Running on Empty: Bush's Media Echo

Where are all the resignations at local news organizations which ran Bush propaganda?

Dave Lindorff

Saturday, February 19, 2005

Okay, so we know now that the Bush administration has been using all kinds of devious means to push propaganda on the American public--fake news generated by the Pentagon for overseas, and ultimately, courtesy of blowback, U.S. consumption, fake news reports by fake reporters peddled to local TV stations, bought reporters and syndicated columnists paid to shill for the administration's policies, and even fake reporters salted into the White House press corps to ask puffball questions if the president or press secretary start getting too much heat.


But why is this all happening? Surely the Bush administration isn't the first to push its story out there. And sure, the administration should take some of the blame for this Soviet-style manipulation of public opinion.

But what about the media?

This column already made the point that if the White House press corps were doing its job and asking tough, probing questions, James Guckert, aka Jeff Gannon, would have stood out like a stallion with a hard-on--er, excuse me, a sore thumb.


But what about the "Karen and Mike Show," those fake "news reports" by fake reporters which were sent directly to local TV stations across the country by the DEA and the Department of Health and Human Services, where they were often aired without question as local reports on administration activities. Do local news shows have so little concern about the content and veracity of their programs that they would just run a report by a reporter they don’t even know without fact-checking it and checking on the credentials of the reporter? Of course not! They had to know that the reports they were broadcasting were from government agencies and were nothing but blatant propaganda. This is the video equivalent of publishing press releases verbatim.

And what self-respecting newspaper would do that?

Oops! Lots of newspapers do that--and not just government press releases. They publish corporate press releases verbatim, too. Just scan the business pages of the New York Times.


So where are the mass resignations of editors of the news outlets that ran the reports by "Karen Ryan" and "Mike Morris," or whoever they are, the journalistic poseurs from the Bush administration who fobbed off their television reports on the public? I haven't heard of a single firing or resignation.


Then, of course, there’s Fox TV, which hasn't met a government press or calculated leak that it didn't believe and rush onto the air, unworried about its veracity. Nobody's resigning in disgrace from Fox. Why bother--the whole operation is a running disgrace.


The real culprit in this massive propaganda scam, though, has to be the public, which seems to take little interest in actively evaluating the news it is being spoon-fed. Unlike the Soviet public, which had, and the Chinese public which has a completely cynical view of the media in those two nations, and which long ago learned how to weed out the occasional truth from between the lines of lies and misrepresentations, the American public is almost completely passive and gullible, accepting the garbage that passes for news each day as the gospel truth. At least the Soviet Union had its samizdat press, and China has its xiaodau xiaoxi (grapevine).

How do average, ordinary Americans get the truth?

Do we even want to hear it?

2:12 pm pst


Thursday, February 17, 2005

Nominating a Liar and Killer to Head America's new KGB
The nomination by President George Bush of John Negroponte for the new post of director of national intelligence, in charge of overseeing all the burgeoning intelligence operations of the United States, is both obscene and predictable.


Negroponte, currently the U.S. ambassador to Iraq and, unofficially, the head of the U.S. occupation of that country, is a career foreign service officer on paper, but in fact a veteran CIA operative responsible for some of the agency's blackest crimes of murder and torture in Central America during that region's dark days of civil war, revolution and counter-revolution in the later part of the 20th Century.


As U.S. ambassador to Honduras from 1981-85, Negroponte played a key role in organizing the military repression in that poorest of Latin American nations, and in creating and running the so-called Contras, the U.S-organized military operation to undermine and overthrow the elected Sandinista government in Nicaragua.


What makes Negroponte the perfect candidate to be America’s KGB chief is his refined cover. He has the Republicans on the Republican-dominated Intelligence Committee in his pocket anyhow, and as a career diplomat, urbane and fluent in five languages, he also appeals to the mushy national security state Democrats like John Rockefeller (D-W. VA), Evan Bayh (D-Indiana), Diane Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Ron Wyden (D-Oregon), who will be asked to join in rubber-stamping his nomination. If his appearance before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, during hearings on his nomination for the post of ambassador to Iraq is any indication, he will breeze through this next "test.' Democratic Senators Chris Dodd (D-Connecticut) and Joseph Biden (D-Del.) gushed over him at those earlier hearings, and didn't ask anything about his role in promoting death squad activities or in covering up human rights abuses in Central America, which included the murders of several dozen priests and nuns.


Americans concerned about our vanishing civil liberties, and about the expanded use of official state terrorism against American citizens and resident aliens since 9/11 should be concerned about this appointment, however. The new intelligence chief will be responsible for overseeing the nation’s vast $100-billion spying operation and its ballooning, largely secret budget.


This man's record is worse than not encouraging--it's downright terrifying.


Negroponte deliberately falsified State Department human rights reports every year of his ambassadorship in Honduras. According to the Maryknoll Order, many U.S. missionaries and other religious activists were murdered in that country in the 1970s and especially the early 1980s by CIA-trained Honduran soldiers of the so-called Battalion 3-16, whose operations they claim Negroponte oversaw, or "at best overlooked."


Even The New York Times, which has rarely met a covert operation it didn't support, credits Negroponte with "carrying out the covert strategy of the Reagan administration to crush the Sandinista government in Nicaragua"--an effort which the paper fails to note was illegal, and which ultimately included the trading of guns for drugs on CIA-financed aircraft. Negroponte helped with this massively corrupt and illegal war effort of the Reagan administration even after it had been expressly banned by the U.S. Congress.


One would think that kind of insult to the Congress would elicit at least some opposition to Negroponte’s appointment, but not a word about it came up during his ambassadorship hearings (Sen. Dodd actually said, "I happen to feel he's a very fine Foreign Service officer and has done a tremendous job in many places."), and it seems unlikely he’ll be asked about it this time around.


Come to think of it, that's probably about the way members of the Communist Party Central Committee probably responded to each new appointment to head the U.S.S.R.'s intelligence apparatus...


10:28 am pst

Some News is Good News

The Good News Roundup

Mon, 7 Feb 2005 00:00:00 -0600 Congo


Basin forest protected

By Savanna Reid


Election reform, debt relief, forest protection, a pastoralists' summit...




I rarely have the pleasure of amassing this much good news for one week’s roundup. From Washington to Tashkent, dozens of small but significant advances for the environment, human rights and democracy made headlines – here are the top twelve. Highlights include a proposal in the U.S. Senate to abolish the electoral college, 100% debt relief for more than thirty countries, a first-of-its-kind global pastoralists’ summit, and the discovery that viagra can save your life (or mine, anyways).

For the first time since 1979, the U.S. Congress will reconsider abolishing the Electoral College – Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) is now gathering co-sponsors for her proposed bill to replace the antidemocratic process with a direct vote for the presidency. Now would be the time to contact your own Senators about it.

The G7 finance ministers officially adopted plans to write off up to 100% of the multilateral debts of the poorest countries in the world. Gordon Brown of the UK spearheaded this initiative with unilateral British debt relief for some countries, but this plan will be much broader in scope – releasing as many as 37 countries from the punishing debt treadmill – despite the non-participation of the U.S.

“Spanish sheep herders, Mongolian camel owners and pastoralist leaders from countries such as Kazakhstan, Argentina and Israel” met in Ethiopia (a country estimated to have 8 million nomads) to discuss “how pastoralist wisdom can be more widely understood, how governments and powerful institutions can recognize their needs and interests and how they can influence change.” The representatives also shared ideas on the World Initiative for Sustainable Pastoralism and fighting political marginalization in modernizing countries.

