Author: tiggers thotful spot

BREAKING: IRAQ INVESTIGATES DEATH SQUADS — SALVADOR OPTION?

Posted at Le Big Orange, already off the recommended list and gone…

AP News is carrying a story (here on Yahoo): Iraq Death Squad Claims Being Investigated

BAGHDAD, Iraq –     Iraq’s Interior Ministry has launched an investigation into claims that a police death squad has been operating in the country, a top official said Thursday…

The bodies of Sunni Arabs, bound and gagged and shot in the head, have been turning up in Baghdad for months, fueling allegations of sectarian killings, which Sunni Arab leaders say are often carried out by Shiites in army or police uniforms…

“Since a very long time, we have been talking about such violations and we have been telling the Interior Ministry officials that there are squads that raid houses and arrest people who are found later executed in different parts of the capital,” said party member Nasser al-Ani…”

But not 13 months ago there were stories saying that Americans were planning a “Salvador Option” (The Pentagon may put Special-Forces-led assassination or kidnapping teams in Iraq)

And now this. I’m shocked — shocked! — that this could be happening. (HINT: not)

Nuns pray over the bodies of four American sisters killed by the military in El Salvador in 1980

From last year’s Newsweek article on “The Salvador Option”

Jan. 8 – What to do about the deepening quagmire of Iraq? The Pentagon’s latest approach is being called “the Salvador option”–and the fact that it is being discussed at all is a measure of just how worried Donald Rumsfeld really is. “What everyone agrees is that we can’t just go on as we are,” one senior military officer told NEWSWEEK. “We have to find a way to take the offensive against the insurgents. Right now, we are playing defense. And we are losing.” Last November’s operation in Fallujah, most analysts agree, succeeded less in breaking “the back” of the insurgency–as Marine Gen. John Sattler optimistically declared at the time–than in spreading it out…

Now, NEWSWEEK has learned, the Pentagon is intensively debating an option that dates back to a still-secret strategy in the Reagan administration’s battle against the leftist guerrilla insurgency in El Salvador in the early 1980s. Then, faced with a losing war against Salvadoran rebels, the U.S. government funded or supported “nationalist” forces that allegedly included so-called death squads directed to hunt down and kill rebel leaders and sympathizers…

That’s from the commies over at Newsweek. Of course they deny Negroponte knew anything about death squads.

Alternet reported it a little differently: The Death Squad Option

And during the recent Vice Presidential debates, Vice President Dick Cheney stated, “Twenty years ago we had a similar situation in El Salvador. We had a guerilla insurgency that controlled roughly a third of the country, 75,000 people dead. And we held free elections … And today El Salvador is a whale of a lot better because we held free elections.” According to a 1993 U.N.-sponsored truth commission, however, up to “90 percent of the atrocities in the conflict “were committed by the U.S.-sponsored army and its surrogates, “with the rebels responsible for 5 percent and the remaining 5 percent undetermined.” These death squads “abducted members of the civilian population and of rebel groups. They tortured their hostages, were responsible for their disappearance and usually executed them.”

John Negroponte, the current U.S. ambassador in Baghdad, is no stranger to death squads. In the 1980s, Negroponte served as the U.S. ambassador to Honduras. At the time, he was cozy with the chief of the Honduran national police force, Gen. Gustavo Alvarez Martinez, who also ran the infamous Battalion 316 death squad. Battalion 316 “kidnapped, tortured and murdered more than 100 people between 1981 and 1984.” According to Kenneth Roth, the executive director of Human Rights Watch, “Negroponte publicly adopted a see-no-evil attitude to this army death squad.”

President Bush also appointed neocon Elliot Abrams to be his senior adviser on the Middle East. Abrams was also a staunch supporter of the Salvador Option in the 1980s: when newspapers “reported that a U.S.-trained military unit had massacred hundreds of villagers in the tiny Salvadoran hamlet of El Mozote, Abrams told Congress the story was nothing but communist propaganda.” When confronted with the United Nations report that the vast majority of “atrocities in El Salvador’s civil war were committed by Reagan-assisted death squads,” Abrams’s response: “The administration’s record on El Salvador is one of fabulous achievements.” Abrams was convicted of lying to Congress about Iran-Contra in 1987 – he was pardoned by George H.W. Bush in 1992.

From The Nation

“El Salvador: Work of Thirty Photographers” takes on new meaning in the shadow of the US war in Iraq. Newsweek reported in January that the Pentagon was considering a “Salvador option” in Iraq, in which Special Forces teams “would advise, support and possibly train Iraqi squads…to target Sunni insurgents and their sympathizers.” The US public has largely forgotten the Salvador conflict, but it appears that the Pentagon has not.

Etienne Montes, National Policeman using ice-cream vendor as a shield during skirmish with demonstrators, San Salvador, 1979-83

Every ten years or so, the United States needs to pick up some small crappy little country and throw it against the wall, just to show the world we mean business.

