone he likes to the "military tribunal" system he has concocted – a brutal sham that some top retired military officials have denounced as a "kangaroo court" that will be used by tyrants around the world to "hide their oppression under U.S. precedent."
One of the kowtowing jurists on the appeals panel was none other than John G. Roberts. Four days after he affirmed Bush's autocratic powers, Roberts was duly awarded with a nomination to the Supreme Court. Now he will be sitting in final judgment on this case – and any other challenges to Bush's peremptory commands. This is what is known, in the tyrant trade, as "a safe pair of hands."
The ruling by Roberts and his fellow Republican jurists ignores the fact that the Geneva Conventions – which lay down strict guidelines for the handling of any person detained by military forces, regardless of the captive's status – have been incorporated into the U.S. legal code, as Deep Blade points out. They cannot be abrogated by presidential fiat. And anyone who commits a "grave breach" of the Conventions – by facilitating the killing, torture or inhuman treatment of detainees (e.g., stripping them of all legal status and subjecting them to rigged tribunals) – is subject to the death penalty under American law.
This is why the Bush Faction labored so mightily to advance the absurd fiction that the Geneva Conventions are somehow voluntary – while simultaneously promulgating the sinister Fuhrerprinzip of unlimited presidential authority. The fiction was a temporary sop to the crumbling legal form of the Republic, a cynical perversion of existing law to keep justice at bay until the Fuhrerprinzip could be firmly established as the new foundation of the state.
It doesn't matter anymore if the president's orders to suspend the Conventions, construct a worldwide gulag, torture captives, spy on Americans, fabricate intelligence and wage aggressive war are illegal under the "quaint" strictures of the old dispensation; the courts, packed with Bushist cadres, are now affirming the new order, the "critical authority" of the Commander, beyond law and morality, on the higher plane of what Bush calls "the path of action."
This phrase – with its remarkable Mussolinian echoes – was incorporated into the official "National Security Strategy of the United States," promulgated by Bush in September 2002. That document in turn was drawn largely from a manifesto issued in September 2000 by a Bush Faction group whose members included Dick Cheney, Don Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz and Jeb Bush. Their plan, often detailed here, envisioned the transformation of America into a militarized state: planting "military footprints" throughout Central Asia and the Middle East, invading Iraq (even if Saddam Hussein was already gone), expanding the nuclear arsenal, massively increasing the defense budget – and predicating all these "revolutionary" changes on the hopes for "a new Pearl Harbor" that would "catalyze" the lazy American public into supporting the militarist agenda.
This agenda is designed, the group said, to establish "full spectrum dominance" over geopolitical affairs, assuring control of world energy resources and precluding the rise of "any potential global rival" that might threaten the unchecked wealth and privilege of the American elite. The rule of law could only be a hindrance to such a scheme; hence its replacement by the Fuhrerprinzip and the "path of action."
There has been virtually no institutional resistance to this open coup d'etat. It's now clear that the American Establishment – and a significant portion of the American people – have given up on the democratic experiment. They no longer wish to govern themselves; they want to be ruled, by "strong leaders" who will "do whatever it takes" to protect them from harm and keep them in clover. They have sold their golden birthright of American liberty for a mess of coward's pottage.
Annotated sources can be found here.
Chris Floyd
Wednesday, July 20, 2005
Background Check
Want to know more about Judge Dread Roberts, corporate bagman, champion of mountain-top removal mining, recreational guzzler of Pepto-Bismol? Cockburn and St. Clair are on the case.
And no molly-coddler of criminals, he: Roberts Upheld Arrest of 12-Year Old for Eating French Fries on the Subway.
Meanwhile, the wife of the affable bagman turns out to be a big-time Right-wing player: a top member of the anti-choice group "Feminists for Life" (yes, another of those inverted Orwellian titles that Bushists love so well) and a high-roller in the Iraq war pork stakes, as intrepid investigator Margie Burns reports.
Strip mining, mountain killing, womb controlling, child arresting, war profiteering: why, the dread pirate Roberts is a veritable poster boy for the Bushist Way! All this, and an eager beaver protege of race-baiting, vote-suppressing William Rehnquist, foisted on the Court as a sick joke by Richard Nixon! Get this man to the High Bench pronto!
Update: Max Blumenthal informs us that Roberts was also the attorney for Fox Television when it successfully thwarted government regulations against media saturation by a single conglomerate. A bagman for Rupert Murdoch too! Can this guy be any more perfect? What next? Is he Jesse Helms' secret love child?
And no molly-coddler of criminals, he: Roberts Upheld Arrest of 12-Year Old for Eating French Fries on the Subway.