A treaty signed in Brazzaville commits seven African nations to protecting “one of the world’s two lungs,” the central African forests spanning 200 million hectares in the Congo basin. Wangari Maathai will serve as a goodwill ambassador for these forests, and a system of lumber origins tracking – similar to the Kimberly process used to distinguish legal diamonds from conflict diamonds – will be developed to enforce the protections. In other forest news, the Attorney General of California is suing the U.S. Forest Service to protect eleven million acres of woodland in the Sierra Nevadas from a management plan that favors logging interests.

A group of 143 prominent investors have re-launched the Carbon Disclosure Project, demanding greenhouse gas emissions data from 500 of the world’s largest corporations, to help them make sound investment decisions. Their findings from the last two years can be downloaded from CDProject.net where this year’s results will be posted in September.

Gitmo enthusiasts faced several major setbacks this week – Rumsfeld’s belated show of chagrin, a federal court ruling against the CIA’s efforts to withhold photographs of torture at Guantánamo Bay, and a ruling against military tribunals which upholds both Constitutional and Geneva convention rights for the detainees.

In Tashkent, Uzbekistan a group of 50 displaced people from a border region hit the streets demanding compensation for their homes, which were bulldozed when the no-man’s-land on the Uzbek-Kazak border was expanded last year. This week they were finally promised compensation from the government, which has become more responsive to opposition movement-sponsored street protests over the past year.

The Spitzer Effect is making waves in the insurance industry, extracting an apology and $850 million from the biggest insurance broker in the U.S., Marsh & McLennan. “Chicago-based Aon Corp., the nation’s second-largest insurance broker, after Marsh, is in talks with Spitzer but has not been charged with wrongdoing,” the Chicago Tribune reports.

A new, more effective treatment for Type I diabetes has been successfully tested: live donor transplant of insulin-producing pancreatic cells. In other health news, a vaccine for bone cancers – which are extremely difficult to treat – is being developed to make bone marrow transplants more effective in fighting myeloma.

Last but not least, it turns out that viagra can reverse hypertrophy, returning overgrown hearts to normal size before they fail. As someone with a common heart condition that sometimes leads to hypertrophy, I’m very happy to hear it!


Posted by gavin_rose
Savanna Rose Reid is a student researcher completing her environmental thesis on contaminant migration from underground nuclear test cavities on the Nevada Test Site.

George and the Volcano

IRAQI INSURGENCY NOW A SIGNIFICANT TERRORIST THREAT TO THE WORLD- THANKS, GEORGE!

Eric Blumrich
F18, '05

I could rant, and rant, and rant about the above- but all's I can say, again is:

WE TOLD YOU SO, MORONS!


VOTE IN THE GOLDEN DOT AWARDS!

The institute for politics, democracy, and the Internet at George Washington University is currently taking nominations for the "Golden Dot Awards". The GDA recognizes outstanding achievement in the use of the Internet as a political tool, and they've opened up public nomination for the award.

If you wish to nominate your favorite site for this award, fill out this form. However, be quick- voting ends on the 18th!

Gotta get back to work- the new animation is 50% complete, and I wanna get it to 75%, tomorrow.


IRAQI ELECTIONS- HAHAHAHAAAA!






Now, I've refrained from pointing out the irrelevancy of the elections, as far as the situation on the ground goes, in recent days- but anyone who follows the news knows the facts. The "elections" in iraq haven't done squat to deter insurgent activity- with daily suicide bombings claiming more and more lives, and US troops still coming home in flag-draped coffins, the elections haven't changed SQUAT, when it comes to the realities of this occupation.

But let's look at the results- as expected, the Shiites have claimed a majority of the vote, bringing into power a coalition led by a curious guy by the name and title of "Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani"- so, who is this guy?

Sistani is a hard-line Muslim fundamentalist who, like the still-extant Taliban, considers the game of Chess to be blasphemous. In his grand plan for the future of Iraq, music and dancing will be banned, women will revert to second-class citizens, and Sharia will become the law of the land.

So, first off, let's congratulate Bush for his glorious triumph in these elections- the elevation of a hard-line religious party to the forefront of Iraqi politics (as in America, so in Iraq.) But heck- we know that these elections were a sham, and whomever came out, on top, matters little.

These elections were only for a national assembly, after all- a puppet congress that will eventually nominate a high council, of sorts, that will, in turn, elect a president (which will be Iyad Allawi, the present US-appointed puppet), and a prime minister- which will undoubtedly turn out to be Ahmed Chalabi- the man who had the ears of the neocons that pushed us into this war, in the first place.

But, here's the major factor, to keep in mind, when it comes to this election:

The majority of those who voted in this past election, believed- truly believed- that no matter who they voted for, they were voting for an end to the occupation. Above all else- the people of Iraq want the United States military to get the hell out of their country, and not let the doorknob hit them where the good lord split them.

But we all know that ain't gonna happen- the neoconservative manifesto demands a permanent and dominating U.S. presence in the area, for generations to come- and the powers behind the Bush throne- Cheney, Wolfowitz, Perle, and others, well- they don't give a tinker's damn about the will of the Iraqi people.

We already know the Sunnis are pissed off- but ya know- as pissed off as they are- the volume of urine that they have in reserve doesn't hold a candle to that which the Shiites have in store, should the U.S. occupation continue.

Iraq, in the coming months and years, will turn into another Afghanistan- Balkanized among ethnic groups, and regions. It will be a crippled pseudo-state, much as Afghanistan was, under Russian occupation, and will continue to be a fully-funded liability to the U.S. taxpayer.

And ya know- that's just fine and dandy, to the Neocon crowd. Their dreams of empire drive our republic, today, and will continue, as long as we, here, allow them to- and they're only getting started.

The Umma better prepare itself- liberation and democracy is on the way- and if you don't want it, we're going to shove it down your throats. When you can't stomach it, and puke it back up into our faces, we're just gonna knuckle down on you harder.

We're going to give you our version of freedom and democracy, even if it kills us- and we sure as HELL don't care if it kills YOU.

God Bless Bush's america, and the holy christian empire He will build in our name.

I'm going to go throw up, now.

Optimism and Bulldozers

Optimism vs. Reality
Struggling for Justice in Palestine
By KATHLEEN CHRISTISON
CounterPunch.org Weekend Edition
February 19 / 20, 2005

Editors' note: The following talk was given in Santa Fe, NM, on February 12. Kathleen was one of three speakers, and her husband Bill was another. Bill's talk appeared on CounterPunch on February 16. The event, organized by the Santa Fe chapter of Veterans for Peace, was an evening of talks and discussion along with videos, pictures, and graphics displays on "Palestine/Israel: Human Rights and Policy Perspectives."

We've been sated with optimistic talk about Palestine in the last few months: we have a cease-fire now; Ariel Sharon is disengaging from Gaza and may also pull Israeli troops out of some West Bank cities; George Bush and Condoleezza Rice talk all the time about two states living side by side in peace.

But I think we need to be very clear about what is really going on in Palestine. When you know what's actually happening on the ground -- which we all hope to describe to you tonight -- you'll see, I think, that there is no reason at all for optimism. Despite all the nice talk, there will be no real Palestinian state, and there will be no peace, anytime in the foreseeable future, and the responsibility for this will lie with Israel and the United States. The reason there will be no Palestinian independence, and therefore no peace and no justice, anytime soon is purely and simply because the Israeli government does not want it, and the United States does not want what Israel doesn't want.