 — Michael Ledeen, holder of the Freedom Chair at the American Enterprise Institute (one of the much promoted and rewarded Iran-contra types!)

So let’s not let it go down the memory hole now that death squads are turning up in Baghdad doing exactly what the leaked Pentagon plans had them doing, and just by coincidence the administration is peppered with veterans of America’s dirty wars in Latin America. If it walks like a duck…

1 of 26 KILLED in Action, But They’ll Get NO THANKS from GOP

CROSS POSTED IN THE VANISHING DIARY DOWNPOUR AT DAILYKOS

Also also wik: My Left Wing

My father served in the United States Merchant Marines during World War II.

The Merchant Marines, who were civilians, did the job of getting all the supplies and equipment needed for the war from the USA to basically everywhere.

During World War II the fleet was in effect nationalized, that is, the U.S. Government controlled the cargo and the destinations, contracted with private companies to operate the ships, put guns and Navy personnel (Armed Guard) on board. The Government trained the men to operate the ships and assist in manning the guns through the U.S. Maritime Service.

Naturally the merchant fleet was a tempting target, and Mariners suffered the highest casualty rates of any service. 1 in 26 Mariners did not come home alive. The job was more lethal than being in the Marines! My father survived, which is why I am here to write this diary about how America thanked the Mariners, so many of whom made the ultimate sacrifice: America did absolutely NOTHING. And thanks to Republicans like Larry Craig (R-Idaho), the few remaining survivors will continue to get NOTHING.

(but remember, Dems are anti-military, right?)

“[Mariners] have written one of its most brilliant chapters. They have delivered the goods when and where needed in every theater of operations and across every ocean in the biggest, the most difficult and dangerous job ever undertaken. As time goes on, there will be greater public understanding of our merchant’s fleet record during this war [World War II].”

President Franklin D. Roosevelt

During World War II President Franklin D. Roosevelt promised mariners of the U.S. Merchant Marine, and Army Transport Service veteran status and a Seaman’s Bill of Rights. His promises died with him.

The military personnel got the GI Bill, and Mariners like my father got nothing. He got no benefits of any kind. In 1988, Congress passed a bill which President Clinton signed: “Besides recognition, the mariner is entitled to a grave stone, flag for his coffin, and burial in a National Cemetery.” “Where available, the U.S. Coast Guard, on request, will provide an Honor Guard for Merchant Mariner Veterans’ funeral services.” My father passed away in 1973. There was no honor guard, no flag, no national cemetery.

Last summer, two Democrats — you know, the evil military-hating bastards? — introduced a bill in Congress known as H.R. 23 and S. 1272: Belated Thank You to the Merchant Mariners of World War II Act of 2005.

The bill provides $1,000 per month to WWII mariners (average age 81) or their widows in lieu of benefits not received after World War II. The Bill also gives Social Security credit for time served in the the merchant marine, like the credit given to others who served in the Army or Navy.

The bill was introduced by Bob Filner (D-California) and Senator Ben Nelson (D-Nebraska). As of right, now the bill has 242 cosponsors [171 Democrats, 70 Republicans, 1 Independent]. (See again how the Democrats are against Veterans and the Military?)

In the US Senate this bill is being blocked by Larry Craig, R-Idaho, chair of the Veterans Affairs committee.

That has been the struggle for Filner and Nelson – the bills are bogged down in the veterans’ affairs committees of both chambers.

“Sen. Craig is not supportive of the legislation,” said Jeff Schrade, communication director for the Senate Committee of Veterans’ Affairs, which Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, chairs, “But there may be a hearing on it next year.

Among other things Senator Craig is unhappy that the cost of the bill would be over $30 million per year. That is 0.007% of the cost of our military budget neglecting the current war appropriations bills and the budget for the NSA and CIA. So you can see from this how consistently Republicans are always for veterans even if it means making sacrifices. Right? (It’s a trick question, don’t worry!)

You may urge your Congresscritters to thank America’s Mariners through this link:

http://www.usmm.org/…

Some folks wouldn’t recognize tyranny if it jumped up and bit them on the ass

Cross-posted at dailyKos (where there has been a lot of DLC style centrism afoot!)

Since the beginning of the Bush regime, we’ve established that

o  President Bush can order American citizens held incommunicado without any charge, indefinitely

o  President Bush can order the execution without any trial of an American citizen in a car in Yemen

o  President Bush can approve the torture of prisoners or have them ‘disappeared’ to other countries where they will be tortured

o  President Bush can divert funds allocated by Congress for one war for waging another war

o  President Bush has the power to wage war against another country without a declaration of war and without proving that the situation was a dire emergency

tyr·an·ny  
NOUN:
pl. tyr·an·nies
A government in which a single ruler is vested with absolute power.

Cross-posted at dailyKos (where there has been a lot of DLC style centrism afoot!)