Meanwhile, the wife of the affable bagman turns out to be a big-time Right-wing player: a top member of the anti-choice group "Feminists for Life" (yes, another of those inverted Orwellian titles that Bushists love so well) and a high-roller in the Iraq war pork stakes, as intrepid investigator Margie Burns reports.
Strip mining, mountain killing, womb controlling, child arresting, war profiteering: why, the dread pirate Roberts is a veritable poster boy for the Bushist Way! All this, and an eager beaver protege of race-baiting, vote-suppressing William Rehnquist, foisted on the Court as a sick joke by Richard Nixon! Get this man to the High Bench pronto!
Update: Max Blumenthal informs us that Roberts was also the attorney for Fox Television when it successfully thwarted government regulations against media saturation by a single conglomerate. A bagman for Rupert Murdoch too! Can this guy be any more perfect? What next? Is he Jesse Helms' secret love child?
Introducing Judge Dread: The Affable Accomplice of a Coup d'etat
So now we know: it's John Roberts for the Supreme Court. The main focus of debate on the pick will undoubtedly be Roberts' statement on abortion, while serving as deputy solicitor general Bush I, declaring that Roe v. Wade was wrong. This is the only "controversial" angle cited by the NY Times' loving – not to say groveling – profile this morning, which then goes on to give Roberts an alibi, if he wants it: that he was only dutifully stating the government's position at the time.
But all of this is a smokescreen. The NY Times doesn't even mention Roberts' most dangerous decision, issued just last Friday, when, as part of a panel of appeals judges, he upheld Bush's outrageous claim of dictatorial powers: the right to dispose of anyone he arbitrarily designates an "enemy combatant" as he sees fit; in this case, sending them to the kangaroo court "military tribunals" he has concocted.
I'm writing more extensively on this case for the Moscow Times later this week, but here's the gist: Roberts' decision is part of an on-going process of elevating the president beyond the reach of law -- essentially a slow-rolling coup d'etat, replacing the old American Republic (or what's left of it) with an authoritarian "Commander-in-Chief State." (Deep Blade has more examples of this process here.) How so? Here's a preview of the column:
"The principle of arbitrary rule by an autocratic leader is being openly established, through a series of unchallenged executive orders, perverse Justice Department rulings and court decisions by sycophantic judges who defer to power – not law – in their determinations. What we are witnessing is the creation of a "Commander-in-Chief State," where the form and pressure of law no longer apply to the president and his designated agents. The rights of individuals are no longer inalienable, nor are their persons inviolable; all depends on the good will of the Commander, the military autocrat.
"[Through a series of executive orders and presidential directives, beginning in October 2001] George W. Bush has granted himself the power to declare anyone on earth – including any American citizen – an 'enemy combatant,' for any reason he sees fit. He can render them up to torture, he can imprison them for life, he can even have them killed, all without charges, with no burden of proof, no standards of evidence, no legislative oversight, no appeal, no judicial process whatsoever except those that he himself deigns to construct, with whatever limitations he cares to impose. Nor can he ever be prosecuted for any order he issues, however criminal; in the new American system laid out by Bush's legal minions, the Commander is sacrosanct, beyond the reach of any law or constitution.
"[In last week's decision, Roberts and his fellow judges] ruled that the Commander's abitrarily designated "enemies" are non-persons: neither the Geneva Conventions nor American military and domestic law apply to such human garbage. Bush is now free to subject anyone he likes to the "military tribunal" system he has concocted – a brutal sham that some top retired military officials have denounced as a "kangaroo court" that will be used by tyrants around the world to "hide their oppression under U.S. precedent."
The column will explore the implications of this decision in more detail. But the fact is that Roberts -- this affable "insider," this "regular guy" from Indiana -- will now be implementing the anti-American principle of unlimited presidential authority on the highest court in the land. Too bad the NY Times doesn't think this is controversial.
Meanwhile, regarding the Roberts' nomination, let me cry out with Hamlet: "O my prophetic soul!" I'm not often this right when I peer into the crystal ball, but I do think that Bush's pick is pretty much along the lines I predicted here on July 4, when I wrote:
"For what it's worth, here's my prediction on Bush's Supreme Court nominee: it won't be any of the "hot-button" prospects (Gonzales, Pryor, etc.). It will be some Federalist Society apparatchik who has plugged along for years, quietly, unnoticed, issuing consistently right-wing rulings but with a minimum of overheated Borkian/Scalian rhetoric.
"It will be someone who will evoke this kind of reaction among the "conventional wisdom" clique (Richard Cohen or E.J. Dionne, say): 'At first glance, at least, President Bush has made a surprisingly solid pick for the Supreme Court: a conservative to be sure, but no ideologue, no firebrand. All the lefty bloggers and anti-Bush activists out there may yet dig up some skeletons, of course, but at the moment, we applaud what looks to be an act of genuine statesmanship by the president.'