Israeli journalist Amira Hass recently put it pointedly: "There's nothing wrong with wanting to be optimistic," she said. "The problem arises when optimism acts as an anesthetic, and when the optimists make do with talk and take no interest in bulldozers." She's talking about the bulldozers that are still building the separation wall through Palestinian territories, that are still demolishing the homes of innocent Palestinians, that are still clearing Palestinian land in order to build more Israeli settlements and more roads that only Israelis may drive on.

Any map of the West Bank showing the route of the separation wall demonstrates very dramatically how this wall is squeezing the Palestinians into smaller and smaller territories. Keep in mind that the entire West Bank is only 22% of the original land of Palestine in the first place, so already the Palestinians have agreed to have their state in less than one-quarter of their original homeland. Now, however, when the wall is completed, they'll be left with only about half of that 22%. And even that small portion won't be contiguous. The area inside the wall is broken up into two very distinct sections. Jerusalem is in the middle, outside the wall; the Palestinians don't get any portion of Jerusalem. And there are so many indentations and incursions into the territory -- sections that jut into Palestinian territory and are meant to accommodate Israeli settlements and keep them on the Israeli side of the wall -- that what's left to the Palestinians cannot be considered to have any territorial integrity, and it certainly is not defensible.

What Amira Hass was saying is that, while American politicians and American commentators talk optimism but do nothing, what is actually happening in Palestine is that Israel is continuing with this wall construction and with other measures to take over Palestine. Let me just list some of the measures Israel is still pursuing in the West Bank and Gaza while Bush and Rice and Sharon and the media engage in empty talk about their optimism:

It is continuing, right now, to expand settlements and is building literally thousands of new housing units in areas confiscated from Palestinian ownership, both in the Jerusalem area and elsewhere along the wall. Hundreds of acres of Palestinian farmland that ended up on the Israeli side of the wall are being cleared by bulldozers to make room for new Israeli settlements. And Israel's defenders try to claim the wall is not a land grab!

It's estimated that approximately 90% of the Palestinians' fresh water wells will end up on Israel's side of the wall when it's all completed. And they say this is not a land grab.

Israel has instituted a system of permits for Palestinians to get into the areas that are on the Israeli side of the wall. Palestinians must have a permit to get in to these areas to farm the land, even though this is their own land. But according to the new system, any Israeli and any Jew anywhere in the world is explicitly allowed to enter without a permit. Permits are issued to Palestinians only for six months at a time; they are often denied for no particular reason, and they are often not renewed, also for no particular reason. And they try to say this is not a land grab.

Israel continues to demolish homes: 12,000 since the occupation began, several thousand just in the last year alone. Very few, only about 5%, of all demolitions have had anything to do with terrorism. Most are done to clear land because Israel wants it for some purpose; several hundred have occurred in and around Jerusalem, where Israel simply does not want new Palestinian building, or any Palestinian population growth.

Israel continues to kill Palestinians, despite the optimism and the recent period of so-called "quiet." 139 Palestinians, about half of them children, have been killed by Israelis in the three months since Yasir Arafat died, while 16 Israelis have been killed in the same period. This is a kill ratio of 8 to 1. And yet we barely hear about this lopsided death toll in the media, amidst all the optimism.

I'd like to take two small Palestinian villages and give you a description of the conditions there to give you a couple of examples of what life is like under Israeli domination.

The first is the village of Jayyous, about which there has been some press coverage. Jayyous is a village of 3,200 people in the northwestern West Bank. The separation wall was built there in the summer of 2003. This used to be a prosperous farming village, living on 3,000 acres of olive groves, citrus trees, guava, and smaller crops. Many of us in the U.S. think of Palestine as a dry, desolate land, but this is not true. Jayyous is located in a rich agricultural area.

Fully 72% -- almost three-quarters -- of this village's land ended up on the Israeli side of the wall. All six of the village's fresh water wells ended up on the Israeli side of the wall.

Farmers must now obtain permits to farm their land. Those who get permits must pass through the one gate in the wall, which is manned only for about an hour two or three times a day -- and then only when the Israelis feel like it. For instance, it's not manned at all during the approximately ten-day period of the Jewish high holy days.

Last year, 15,000 orange trees died and an entire guava harvest was lost because farmers could not get to the land to irrigate it.

Much of the town's land that's now on the Israeli side began to be bulldozed in December, and is still being bulldozed, to build 2,000 new housing units for a nearby Israeli settlement. And Israel's defenders try to say this wall is not a land grab.

The other village I'd like to describe is Anata, just outside East Jerusalem. Bill and I have spent a couple of weeks in each of the last two summers in Anata, helping rebuild homes demolished by the Israeli authorities.

Anata is a town of about 9,000 people. It's in an area designated during the Oslo peace process to remain under full Israeli control. The Palestinian Authority has never had any authority in Anata, so the town's very dismal circumstances are entirely Israel's responsibility.

Anata used to subsist on a quarry industry and on some agriculture, but Israel has confiscated most of the quarries and cut off or confiscated the agricultural land. Four Israeli settlements and two Israeli military bases, all built on land confiscated from Anata, surround the town.

Many houses in Anata have been demolished, not because the owners are suspected of terrorism, but because Israel simply doesn't want them there: it won't issue building permits, and when people build anyway, the homes are bulldozed.

There are almost no public services in Anata. There's no hospital, only a clinic with a nurse and a doctor who comes once a week. The nearest hospital is only about a mile away inside Jerusalem, but as West Bank residents, people from Anata are forbidden to enter Jerusalem. There are public and private schools, but half the teachers live outside Anata and are having increasing difficulty getting to work every day.

Anata had a bus company but it closed down when Israeli checkpoints made travel almost impossible. The town bought one garbage truck a couple of years ago with donations from the EU, but the only dump is in a neighboring town that is now several checkpoints and two segments of the wall away. As a result, there are trash heaps around every corner in Anata.

As a result of all this misery and deprivation, unemployment, crime, and drug use are growing, the town is lifeless and without purpose. The residents can't work, can't get medical help, can't build, can't worship as they used to in Jerusalem, don't have decent education, and can't escape. Construction on the wall began last summer, and this will make every aspect of life in Anata far worse. And they wonder why the Palestinians are fighting against this Israeli occupation!

These are not just isolated examples. This is what the occupation is like everywhere. We must never lose sight of the fact that the source of the problem, the source of the conflict, is not terrorism, it is not the Palestinians. It's the occupation: Israel's continued domination over the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem with their 3.5 million Palestinians. The bottom line is that Israel's occupation continues and is intensifying, despite all the optimistic talk -- and no one is doing anything to stop it. Israel is committing ethnocide against the Palestinians. It is trying to ethnically cleanse Palestine, get rid of the Palestinians, squeeze them into smaller and smaller areas, make life so miserable for them that they will simply give up and leave. Simply put, Israel wants all of Palestine, and no one is trying to stop this process.

Defenders of Israel will say that the wall and the checkpoints are there to protect Israelis from Palestinian terrorism, but what they don't say is that most of these restrictive measures were in place before the peace process broke down and suicide bombings began. The number of Israeli settlers in Palestinian territory doubled during the years of the so-called peace process, the hundreds of miles of roads built for Israelis only on confiscated Palestinian land were there before the Palestinian intifada began, the checkpoints that impede Palestinian movement throughout the West Bank were there before the peace process collapsed, the electrified fence around Gaza that prevents Gazans from moving freely was there throughout the years of the peace process.

No one -- none of the optimists -- is discussing ending any of these oppressive measures now that we have a so-called cease-fire. In fact, the cease-fire is entirely lopsided: the Palestinians have pledged to give up all violence -- promised to end all opposition to the occupation -- but Israel is not committed to do anything that will end the occupation.