Since the beginning of the Bush regime, we’ve established that

o  President Bush can order American citizens held incommunicado without any charge, indefinitely

o  President Bush can order the execution without any trial of an American citizen in a car in Yemen

o  President Bush can approve the torture of prisoners or have them ‘disappeared’ to other countries where they will be tortured

o  President Bush can divert funds allocated by Congress for one war for waging another war

o  President Bush has the power to wage war against another country without a declaration of war and without proving that the situation was a dire emergency

tyr·an·ny  
NOUN:
pl. tyr·an·nies
A government in which a single ruler is vested with absolute power.

Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes. And armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few. In war, too, the discretionary power of the Executive is extended. Its influence in dealing out offices, honors, and emoluments is multiplied; and all the means of seducing the minds, are added to those of subduing the force of the people. The same malignant aspect in republicanism may be traced in the inequality of fortunes, and the opportunities of fraud, growing out of a state of war…and in the degeneracy of manners and morals, engendered by both. No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.

 — James Madison

It’s sometimes easier to start, I suppose, with the obvious debt-funded fraud resulting from this undeclared unnecessary war against Iraq. All that dealing out of no-bid Halliburton ’emoluments’ and Presidential Medals of Freedom and ‘offices’ for suddenly redeemed Iran-Contra felons and torture lovers. It’s a lovely investment opportunity, according to Richard Perle! This kind of stuff really pisses off Al Franken. Good for him.

But we hardly even need to discuss that. I’m more concerned with the malignant aspects Madison was warning us about that have been staring us right in the face.

I’m more concerned that some don’t dare call it imperial for fear of alarming Joe and Jane America living comfortably with their simple mythology. Uh oh! I did a bad thing! FOX News might say I’m unpatriotic.

I’m more concerned that the President can start a war and kill thousands of people, because he felt like it  — the intelligence was being fixed around the policy — and there is no accountability. I’m more concerned that when some of us suggest to our Democratic representatives that there be accountability, a bunch of them are off trying to figure out ways to deploy more troops to Iraq or to enlarge the size of the army that President Bush can now send off to die as he pleases.

Jose Padilla, an American citizen, can be held indefinitely because President Bush sez he’s a terrist. Due process?

Ahmed Hijazi, an American citizen, was executed using a Predator missile. Not driving an American car, perhaps?

Justice Dept. Memo Says Torture ‘May Be Justified’

Extraordinary rendition refers to a procedure practiced by the government of the United States (and possibly aided by other western countries) whereby criminal suspects are sent to countries in which torture is routinely used in interrogation…As described in various reports in the media, suspects have been arrested, blindfolded, shackled, and sedated, and transported by private jet or other means to the destination country…In a number of cases, suspects to whom the procedure is believed to have been applied later appeared to be innocent.

The civics lesson of the Iran-Contra scandal was simple: No matter how powerful or well-intentioned, presidents cannot secretly fund wars without the consent of Congress. But according to Bob Woodward’s new book, President Bush apparently never learned that axiom…

Woodward alleges that in July 2002, the president secretly began to finance the war in Iraq with no authorization from Congress. He says $700 million was siphoned from operations against al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and into planning an Iraq invasion. The president allegedly took the money from one of the two supplemental spending bills passed after September 11 and left lawmakers “totally in the dark.”

Now does this sound like Congress has the power to declare war to you?

Go massive … Sweep it all up. Things related and not…

How about this?

The memo, first published on May 1, contains the recorded minutes of a July 23, 2002, meeting of senior British cabinet officials and advisers. The memo reports that British intelligence chief Richard Dearlove stated, based on meetings with U.S. officials in Washington, that President Bush was determined even then to remove Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq “through military action” and that “the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.”…”The Americans had been trying to link Saddam to the 9/11 attacks; but the British knew the evidence was flimsy or non-existent. Dearlove warned the meeting that ‘the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.'”

Madison warned us. Bush is getting away with it. Democrats are not fighting it enough. Don’t tell me the war in Iraq isn’t immoral, no matter what Joe and Jane America think. And don’t tell me it isn’t helping kill the myth of what America is supposed to be, because the evidence is overwhelming.

Tone and Truth Daily Witness (Day 1)

Cross-posted at dailyKos (where it will vanish in a heartbeat)

with a bow to RubDMC

…They don’t think George Bush is mean-spirited or prejudiced, but have become aware that his administration is irresponsible and often incompetent… They don’t think America is an imperialist brute, but are angry that the case to invade Iraq was exaggerated, are worried that we have unnecessarily alienated existing and potential allies around the world, and are ashamed by events like those at Abu Ghraib which violate our ideals as a country.

 — Barack Obama (D-IL)

I’ve been thinking about this tone all day. In my view, there is very little truth in it, especially when one is mindful of the photos and words RubDMC has been posting for the past 269 days.

Maybe America does think the way Senator Obama says they do. But if that is true, I’m just as ashamed of that thinking as I am of Abu Ghraib.