"This first impression won't last, of course. Unsavoury facts about the nominee's hardcore ideology and slippery ethics will indeed emerge. But that first CW impression will have taken hold, and the subsequent opposition to the nominee will be increasingly portrayed as arcane nit-picking and partisan spin."
I think we'll see things play out along these lines, although given Roberts' impeccable "insider" credentials -- cited so approvingly by the Times today -- the "slippery ethics" angle might not come into play. Unlike some of the other candidates considered by Bush, Roberts never sought an elected judicial post, so we won't have the usual conflict-of-interest contributions that Bushist apparatchiks normally glory in.
Tuesday, July 19, 2005
Conspiracy of Silence
Wise man Juan Cole on how the conviction of Christian Terrorist Eric Rudolph won't be covered by the leading pundits and politicos of our day.
The Impeccable Logic of Intelligent Design
And I heard as it were a call within the whirlwind. And the call was great, and cried with a loud voice saying, The Lord Thy God is great big wad of flying spaghetti. Behold His marvelous work of creation! And I looked, and I saw with exceeding wonder the world His strands hath made; and straightway I was made new, and nibbled on the garlic bread of Paradise. – The Book of Goober, 12:35-39.
Via -- appropriately enough -- Jesus' General, we present "An Open Letter to the Kansas School Board," by Bobby Henderson, concerned citizen. Not since Martin Luther pinned his theseses -- his thesetheseeses -- his thesissessess's -- those things to that door has there been such a brilliant exposition of religious theology. Go thou and feast upon the whole plate -- but first enjoy this appetizer:
"I am writing you with much concern after having read of your hearing to decide whether the alternative theory of Intelligent Design should be taught along with the theory of Evolution. I think we can all agree that it is important for students to hear multiple viewpoints so they can choose for themselves the theory that makes the most sense to them. I am concerned, however, that students will only hear one theory of Intelligent Design.
"Let us remember that there are multiple theories of Intelligent Design. I and many others around the world are of the strong belief that the universe was created by a Flying Spaghetti Monster. It was He who created all that we see and all that we feel. We feel strongly that the overwhelming scientific evidence pointing towards evolutionary processes is nothing but a coincidence, put in place by Him.
"It is for this reason that I’m writing you today, to formally request that this alternative theory be taught in your schools, along with the other two theories. In fact, I will go so far as to say, if you do not agree to do this, we will be forced to proceed with legal action. I’m sure you see where we are coming from. If the Intelligent Design theory is not based on faith, but instead another scientific theory, as is claimed, then you must also allow our theory to be taught, as it is also based on science, not on faith.
"Some find that hard to believe, so it may be helpful to tell you a little more about our beliefs. We have evidence that a Flying Spaghetti Monster created the universe. None of us, of course, were around to see it, but we have written accounts of it. We have several lengthy volumes explaining all details of His power...."
Pilgrim, do not dawdle. Seek now His Noodly Appendage!
Via -- appropriately enough -- Jesus' General, we present "An Open Letter to the Kansas School Board," by Bobby Henderson, concerned citizen. Not since Martin Luther pinned his theseses -- his thesetheseeses -- his thesissessess's -- those things to that door has there been such a brilliant exposition of religious theology. Go thou and feast upon the whole plate -- but first enjoy this appetizer:
"I am writing you with much concern after having read of your hearing to decide whether the alternative theory of Intelligent Design should be taught along with the theory of Evolution. I think we can all agree that it is important for students to hear multiple viewpoints so they can choose for themselves the theory that makes the most sense to them. I am concerned, however, that students will only hear one theory of Intelligent Design.
"Let us remember that there are multiple theories of Intelligent Design. I and many others around the world are of the strong belief that the universe was created by a Flying Spaghetti Monster. It was He who created all that we see and all that we feel. We feel strongly that the overwhelming scientific evidence pointing towards evolutionary processes is nothing but a coincidence, put in place by Him.
"It is for this reason that I’m writing you today, to formally request that this alternative theory be taught in your schools, along with the other two theories. In fact, I will go so far as to say, if you do not agree to do this, we will be forced to proceed with legal action. I’m sure you see where we are coming from. If the Intelligent Design theory is not based on faith, but instead another scientific theory, as is claimed, then you must also allow our theory to be taught, as it is also based on science, not on faith.
"Some find that hard to believe, so it may be helpful to tell you a little more about our beliefs. We have evidence that a Flying Spaghetti Monster created the universe. None of us, of course, were around to see it, but we have written accounts of it. We have several lengthy volumes explaining all details of His power...."
Pilgrim, do not dawdle. Seek now His Noodly Appendage!
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