Israel's actions and policies in the occupied territories have always been governed not by the issue of when and how to give the Palestinians true independence in a small state in the West Bank and Gaza, but rather by how harshly any given Israeli government needs to act to keep the Palestinians under control and without true independence.

Israel's oppressive measures have gone so far that the notion of a two-state solution is now virtually meaningless. So much Palestinian land has been taken -- confiscated and bulldozed and asphalted over -- that there is simply no physical place to put a real state anymore. Advocacy of two states at this point is just an empty slogan; it is merely a way for George Bush to make nice sounds and for some peace activists to salve their consciences without having to think or do anything. As Amira Hass said, optimism is a problem when it simply serves as an anesthetic.

There is a terrible human rights disaster occurring in Palestine, and we Americans are paying for it and supporting it. So many people, out of a false sense of solidarity and sympathy with Israel, have erected a wall around themselves that keeps them from knowing what's happening in Palestine and that blinds them to the human rights and justice issues there. This issue is not a Jewish issue. It's a universal issue; it's a political issue of a state's behavior toward another people. It's an issue, most of all, of justice. And justice, we all know, is blind to color and to religion and to ethnicity. Justice shuns the tendency to view this conflict or any other from only one perspective.

And so the question I believe we should all think about, as Americans who pay for all this, is how can any of us, no matter what our religion or our ethnicity or our political inclinations, consider it just for Israel to keep the occupied territories, or any portion of them, when this is all that remains of the Palestinians' original homeland? How can we consider it just for Israel to confiscate Palestinian land in order to build ethnically exclusive settlements and build a network of ethnically exclusive roads? How can we consider it just if Israel cuts off hundreds of thousands of people from their jobs and their schools and their livelihoods by constructing a cage for them? How can we consider it just for Israelis to bulldoze hundreds of homes -- great swaths of people's homes -- for no other reason than that they happen to stand in the way of Israel's plans?

How can we consider it just to deny Palestinians the right to struggle against this foreign domination? Palestinian terrorism is reprehensible, but I think we need to be aware that Israel's occupation, which is just as reprehensible, came before Palestinian terrorism. We can condemn the tactics, but justice demands that we not refuse Palestinians the right to struggle for freedom. And in the end, justice demands that we force Israel to stop oppressing another people.

Kathleen Christison is a former CIA political analyst and has worked on Middle East issues for 30 years. She is the author of Perceptions of Palestine and The Wound of Dispossession. She can be reached at: christison@counterpunch.org

No Little Eichmann's

Lessons learned from those 102 minutes...
Mickey Z.
Thursday, February 17, 2005

I just finished reading a book called “102 Minutes,” a detailed report of the events inside the World Trade Center on the morning of 9/11. The title refers to the time that elapsed between the first plane hitting the north tower and the time both towers had collapsed.

A Little Eichmann?

Riveting reading...as you might imagine. The stories are edge-of-your-seat stuff and had me wishing that we had similar books about attacks in other countries. I think it would be quite a bridge for American readers to have such a graphic re-telling of, say, the U.S. assault on Falluja or Israeli attack on Jenin. If we could get to know, so to speak, those victims and learn of their often heroic behavior under fire, how could it not at least humanize these issues a bit? Put a face on those under the bombs America drops. Maybe such books exist. If so, I wonder if anything can be found in English. Does anyone know?

Another powerful feeling I had throughout “102 Minutes” was how it worked as a counterbalance to Ward Churchill’s now infamous “little Eichmann” comment. Read the book and you’ll have a better grip on who most of the victims were. Eichmann woke up every day dreaming of better ways to commit genocide. It should be obvious to all that the workers in the WTC did not. Of course, the direct and indirect fallout from their work can and does result in misery and sometimes death across the globe. But the vast majority of these people were, at most, guilty of being in denial...being pathetically and dangerously ignorant. Eichmanns they were not.

My question: Am I a little Eichmann, too? I know some who would say yes. Since I’ve never earned enough money as a writer to avoid “real” work, I’m a personal trainer and kickboxing instructor. My clients, unavoidably, are wealthy...sometimes immensely wealthy. Thus, on Churchill’s Eichmann Scale, I am keeping these captains of industry healthy and fit enough to commit, or at least contribute to genocide.

My answer: I’m not a little Eichmann and neither were the people in the WTC. I felt that way--and stated it--when I first read the characterization some three-plus years ago. My opinion has not changed just because Churchill is the target of a witch hunt.

Buried under that reality is the fact that Churchill has done some important work on U.S. foreign and domestic policy and has a message about global justice that should be heard. Thanks to his admitted desire to “go for the gut,” that message is currently blurred. As stated in the many articles I’ve written on him, I fully support his right to say what he said but, unlike others, I just don’t see how this affair or his choice of language are helping to get his opinions and ideas taken seriously. I hope I’m wrong because, after all, the man is talking about genocide and the U.S. honoring its own laws. I suggest everyone read more of his work and not judge him--good or bad--by the current controversy.

Also buried is this: No matter what side you come down on...no one deserves to die. Not even Eichmann.


Posted by Mickey Z on 02/17 at 05:39 AM

Calls Grow Louder for U.S. Army Accountability over "Targeted" Killing of Journalists

Journalist group calls US to account over Iraq

Dominic Timms
Friday February 18, 2005

The US government was today accused of hiding behind a "culture of denial" over the deaths of at least 12 journalists who are alleged to have perished at the hands of the US military in Iraq.

Re-igniting the debate that US soldiers deliberately "targeted" journalists during the Iraqi occupation, a press freedom body called on the US to take "responsibility" for its actions in the country.

Responding to what it said was the "hounding out" of the CNN news chief, Eason Jordan, the International Federation of Journalists called on the US administration to come clean over its "mistakes" in the region.

Since US, British and other soldiers first began Operation Iraqi Freedom in March 2003, more than 70 journalists have been killed in the country.

The IFJ said that at least 12 journalists had met their deaths at the "hands of US soldiers", including the killings of Taras Protsyuk of Reuters and Jose Couso of Spain's Telecinco after US tanks opened fire on the Palestine Hotel in Baghdad.

The US military claimed the tanks had been responding to small arms fire coming from the hotel, which housed journalists who were non-embedded with military forces, but later withdrew the claim saying: soldiers fired at "what was believed to be an enemy firing platform and observation point".

Almost a year after journalists' groups first demanded it, a US military investigation into the attack found that "no fault or negligence" could be attributed to US soldiers.

As part of a move to establish a new journalist body in Iraq, to be known as the Iraqi National Journalists Council, the IFJ said it would hold demonstrations across the country on the anniversary of the Palestine Hotel attack.

Advertiser links
Up to 70% off All Skiing Equipment
Backcountry.com has the skis, boots and clothing from great...

backcountry.com

Gliding Snowshoes
Yupi Skishoes. The mountain bike of crosscountry skiing.

yupiskishoes.com

Powder Skiing in the BC Rockies
BC Northern Rockies is just now being discovered by skiers...

peacereachheliski.com
"On that day journalists around the world will once again protest over impunity [and] secrecy over media deaths and, in particular, at the failure of the United States to take responsibility for its actions in Iraq which have led to the killing of journalists," said the IFJ general secretary, Aidan White.

He said that the resignation of CNN's Eason Jordan had been orchestrated by a vitriolic campaign by the US right wing.

Mr Eason was forced to quit after suggesting that that US forces had deliberately targeted journalists in Iraq, though he later clarified his comments, saying that he never meant to imply that "US forces acted with ill intent when US forces accidentally killed journalists."