Cross-posted at dailyKos (where it will vanish in a heartbeat)

with a bow to RubDMC

…They don’t think George Bush is mean-spirited or prejudiced, but have become aware that his administration is irresponsible and often incompetent… They don’t think America is an imperialist brute, but are angry that the case to invade Iraq was exaggerated, are worried that we have unnecessarily alienated existing and potential allies around the world, and are ashamed by events like those at Abu Ghraib which violate our ideals as a country.

 — Barack Obama (D-IL)

I’ve been thinking about this tone all day. In my view, there is very little truth in it, especially when one is mindful of the photos and words RubDMC has been posting for the past 269 days.

Maybe America does think the way Senator Obama says they do. But if that is true, I’m just as ashamed of that thinking as I am of Abu Ghraib.
Some more snippets of tone and truth. I report. You decide.

I will never apologize for the United States of America — I don’t care what the facts are.

 — President George Bush Sr. (R-Unapologetic Empire)

U.S. arms sales go to dictators

 Washington, DC, May. 25 (UPI) — President George W. Bush may have pledged to promote democracy around the world, but most U.S. arms sales to the developing world still go to prop up dictatorial regimes, according to a new report.

The report, issued by the New York-based World Policy Institute, found that a majority of U.S. arms sales to the developing world go to regimes defined as undemocratic by the State Department. It also says that U.S.-supplied arms are involved in a majority of the world’s active conflicts.

Every ten years or so, the United States needs to pick up some small crappy little country and throw it against the wall, just to show the world we mean business.

 — Michael Ledeen, holder of the Freedom Chair at the American Enterprise Institute (R-Evil Unapologetic Empire)

The Arithmetic of America’s Military Bases Abroad: What Does It All Add Up to?

According to the Defense Department’s annual “Base Structure Report” for fiscal year 2003, which itemizes foreign and domestic U.S. military real estate, the Pentagon currently owns or rents 702 overseas bases in about 130 countries and has another 6,000 bases in the United States and its territories. Pentagon bureaucrats calculate that it would require at least $113.2 billion to replace just the foreign bases — surely far too low a figure but still larger than the gross domestic product of most countries…

Visitors to Australia like myself, are expected to answer the following question when they fill in the visa form: Have you ever committed or been involved in the commission of war crimes or crimes against humanity or human rights? Would George Bush and Tony Blair get visas to Australia? Under the tenets of International Law they must surely qualify as war criminals.

However, to imagine that the world would change if they were removed from office is naive. The tragedy is that their political rivals have no real dispute with their policies. The fire and brimstone of the US election campaign was about who would make a better ‘Commander-in-Chief’ and a more effective manager of the American Empire. Democracy no longer offers voters real choice. Only specious choice.

Even though no weapons of mass destruction have been found in Iraq – stunning new evidence has revealed that Saddam Hussein was planning a weapons programme. (Like I was planning to win an Olympic Gold in synchronized swimming.) Thank goodness for the doctrine of pre-emptive strike. God knows what other evil thoughts he harbored – sending Tampax in the mail to American senators, or releasing female rabbits in burqas into the London underground. No doubt all will be revealed in the free and fair trial of Saddam Hussein that’s coming up soon in the New Iraq.

 — Arundhati Roy, Speech on Accepting the Sydney Peace Prize

Maybe sometimes you just want to be on the side of whoever is more likely to take a bunker buster to Arundhati Roy.

 — Tom Frank (in The New Republic)

Every gun and rocket that is fired, every warship launched, signifies, in a final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. The world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.

 — Dwight Eisenhower

As distinct from other peoples, most Americans do not recognize — or do not want to recognize — that the United States dominates the world through its military power. Due to government secrecy, our citizens are often ignorant of the fact that our garrisons encircle the planet. This vast network of American bases on every continent except Antarctica actually constitutes a new form of empire — an empire of bases with its own geography not likely to be taught in any high school geography class. Without grasping the dimensions of this globe-girdling Baseworld, one can’t begin to understand the size and nature of our imperial aspirations or the degree to which a new kind of militarism is undermining our constitutional order.

 — Chalmers Johnson

BREAKING (memory hole story): US infant mortality RISING!

Cross-posted at dailyKos (where it will most likely vanish soon)

canberra boy‘s EARLIER Booman diary here.

A brief blurb was said once on my morning radio and then not again in any headlines I can find. The United Nations Development Programme issued its 2005 report on human development. It included this quote:

Key US health indicators are far below those that might be anticipated on the basis of national wealth. Infant mortality trends are especially troublesome. Since 2000 a half century of sustained decline in infant death rates first slowed and then reversed.