Mr White said the CNN news executive had been "hounded out by a toxic mix of hysteria, intolerance and ignorance" and said the IFJ would continue its campaign "until Washington is ready to admit its mistakes".

Canadian Snakes: Operation Sidewinder

This is a saga that begins and ends with the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), which provides more development assistance to China than to any other country in the world.



Both Chretien and Martin are under the personal influence of Kofi Annan pointman Maurice Strong, who founded CIDA, which launched him as an international powerhouse in 1967.

At the same time 3,500 Chinese spy companies have been identified conducting intelligence operations in Canada and the U.S., the Canadian Liberal Government is selling off its nation’s natural resources—with taxpayers’ money. - gaanjah_mama

In Canada spies are us
By Judi McLeod
Thu, 17 Feb 2005
Canadafreepress.com

Operation Sidewinder. It sounds like a Hollywood spy movie starring Harrison Ford. For a long time, Sidewinder moldered on the shelf as just another conspiracy theory.

In reality, Sidewinder was a controversial report put together by a small but hard-working team of RCMP and CSIS (Canadian Security & Intelligence Service) officials.

It was Sidewinder that sounded the first alarm bells that China is one of the greatest ongoing threats to Canada’s national security and Canadian industry.

But even after Sidewinder was side swiped by former Prime Minister Jean Chretien, intelligence proves that there is no doubt that an active Chinese Intelligence Service has been able to gain influence on vital sectors of the Canadian economy, including real estate, high technology and security. The bottom line is that this unprecedented influence gave China ongoing access to economic, political and some military intelligence in Canada.

Operation Sidewinder met with a fate that silenced ringing alarm bells. Officially entitled Chinese Intelligence Services and Triads Financial Links in Canada, it was buried. Following orders from persons unknown, CSIS watered down Sidewinder’s worrisome conclusions and replaced it with a revised document called, Echo.

CSIS officials maintain that they buried Sidewinder because it relied on nothing more than conspiracy theories—even though http://www.asianpacificpost.com heralded the news in August 2003 that some 3,500 Chinese spy companies had been identified operating in Canada and the United States.

While CSIS claimed that conspiracy caused them to go mum, other intelligence sources are saying that political pressure forced CSIS to abandon the Sidewinder report.

Prominent among Sidewinder’s case studies was The Chinese, state-owned China International Trust Investment Company (CITIC), which already has a subsidiary up and running in Canada. CITIC has spent about $500 million to buy a Canadian pulp mill, a petrochemical company, vast real estate and hotels. At the time of the Sidewinder report. CITIC already had connections with one large Canadian corporation.

Add to that portfolio, the Alberta oil sands, ownership of which is currently being contemplated by a state-owned Chinese company and a Toronto-based mine company, Noranda Mines–a deal worth more than $7 billion.

Sidewinder found that significant amounts of arms, manufactured by a CITIC-controlled company, have been confiscated on Mohawk reserves.

Chinese tycoons have gained solid influence in municipal politics and development through their ownership of large chunks of real estate and hotel chains in key urban centres like Toronto.

Vancouver is now considered the North American gateway for China’s state-owned COSCO shipping company.

Both U.S. Senate and Canadian intelligence sources have described COSCO as “the merchant marine for China’s military”.

According to U.S. Intelligence reports, COSCO vessels do not just transport Oriental bric-a-brac. COSCO vessels have been caught carrying assault rifles into California and biological-chemical weapons components into North Korea, Pakistan, Iraq and Iran. Add to these disturbing events that Canadian law enforcement agencies have kicked in with hard-line information that Chinese Triad criminal elements are active in and around Canada’s ports.

Sidewinder star Li Ka-Shing is also Asia’s most powerful man. He owns large tracts of prime real estate in Canada and octopus-like interests in the nation’s telecommunications, petroleum and banking sectors. Even as he was acquiring Vancouver’s Expo 86 lands, Hong Kong Police were asking CSIS to investigate Li Ka-Shing in Canada, back in 1988. Anne Marie Doyle, then Canadian High Commissioner officially denied that request to Hong Kong.

Conspiracy theories were tossed out the window when U.S. Congressman Dana Rohrabacher revealed that the U.S. Bureau of Export Affairs, the U.S. Embassy in Beijing and the Rand Corporation had identified Li Ka-Shing and Hutchison Whampoa (Li’s primary business) as financing or serving as a conduit for Communist China’s military in order for them to acquire sensitive technologies and other equipment.

Former Prime Minister Jean Chretien’s connections to the burgeoning CTIC conglomerate served as his entrée into the private sector. While John Turner was leader of the federal Liberals, Chretien was working for Gordon Securities, one of the many Li-controlled companies on Canadian soil.

Chretien also served as an international-relations adviser to PetroKazakhstan, a Calgary-based oil company trying to expand its oil exports to China.

But anyone trying to join the dots on Chinese influence in Canada shouldn’t stop with Chretien.

Prime Minister Paul Martin, portrayed by the Canadian media as a sworn Chretien enemy during the Liberal leadership race, carries on the Chinese dynasty.

This is a saga that begins and ends with the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), which provides more development assistance to China than to any other country in the world.

Both Chretien and Martin are under the personal influence of Kofi Annan pointman Maurice Strong, who founded CIDA, which launched him as an international powerhouse in 1967.

At the same time 3,500 Chinese spy companies have been identified conducting intelligence operations in Canada and the U.S., the Canadian Liberal Government is selling off its nation’s natural resources—with taxpayers’ money.

See also: Welcome to the Peoples’ Republic of China on Canadian soil

Canada Free Press founding editor Judi McLeod is an award-winning journalist with 30 years experience in the media. A former Toronto Sun and Kingston Whig Standard columnist, she has also appeared on Newsmax.com, the Drudge Report, Foxnews.com, and World Net Daily. Judi can be reached at: letters@canadafreepress.com.

Meeting Mister Negroponte

Nominating a Liar and Killer to Head America's new KGB
Dave Lindorff
February 17, 2005

The nomination by President George Bush of John Negroponte for the new post of director of national intelligence, in charge of overseeing all the burgeoning intelligence operations of the United States, is both obscene and predictable.


Negroponte, currently the U.S. ambassador to Iraq and, unofficially, the head of the U.S. occupation of that country, is a career foreign service officer on paper, but in fact a veteran CIA operative responsible for some of the agency's blackest crimes of murder and torture in Central America during that region's dark days of civil war, revolution and counter-revolution in the later part of the 20th Century.


As U.S. ambassador to Honduras from 1981-85, Negroponte played a key role in organizing the military repression in that poorest of Latin American nations, and in creating and running the so-called Contras, the U.S-organized military operation to undermine and overthrow the elected Sandinista government in Nicaragua.


What makes Negroponte the perfect candidate to be America’s KGB chief is his refined cover. He has the Republicans on the Republican-dominated Intelligence Committee in his pocket anyhow, and as a career diplomat, urbane and fluent in five languages, he also appeals to the mushy national security state Democrats like John Rockefeller (D-W. VA), Evan Bayh (D-Indiana), Diane Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Ron Wyden (D-Oregon), who will be asked to join in rubber-stamping his nomination. If his appearance before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, during hearings on his nomination for the post of ambassador to Iraq is any indication, he will breeze through this next "test.' Democratic Senators Chris Dodd (D-Connecticut) and Joseph Biden (D-Del.) gushed over him at those earlier hearings, and didn't ask anything about his role in promoting death squad activities or in covering up human rights abuses in Central America, which included the murders of several dozen priests and nuns.


Americans concerned about our vanishing civil liberties, and about the expanded use of official state terrorism against American citizens and resident aliens since 9/11 should be concerned about this appointment, however. The new intelligence chief will be responsible for overseeing the nation’s vast $100-billion spying operation and its ballooning, largely secret budget.


This man's record is worse than not encouraging--it's downright terrifying.


Negroponte deliberately falsified State Department human rights reports every year of his ambassadorship in Honduras. According to the Maryknoll Order, many U.S. missionaries and other religious activists were murdered in that country in the 1970s and especially the early 1980s by CIA-trained Honduran soldiers of the so-called Battalion 3-16, whose operations they claim Negroponte oversaw, or "at best overlooked."


Even The New York Times, which has rarely met a covert operation it didn't support, credits Negroponte with "carrying out the covert strategy of the Reagan administration to crush the Sandinista government in Nicaragua"--an effort which the paper fails to note was illegal, and which ultimately included the trading of guns for drugs on CIA-financed aircraft. Negroponte helped with this massively corrupt and illegal war effort of the Reagan administration even after it had been expressly banned by the U.S. Congress.


One would think that kind of insult to the Congress would elicit at least some opposition to Negroponte’s appointment, but not a word about it came up during his ambassadorship hearings (Sen. Dodd actually said, "I happen to feel he's a very fine Foreign Service officer and has done a tremendous job in many places."), and it seems unlikely he’ll be asked about it this time around.


Come to think of it, that's probably about the way members of the Communist Party Central Committee probably responded to each new appointment to head the U.S.S.R.'s intelligence apparatus...


10:28 am pst

Loosing NATO's Dogs: United State Sponsored Terror

Global Eye
Sword Play
Chris Floyd
February 18, 2005



'You had to attack civilians, the people, women, children, innocent people, unknown people far removed from any political game. The reason was quite simple: to force ... the public to turn to the state to ask for greater security."


This was the essence of Operation Gladio, a decades-long covert campaign of terrorism and deceit directed by the intelligence services of the West -- against their own populations. Hundreds of innocent people were killed or maimed in terrorist attacks -- on train stations, supermarkets, cafes and offices -- which were then blamed on "leftist subversives" or other political opponents. The purpose, as stated above in sworn testimony by Gladio agent Vincenzo Vinciguerra, was to demonize designated enemies and frighten the public into supporting ever-increasing powers for government leaders -- and their elitist cronies.


First revealed by Italian Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti in 1991, Gladio (from the Latin for "sword") is still protected to this day by its founding patrons, the CIA and MI6. Yet parliamentary investigations in Italy, Switzerland and Belgium have shaken out a few fragments of the truth over the years. These have been gathered in a new book, "NATO's Secret Armies: Operation Gladio and Terrorism in Western Europe," by Daniele Ganser, as Lila Rajiva reports on CommonDreams.org.

Originally set up as a network of clandestine cells to be activated behind the lines in the event of a Soviet invasion of Western Europe, Gladio quickly expanded into a tool for political repression and manipulation, directed by NATO and Washington. Using right-wing militias, underworld figures, government provocateurs and secret military units, Gladio not only carried out widespread terrorism, assassinations and electoral subversion in democratic states such as Italy, France and West Germany, but also bolstered fascist tyrannies in Spain and Portugal, abetted the military coup in Greece and aided Turkey's repression of the Kurds.

Among the "smoking guns" unearthed by Ganser is a Pentagon document, Field Manual FM 30-31B, which details the methodology for launching terrorist attacks in nations that "do not react with sufficient effectiveness" against "communist subversion." Ironically, the manual states that the most dangerous moment comes when leftist groups "renounce the use of force" and embrace the democratic process. It is then that "U.S. army intelligence must have the means of launching special operations which will convince Host Country Governments and public opinion of the reality of the insurgent danger." Naturally, these peace-throttling "special operations must remain strictly secret," the document warns.

Indeed, it would not do for the families of the 85 people ripped apart by the Aug. 2, 1980 bombing of the Bologna train station to know that their loved ones had been murdered by "men inside Italian state institutions and ... men linked to the structures of United States intelligence," as the Italian Senate concluded after its investigation in 2000.

The Bologna atrocity is an example of what Gladio's masters called "the strategy of tension" -- fomenting fear to keep populations in thrall to "strong leaders" who will protect the nation from the ever-present terrorist threat. And as Rajiva notes, this strategy wasn't limited to Western Europe. It was applied, with gruesome effectiveness, in Central America by the Reagan and Bush administrations. During the 1980s, right-wing death squads, guerrilla armies and state security forces -- armed, trained and supplied by the United States -- murdered tens of thousands of people throughout the region, often acting with particular savagery at those times when peaceful solutions to the conflicts seemed about to take hold.

Last month, it was widely reported that the Pentagon is considering a similar program in Iraq. What was not reported, however -- except in the Iraqi press -- is that at least one pro-occupation death squad is already in operation. Just days after the Pentagon plans were revealed, a new militant group, "Saraya Iraqna," began offering big wads of American cash for insurgent scalps -- up to $50,000, the Iraqi paper Al Ittihad reports. "Our activity will not be selective," the group promised. In other words, anyone they consider an enemy of the state will be fair game.

Strangely enough, just as it appears that the Pentagon is establishing Gladio-style operations in Iraq, there has been a sudden rash of terrorist attacks on outrageously provocative civilian targets, such as hospitals and schools, the Guardian reports. Coming just after national elections in which the majority faction supported slates calling for a speedy end to the American occupation, the shift toward high-profile civilian slaughter has underscored the "urgent need" for U.S. forces to remain on the scene indefinitely, to provide security against the ever-present terrorist threat. Meanwhile, the Bushists continue constructing their long-sought permanent bases in Iraq: citadels to protect the oil that incoming Iraqi officials are promising to sell off to American corporations -- and launching pads for new forays in geopolitical domination.

Perhaps it's just a coincidence. But the U.S. elite's history of directing and fomenting terrorist attacks against friendly populations is so extensive -- indeed, so ingrained and accepted -- that it calls into question the origin of every terrorist act that roils the world. With each fresh atrocity, we're forced to ask: Was it the work of "genuine" terrorists or a "black op" by intelligence agencies -- or both?

While not infallible, the ancient Latin question is still the best guide to penetrating the bloody murk of modern terrorism: Cui bono? Who benefits? Whose powers and policies are enhanced by the attack? For it is indisputable that the "strategy of tension" means power and profit for those who claim to possess the key to "security." And from the halls of the Kremlin to the banks of the Potomac, this cynical strategy is the ruling ideology of our times.