This is the “Culture of Life”. Since Bush was elected a key measure of human development in the United States has reversed. In most countries that would be scandalous. Here it goes in the memory hole. FOX News will be sure to cover the missing white girl story and miss this one.
A more complete of quotes from the UNDP about the United States’ failing health care system and inequality (from chapter 2):

The United States leads the world in healthcare spending. On a per capita basis the United States spends twice the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development average on healthcare, or 13% of national income. Yet some countries that spend substantially less than the United States have healthier populations. US public health indicators are marred by deep inequalities linked to income, health insurance coverage, race, ethnicity, geography and critically access to care. Key US health indicators are far below those that might be anticipated on the basis of national wealth. Infant mortality trends are especially troublesome. Since 2000 a half century of sustained decline in infant death rates first slowed and then reversed. The infant mortality rate is now higher for the United States than for many other industrial countries. Malaysia a country with an average income one-quarter that of the United States  has achieved the same infant mortality rate as the United States (figure 1). And the Indian state of Kerala has an urban infant death rate lower than that for African Americans in Washington, DC …

 … A baby boy from a family in the top 5% of the US income distribution will enjoy a life span 25% longer than a boy born in the bottom 5%.

… While more than half the population have health insurance coverage through their employers and almost all the elderly are covered through Medicare, more than one in six non-elderly Americans (45 million) lacked health insurance in 2003. Over a third (36%) of families living below the poverty line are uninsured. Hispanic Americans (34%) are more than twice as likely to be uninsured as white Americans (13%), and 21% of African Americans have no health insurance.

… The Institute of Medicine estimates that at least 18,000 Americans die prematurely each year solely because they lack health insurance. Being born into an uninsured household increases the probability of death before age 1 by about 50%. Unequal access to healthcare has a powerful effect on health inequalities linked to race, which are only partly explained by insurance and income inequalities. One study finds that eliminating the gap in healthcare between African Americans and white Americans would save nearly 85,000 lives a year. To put this figure in context, technological improvements in medicine save about 20,000 lives a year.

The entire report can be found here:

Human Development Report 2005
International cooperation at a crossroads:
Aid, trade and security in an unequal world

The CIA (you know, those socialist commies) has an estimate of infant mortality rates for 2005 that can be found here:

Rank Order – Infant mortality rate

Astonishingly the CIA estimates that the United States has a higher infant mortality rate than does CUBA. Try telling that to your Republican friends when they bring up “the culture of life”. You leave out where you got the data until the end.

Iraq is the New Afghanistan (Asia Times & Others)

Cross posted to Daily Kos 3.0 Orange Beta

I’ve been thinking that our ill-advised, illegal invasion of Iraq might turn out a lot like Afghanistan. For the USA, we’ve earned the enmity of a lot of the world. Witness the polls that say China is more trusted, or the polls that say the USA is the number one threat to peace. And for Iraq? 100,000 dead, countless families destroyed, infrastructure destroyed, chaos and violence, unemployment, hunger.

We’ve squandered and will (apparently) continue to squander the blood of our own youth for the PNAC’s imperial adventure. Not to mention the hundreds of billions of dollars. This is the way the history is written about the USSR in Afghanistan, isn’t it? It bled them. That’s what the cold-warriors were proud of, in fact.

There has been much hand-wringing about how much of our treasure has already been squandered there, but we are morally obligated to pay for the reconstruction of Iraq. We should be so lucky that money will be the only thing required of us, and that money will solve the problems we’ve created!

Others are reaching the same conclusions, such as today’s editorial in The Asia Times: “Iraq, the new Afghanistan.”
From today’s editorial in The Asia Times:

It’s virtually impossible for US President George W Bush’s Iraq to be “on its way to democracy” when real unemployment reaches a staggering 50% (a scarier prospect for most people than car bombs or snipers), 25% of children under five years old are malnourished, 78% of the households in the country (and 92% in Baghdad) have electricity only a few hours a day, only 37% of urban households (and a mere 4% in the countryside) have sewage-disposal systems, only 61% have access to drinking water, 5% of households have been destroyed by bombing or search-and-destroy missions, only one in 10 households in rural areas can be reached by a paved road, and more youngsters than in any previous generation are illiterate. This is the appalling legacy of the occupation – and the US and UN-imposed regime of sanctions in the 1990s.

Now, to complete the picture, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has just “discovered” in a classified report leaked to the New York Times that Iraq – rather, Bush’s Iraq – is breeding the new, lethal generation of jihadis, just like former president Ronald Reagan’s “freedom fighters” were bred in the 1980s in Afghanistan during the anti-Soviet jihad. Anyone familiar with the invasion and occupation of Iraq knew this for a fact as far back as two years ago – at a time when Pentagon supremo Donald Rumsfeld was, on the record, very happy with the idea of Iraq as the new jihad Mecca. The CIA report cannot but conclude that the new jihadis – who are now taking their higher education in urban warfare in the Sunni triangle – will be even deadlier than the famous Arab-Afghans. There was blowback in Afghanistan – after the US financed a jihad. There is now blowback in Iraq – after the US invented a jihad out of the blue.