Annotations


The Pentagon's 'NATO Option'
CommonDreams.org, Feb. 10, 2005

NATO's Secret Armies Linked to Terrorism?
International Relations and Security Network, Dec. 15, 2004

Secret Warfare: Operation Gladio and NATO's Stay-Behind Armies
Parallel History Project, Nov. 29, 2004

Synopsis of Secret Warfare: Operation Gladio
International Relations and Security Network, Dec. 15, 2004

Gladio: The Secret U.S. War to Subvert Italian Democracy
Independent Media Center, Jan. 31, 2004

Unknown Militant Group Declares War on Extremists in Iraq
Al Ittihad via Focus News, Jan. 11, 2005

U.S. Arming Baathist Militia's to Combat Shiite Cleric Rule
Asia Times, Feb. 15, 2005

The Coming Wars
New Yorker, Jan. 17, 2005

Sectarian Massacres Shake Iraq
The Guardian, Feb. 12, 2005

Iraqi Election Catapults Critic of U.S. to Power
Los Angeles Times, Feb. 14, 2005

Iraq Winners Allied With Iran are the Opposite of U.S. Vision
Washington Post, Feb. 14, 2005

COINTELPRO: Alive and Kicking
San Francisco Bay Guardian, Jan. 25, 2001

US Role in Salvador's Brutal War
BBC, March 24, 2002

Guatemala: Memory of Silence
Report of the Commission for Historical Clarification,"

Reagan's Dark Global Legacy
Counterpunch, June 7, 2004

Dark Reagan Legacy in Central America
Reuters, June 7, 2004

Reagan Set Roots for al Qaeda
News24 South Africa, June 7, 2004

Reagan and Guatemala's Death Files
Consortiumnews.com, May 26, 1999

The US-Guatemala File: Training State Terrorists
Consortiumnews.com, May 26, 1999

The Ghost of Terror Past
Salon.com, Jan. 11, 2002

US Wants to Build Network of Friendly Militias to Fight Terrorism
AFP, August 15, 2004

Opening Statement of Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz
House Armed Services Committee, Aug. 10, 2004

Guatemala to Pay Paramilitaries
BBC, Aug. 10, 2004

Efrain Rios Montt Background
More or Less (Australia), June 18, 2004

Rios Montt: Authoritarian Fundamentalist
Proceso (Mexico), April 15, 2001

CIA Admits 'Tolerating' Contra Drug Trafficking
Consortiumnews.com, June 8, 2000

Wackenhut: Inside the Shadow CIA
Spy Magazine, Sept. 1992

The CIA's Gentlemanly Planner of Assassinations
Slate.com, Nov. 1, 2002

Declassified Files Confirm US Post-War Collaboration With Nazis
San Francisco Bay Guardian, May 7, 2001

Nixon Rigged 1971 Uruguay Elections
National Security Archive, June 20, 2002

JFK and the Diem Coup
National Security Archive, Nov. 5, 2003

CIA and Assassinations: The Guatemala 1954 Documents
National Security Archive, May 23, 1997

Guatemala: Memory of Silence
Report of the Commission for Historical Clarification,"

Death, Lies, and Bodywashing
Consortiumnews.com, May 27, 1996

The Secret CIA History of the Iran Coup, 1953
National Security Archive, Nov. 29, 2000

CIA Acknowledges Ties to Pinochet's Repression
National Security Archive, Sept. 19, 2000

U.S. Documents Show Embrace of Saddam Despite WMD, Aggression and Human Rights Abuses
National Security Archive, Feb. 23, 2003

Unconscionable

'One Man Has Stopped Killing'

Sgt. Kevin Bendermen Is an American Conscientious Objector
By Mickey Z.
February 17th, '05



"What is wrong with a country where war is glorified and fighting for peace is cowardly?” --Monica Benderman


When I saw the recent news report about the U.S. military moving toward the use of robot soldiers, I could not resist the obvious retort: Wasn’t that already the case? No less an authority on mass murder than Henry Kissinger once remarked: “Military men are dumb, stupid animals to be used as pawns for foreign policy.” To buy into this mentality, however, is to write off any possibility of solidarity with American military personnel...like, for example, Sgt. Kevin Benderman.

Benderman, a decorated Iraq war veteran with 10 years service in the US Army, is stationed at Ft. Stewart, GA, with the 3rd Infantry Division. He initially joined the military in 1987 when he was 22. “His family has a long history of military service, dating back to the revolutionary war,” Benderman’s wife, Monica told me.

“Kevin felt a responsibility to serve because of this heritage. He left the military in 1991 and ran his own sub-contracting/flooring business for 8 years. In 2000, after continuing conversations with his father, who was a WWII veteran, he felt that he had not fulfilled his obligation to service, and re-enlisted.” He served one combat tour in Iraq, from March 2003 until September 2003...as part of the 1-10 Calvary 4th Infantry Division from Ft. Hood, Texas.

Overall, not a particularly unusual story for an American soldier, right?

Before you answer, consider one more thing: Sgt. Benderman, a man who believes “War robs you of your humanity. It makes people do terrible things they would otherwise never do,” filed for Conscientious Objector status in December 2004.

for complete article

Back Door to Demascus

Iran to Aid Syria against Threats
BBC News
Wednesday 16 February 2005

Iran has vowed to back Syria against "challenges and threats" as both countries face strong US pressure.


"We are ready to help Syria on all grounds to confront threats," Iranian Vice-President Mohammad Reza Aref said after meeting Syrian PM Naji al-Otari.

Washington has accused Tehran of seeking nuclear weapons and has withdrawn its envoy to Damascus.

US tensions with Syria have soared since Monday's killing of former Lebanese PM Rafik Hariri in a bombing.

To point to Syria in a terrorist act that aims at destabilising both Syria and Lebanon is truly like blaming the US for 9/11. Many Lebanese blame the car bombing in Beirut on Syria, but the Syrian government has denied it was responsible for the blast.

The US has recalled its ambassador to Syria in protest at the attack, although it has not directly accused Damascus of responsibility.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told a Senate foreign affairs committee hearing the decision was a culmination of " long series of problems" with Syria - notably allegations that Damascus has harboured Iraqi insurgents and allowed them to cross into Iraq to fight against US troops.

Envoy Margaret Scobey held talks with the Syrian foreign ministry before her departure.

Earlier, the Russian Defence Ministry confirmed it was discussing the possibility of selling missiles to Syria.

Talks are said to be focusing on a short-range anti-aircraft missile system, known as Strelets.

'Numerous Challenges'

Washington is considering new sanctions against Syria because of its refusal to withdraw its 14,000 troops from Lebanon.

US Assistant Secretary of State William Burns, visiting Beirut for Mr Hariri's funeral on Wednesday, called for a "complete and immediate withdrawal".

But Syrian Expatriate Affairs Minister Buthaina Shaaban said she was "baffled" by the US reaction to the killing.

"To point to Syria in a terrorist act that aims at destabilising both Syria and Lebanon is truly like blaming the US for 9/11," she told the BBC.

The minister said Mr Hariri had been a "great ally" to Syria and his death was "a scandal against Syria and against Lebanon".

'Not US Enemies'

But BBC diplomatic correspondent Jonathan Marcus says the Syrian authorities are looking increasingly isolated, with only the Iranians speaking up on their behalf.

In Tehran, Syrian Prime Minister Otri said his meeting with the Iranian leadership was taking place at a "very important and delicate time, with Syria and Iran facing numerous challenges".

Iran's vice-president said his country would stand with Syria.

"Our Syrian brothers are facing specific threats and we hope they can benefit from our experience. We are ready to give them any help necessary," Mr Aref said.

However, Syria's ambassador in the US denied that the common front was an alliance against Washington.

"We are not the enemies of the United States, and we do not want to be drawn into such an enmity," Imad Moustapha told CNN.

The meeting came as Iranian Intelligence Minister Ali Yunesi said the US had been flying surveillance drones over its nuclear sites.

Washington has hinted it may take military action against Iran over its nuclear programme, which the US says is aimed at producing a bomb.

Meanwhile Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom, speaking in London, said Iran was just six months away from making a bomb.

Iran says its nuclear programme is not military.

Deceits to Come

{I wrote this a while ago. Sound, so far. - ape}

Deceits to Come: A Predictive History of George Bush's Second Term

Before the New Year gets out of its diapers, and in the spirit of pre-emption lately so fashionable, I think it fitting to sketch out a few of the inevitable crimes, and misdemeanors George W. Bush must commit during his second illegitimate term if he is to complete the creation of the nightmare project that is his New American Century.