Lew Rockwell wrote a column about this a couple of days ago. Although I’m not exactly a Libertarian Party member — and I have to weed out a lot of the rhetoric about the wonders of privatization (etc) — I can’t help but pause on this part:

I mentioned earlier that the Iraq failure has many precedents. Consider the Soviet failure in Afghanistan. The ostensible goal of the Russian government – which invaded the country by citing security concerns – was to replace a backward religious regime with an enlightened one that brought rights to all, guaranteed a higher standard of living, and put the country on the path to progress.

Of course we all saw through these lies. To us, the Soviet invasion and occupation of Afghanistan was a transparent and brutal exercise of empire. It was evidence of the moral rot in the Kremlin. In the end, the Soviets controlled only the ground underneath their tank treads. It was the last hurrah of an evil empire.

Americans need to face the reality that most of the world sees our nation as the new evil empire, and many people in the Gulf region are dedicated to making sure that the Iraq War is the last hurrah for American militarism. How tragic to admit that the analogy is not entirely implausible.

The Asia Times editorial goes farther, suggesting the problem is more than just our militarism, and criticizing the imposed economic policies that Lew Rockwell might approve of (privatization, etc):

Iraq is the new Afghanistan in more ways than breeding a new generation of jihadis. The US has alienated Sunni Arabs in Iraq, just as it has alienated the Pashtun in Afghanistan. Sunni Arabs control the heart of Iraq’s industrial economy, just as the Pashtun control the heart of Afghanistan’s rural economy – based on opium-trading. The Pashtun will fight to the death against the remake of Afghanistan as a docile pupil of International Monetary Fund/World Bank dictates, just as Sunni Arabs – and many Shi’ites as well – will fight to the death the remake of Iraq as a US-controlled neo-liberal paradise.

The old cold warriors are proud of Afghanistan:

January 18, 1998, Brzezinski was interviewed by the French newspaper, Nouvel Observateur on the topic of Afghanistan. He revealed that CIA support for the mujaheddin started before the Soviet invasion, and was indeed designed to prompt a Soviet invasion, leading them into a bloody conflict on par with America’s experience in Vietnam. This was referred to as the “Afghan Trap.” Brzezinski viewed the end of the Soviet empire as worth the cost of strengthening militant islamic groups.

“Iraq Trap” must have a mighty nice ring to Osama, kinda sounds like this:

Been away so long I hardly knew the place
Gee, it’s good to be back home
Leave it till tomorrow to unpack my case
Honey disconnect the phone
I’m back in the USSA

Now The Left is Hollering "White Man’s Burden"?

Reading some of the comments and diaries lately about Iraq has been very enlightening and very depressing.

“We broke it, now we own it”

Isn’t that like “White Man’s Burden”? To which the response was written in 1899:

Pile on the brown man’s burden;
And, if ye rouse his hate,
Meet his old-fashioned reasons
With Maxims up to date.
With shells and dumdum bullets
A hundred times made plain
The brown man’s loss must ever
Imply the white man’s gain.

Pile on the brown man’s burden,
compel him to be free;
Let all your manifestoes
Reek with philanthropy.
And if with heathen folly
He dares your will dispute,
Then, in the name of freedom,
Don’t hesitate to shoot.

(from The Brown Man’s Burden
by Henry Labouchère)

Then today responding to the sky-is-falling Juan Cole piece, we’ve got what amounts to a whole series of comments like:

Oh, pity us, if we don’t “fix” Iraq our whole petroleum-sucking lifestyle will go down the drain! Woe is me!

Three questions of a rhetorical nature, which I asked on dKos as well…

First verse:

What gives us the right, having violated international law and invaded another country without provocation, killing perhaps 100,000 people and destroying the place utterly, to decide anything at all about its future?

Second verse:

Why should I — an aspiring to be reality-based Tigger — assume that philanthropy is the true aim of any American administration in any foreign country, let alone a BushCo administration?

Third verse:

Why should I — an aspiring to be reality-based Tigger — assume that even if it had the best intentions (which we know it does not), a BushCo administration could succeed at such goals? This is because of their past performance at grand projects of nation building and philanthropy?

Supporting the continued occupation of Iraq by the USA (and the UK) assigns to us arrogant invaders rights we do not have. Furthermore it assigns to BushCo benevolent intentions that they do not have. Furthermore it assigns to BushCo a characteristic of competence that they do not possess.

The following, apparently, is a difficult sentence to parse?

Newsweek reports that “Every major poll shows an ever-larger majority of Iraqis want the Americans to leave.”

We are responsible for paying for the rebuilding of Iraq. Supplying machinery, spare parts, equipment, supplies for schools and hospitals, individual expertise if they request it from us. That is the only mission left. (In a dream world: an apology and a trial of the war criminals… but we must leave that battle for the distant future…)

Everything else about “the mission” sounds like so much Kipling.

“I think it would be a great idea.”
 — Mohandas Ghandi’s answer when asked what he thought of Western Civilization

WHY WE MUST END THE OCCUPATION: THEY WANT US TO LEAVE!

cross posted to dailyKos

Last night I attended a meeting with two Iraqi trade union leaders in Berkeley, CA. I tried to take notes, and listen to the questions and answers. Thanks to Juno for posting diaries on this @ dailyKos.

I encourage others out there to go meet with some Iraqis. You might learn something or have a few thoughts of your own… here’s the calendar:
http://uslaboragainstwar.org/calendar.php

For me, the lesson I took away from this is more confirmation that we must end the occupation now. We are NOT helping the Iraqi people. And I think the historical record and the record of the Bush administration is sufficient to prove that a BushCo run occupation will never help the Iraqi people.

Urge the AFL-CIO to take a position against the occupation:
http://uslaboragainstwar.org/petition.php?pid=10

Last night’s meeting in Berkeley had as headliners Hassan Jumaa Awad Al Asade, President of the Union (GUOW) which is an oil workers union based in Basra, and a union with a very long history dating back to the times of British occupation of Iraq. Hassan was accompanied by Faleh Abbood Umara, who is General Secretary of GUOW. I believe they said the union has 23,000 members.

Of the introductory material, I thought the most interesting talk was by Aimee Allison, a Gulf War I Conscientious Objector. She said she is hearing regularly from soldiers who object to this war.

The Berkeley City council passed a solidarity resolution declaring that the occupation should end and that ILO labor rights should be respected by the Iraqi government and all governments worldwide. (Nice bit of work!)

On to the main event, which included speeches by the union leaders (that were translated) that made a 2 key points:

Leave Our Country!

Privatization is a disease threatening Iraq

Other things I learned:

GUOW is a union with a long history, including strikes against the British occupiers of Iraq long ago. But in 1987 Saddam Hussein decided to pass a law that dissolved the unions representing public sector employees. Saddam set up his own unions in their place, which acted as (I’m shocked!) mouthpieces for Saddam.

Days after the invasion, the GUOW organized itself in secrecy, reformulating itself on April 20, 2003. The union wants to maintain the oil as a national resource, and they want to rebuild the infrastructure themselves. Immediately the Americans and British brought in large corporations like Halliburton (KBR) that brought with them thousands of foreign workers in spite of huge unemployment in Iraq. The occupation doesn’t permit Iraqis to decide. “We deserve the right to decide and we will not allow anyone to speak on our behalf.” The GUOW did manage to force KBR out of their area in Basra.

The union has had to face down British troops to get them to concede to a small permanent increase in wages (in a confrontation that involved British troops threatening to shoot and union workers threatening to blow up oil trucks). At times they had to confront military tanks when protesting. The GUOW is still not recognized by the government, and Saddam’s anti-union laws are still on the books. Furthermore, they clearly believe that the ultimate goal of the USA and the British is to steal the oil wealth and to support corporate interests — and who can blame them?

Saddam was once an employee of the White House… then they decided they had to remove him… After the invasion the basic infrastructure was destroyed.. schools, factories, workshops, universities, even hospitals… but the British and Americans first protected the oil.

They did ask for our support, just not our deciding things for them, which is what the occupation is all about:

You have been lied to by your media. You only see explosions, dead people, and destruction. You don’t see how we struggle to rebuild with no resources… education, health care, machinery, materials and spare parts. We need your support. We need your solidarity.

The Q&A time made me realize how the Iraqi labor movement would be a good choice for a partner, if one was truly interested in a democratic Iraq. We should be supporting them with money (instead of letting Halliburton loot it!) and expertise where requested. But we should be letting them decide, as they have asked us to do.

It was asked what should we say to people who claim: “Now that we are there, the US military is the best hope for maintaining stability, ending the violence, and preventing civil war.” The answer was: “Civil war is not going to happen!” In fact they expressed suspicions that a civil war would be welcomed by BushCo.

(I am forced to agree because I think, in their heart of hearts, Bush and Cheney would actually love to see a NEW SADDAM, only one who was happy to allow US interests to take primacy over the needs of the Iraqi people. That’s the only view one can have if you know anything at all about our ‘friend’ in Uzbekistan!)

The best part of the Q&A:

Q: What is the current role of women in the Iraqi union movement?

A: I hear this question a lot. (Laughter). We have women organizers. 35% of public workers in Iraq are women. The President of the Electrician’s Union is a woman in Basra, who is very courageous. We are proud of women’s contributions to the labor movement in Iraq.

What more could you wish for the leaders of a free and democratic Iraq? They are self-starters, self-organizing, and proud (“We want to rebuild our country! We will continue to serve our country even if it costs us our lives.”) They have democratic traditions and support women’s contributions. They are modern and internationalist in view (“Issues of working people are not issues of one country, but the concern of all people.”). They are multi-ethnic, making no distinction between Shiite or Sunni or Kurd or Turkman. And of course they opposed Saddam Hussein.

In short, the labor movement in Iraq is about the best hope for what the left would call a decent vision for Iraq. AND THEY WANT OUR TROOPS TO LEAVE. NOW. That’s good enough for me. THE OCCUPATION MUST END.

BREAKING: COUPNAMI WARNING ISSUED FOR KAHLIFOANIA!

Cross-posted to dailyKos

We interrupt our regular Booman programming; this is a California emergency. Important instructions will follow.

A major muscle-flexing, steroid-abusing, Kennedy-marrying earthquake struck the Kahlifoania government on Tuesday, June 14th, at 6:45PM PDT. Officials at USGS estimated the magnitude at 9.4 on the modified corrupt-Demagogue scale.

The USGS immediately issued a warning for a massive coupnami that could strike the entire state of Kahlifoania in November 2005, rendering its government non-representative and potentially destroying what is left of its status as a decent place to live.

Citizens are advised to get out and protest early and often.

The Gropenator will probably ignore letters sent here, unless you also send a briefcase full of cash:
http://www.govmail.ca.gov/

Schwarzenegger calls for special election

A second initiative would strip the Democratic-controlled Legislature of its power to redraw political districts, giving the task to a nonpartisan panel of retired judges.

All the retired judges will just happen to be Republican. Coincidence? Or evil Rovian plot to snag a few extra seats in Congress?

(an initiative) would empower the governor to cut midyear spending unilaterally when expenditures outpace revenues and would place a cap on state spending based on population and inflation.

Why bother having a legislature? Just declare the governator to be Emperor and get it over with.

One proposal would bar minors from getting abortions without parental consent…

It’s not worth having a special election without throwing a bone to the Fristian sect.

…another would restrict how public-employee labor unions spend membership dues.

And it wouldn’t be a Republican plan without giving a huge extended middle finger to labor unions.

The election is expected to cost taxpayers $80 million, though a majority of Californians favor putting the vote off, a Public Policy Institute of California poll found.

So we know the Gropenator is all about “democracy”, right?

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger raised nearly $3 million during fundraising events in the second half of May, according to campaign disclosure reports released Friday. The reports include a partial accounting of money the governor received during a weekend trip to Republican strongholds in Florida, Illinois and Texas… among the big contributions were $1 million from Stockton developer Alex Spanos, $111,000 from Texas high tech mogul Jeff Rich, and $50,000 from oilman T. Boone Pickens…Schwarzenegger’s three-state trip included stops in Florida headlined by Gov. Jeb Bush. The California governor also appeared at a lunch in Chicago hosted by billionaire developer Samuel Zell and then a dinner in Dallas hosted by oil tycoon Pickens, and Rich, chief executive of Affiliated Computer Services.

Because you can’t be a Republican governor without sucking up to fat cats and Texas Oilmen at $1000 per plate dinners. All those special interests from out of state have one thing in mind: LOOTING CALIFORNIA!

Arnold Schwarzenegger is truly evil. He is subverting our democracy using the power of celebrity and gigantic piles of loot that would have made Gray Davis green with envy.

We are about to face a months-long barrage of political propaganda, paid for by Wall Streeters and corrupt Texas oilmen, that will test whether or not half the people can be fooled all of the time. Judging by the results of November 2004, it’s not entirely clear that the forces of democracy are going to win this one. But win it we must! Every single Gropenator proposal must go down in a crushing defeat, or we will have encouraged this kind of abuse to be repeated elsewhere.

Where to go to start organizing:
http://www.californiafordemocracy.com/
http://www.standingupforcalifornia.com/
http://www.allianceforabetterca.org/
http://www.allianceforabetterca.org/repeal_of_electricity_deregulation.asp

—
UPDATE: MOST ORWELLIAN PART OF ARNOLD’S ATTACK ON WORKING PEOPLE

Public Workers Under Fire: Schwarzenegger Targets A Last Bastion of Security. America has a problem with its public employees. They are not downwardly mobile enough. Policemen, firefighters, teachers, hospital nurses — they still belong to the one part of the U.S. economy where the New Deal hasn’t been repealed. Though the attacks from the gazillionaire governor on the state’s public servants have only backfired, Arnold’s handlers do not sound daunted. On Sunday the Los Angeles Times, reporting on a series of bi-weekly phone calls that Schwarzenegger and his strategists hold with his leading business backers, quoted veteran Republican operative Don Sipple, in one recent call, telling the assembled Arnoldistas how they’d go after the public employees. “When you get to the point of . . . ‘These people are on your payroll, and they are out to roll you every day,’ that creates a kind of phenomenon of anger,” Sipple said. “But it takes a long time to get there.”

Teachers, firefighters, and police officers are “OUT TO ROLL YOU EVERY DAY!” Can you believe the gall of the GOP? Firefighters and police officers who have MODEST PAY and RISK THEIR LIVES EVERY SINGLE DAY are “OUT TO ROLL YOU”?

I’m angry. I’m angry at asshats like Don Sipple. I’m angry that the GOP is waging class war in a blue state, probably armed with the biggest pile of special interest loot ever assembled for a statewide election. California is becoming the front line in America’s class war.