Deceits to Come: A Predictive History of George Bush's Second Term
By C.L. Cook
January 3, 2005

Contrary to popular belief, there's nothing spooky, or mystical about prognostication. Whether in business, government, or science, it's a routine matter of: Matching Precedent; Prevalent Conditions; and Behavioural Attitude. It's done all the time.

For example: When prominent Washington, D.C. psychiatrist, Justin Frank diagnosed George W. Bush as a "paranoid, sadistic, megalomaniac," he didn't actually put Bush on the couch, or show him Rorschach inkblots. No, Frank looked at Bush's "lifelong streak of sadism, ranging from childhood pranks (using firecrackers to explode frogs) to insulting journalists, gloating over state executions;[and] pumping his fist gleefully before the bombing of Baghdad."

That, as George might say, is like hitting the psychiatric trifecta!

To review: Matching Precedent; lifelong streak of sadism. Prevalent Conditions; gloating over state executions (he had the power to reverse). Behavioural Attitude: pumping fist gleefully over the certain prospect of thousands of dead Iraqi civilians.

Prognosis: This is one dangerous dude, apt to carry out more crazy stuff!

That's only my prognosis; for some things, you don't need a Ph.D. Dr. Frank's opinion more ominously states: "Our sole treatment option, for his benefit and for ours, is to remove President Bush from office; before it is too late."

Too late! For what?

It could be something as trivial as the survival of civilization as we know it. Pulitzer Prize winning UCLA scientist, Dr. Jared Diamond, who has spent much of his career studying the decline and fall of civilizations throughout history, identifies five interacting factors that spell the end. Not all of these factors need be present, just a significant representation of a few could do the trick.

Diamond's five horsemen of societal apocalypse are summarized as: "the damage that people have inflicted on their environment; climate change; enemies; changes in friendly trading partners; and, the society's political, economic, and social responses to these shifts."

So, what outcomes of another Bush presidency can we predict using Dr. Diamond's checklist?

In the waning days before Christmas 2004, while most Americans were rushing about, looking for those final gifts, or stuck in security line-ups at airports, the Bush administration snuck through a bit of forest legislation. On its face, the new rules regulating the timber industry are meant to improve the condition of the nation's diminishing natural environment, thus the warm and fuzzily titled, 'Healthy Forests Initiative.' But some cynics feel the new act will make the forest decidedly unhealthier. Concern has been raised from none other than that environmental activist hotbed, the New York Times editorial page.

The long-hairs at the NYT weigh in on Bush's healing ministrations to the forest, saying: "This is a recipe for trouble. Forest supervisors have always been subject to fierce pressures from timber companies and the communities that depend upon them for jobs. Unless the law unambiguously requires them to protect nature - giving them legal cover to resist industry pressures - we could see a return to the days when what counted on a resume was not whether a manager harmonized the competing needs of nature and commerce but whether he met his annual "cut."

Of course, this could be a "misunderestimation" of the President's intent. It could also be a case of a bad law slipping through the boards. God knows, George isn't perfect! But given Bush's environmental record during his first stolen term, and as governor of Texas, the State still enjoying his leadership legacy as the nation's most polluted, the Matching Precedent here favours scepticism. But how does he fare, considering Behavioural Attitude and Prevalent Conditions for the environment?

Naturally, George has opposed Kyoto, denies Climate Change, and spent a few days following the world's worst natural disaster in living memory a-cuttin' brush down on the ranch. So, Prevalent Conditions really don't seem a big issue to him. But, what about Behavioural Attitude?

Few things epitomize the American freedom ethos like its herds of wild horses, free even now to roam the great western states. Recognizing the role played by these magnificent creatures who have never known saddle or bridle, Bush got to work on a bit of legislation to address the future of these icons symbolizing the greatness of the American spirit.

True to his humble nature, George didn't want a big fuss made, so he let the new rules slide in on the Q.T. But ex-pat journalist, Chris Floyd couldn't let George's contribution to the nation's heritage pass uncelebrated, noting for the history books: "With an obscure provision smuggled without any hearings or public notice into the gargantuan budget bill -- 3,000 pages of pork and chicanery approved, unread, by Bush's rubber-stamp Republicans and that wiggly bit of protoplasm known laughingly as the "Democratic opposition" -- Bush stripped the nation's wild horses of long-standing legal protections against being sold off, slaughtered and shipped overseas for meat."

While not as fun as an exploding frog, this legislation means the death of thousands of America's wild horses for the benefit of cattle ranchers, energy prospectors, and glue manufacturers. A pretty poor behavioural attitude.

So, getting back to Dr. Diamond's checklist to the apocalypse, remembering we don't need a five-for-five score to join the Maya, Egyptian, and other has-been civilizations. Let's review: "The damage that people have inflicted on their environment; climate change; and, the society's political, economic, and social responses to these shifts."

It's safe to say; the acceleration of a systematic despoiling of the environment, combined with the evisceration of the relatively meagre legal protections those environments effected once enjoyed, and the steadfast refusal to recognize the need to address environmental issues makes it a three-bagger for extinction for team Bush. But what about the last two items?

Enemies and Changes in friendly trading partners.

Don't get me started!

Chris Cook produces and hosts the weekly public affairs program, Gorilla Radio, broad/webcast from the University of Victoria, Canada at: http://cfuv.uvic.ca/

Annotations

Prominent DC Shrink Diagnoses Bush to be a Paranoid, Sadistic Megalomaniac Capitol Hill Blue by Staff and Wire Reports Jun 14, 2004 http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/article_4687.shtml

"Trouble in the Forests"New York Times Editorial: January 1, 2005
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/01/opinion/01sat3.html

The Ends of the World as We Know Them
By Jared Diamond, The New York Times Published: January 1, 2005
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/01/opinion/01diamond.html

Beastly Behavior
Chris Floyd, The Moscow Times Published: December 17, 2004 http://context.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2004/12/17/120.html

Mao on the Mountain? Nepal Meltdown

Maoism on the March?
Meanwhile, in Nepal...
By GARY LEUPP
February 16, 2005

Meanwhile, in Nepal...

The Bushites are preoccupied with creating their empire, fighting against governments which actually mount no challenge to U.S. imperialism (in the Leninist sense), governments willing to work out accommodations with the U.S., and normalize diplomatic and trade relations. In early 2003, Saddam Hussein, fearing invasion, offered the U.S. unlimited weapons inspection rights, oil concessions, and Iraqi support for any U.S. Middle East peace plan, in exchange for calling off the planned attack. In March 2003, Richard Perle rejected the proposal as a "no-starter," demanding instead that as the price of peace Saddam should leave Iraq and his army surrender to U.S. forces. Saddam, with a history of CIA ties, wasn't opposed to the U.S. system. Nor are the Iranian mullahs, really, who preside over a capitalist economy largely dependent on foreign capital.

But while the administration with long-term inter-imperialist relationships in mind proceeds down its road to Damascus, far off in the Himalayan foothills revolutionaries dead-serious about overthrowing capitalism and imperialism are making steady progress. The People's Liberation Army of the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), which has been waging a People's War since 1996, might actually soon seize state power. They had already gained control of much of the Nepali countryside when popular King Birendra and other members of the royal family died in a mysterious shooting rampage in 2001. Birendra's brother Gyanendra succeeded him and has been an unpopular monarch from the outset. Maoists stepped up their military campaign after he took the throne, prompting the prime minister to step down. The next prime minister announced a truce with the rebels, and peace talks began in June. The Maoists demanded an end to the monarchy and the convening of a convention to write a new constitution, eventually dropping the first demand. But no progress was made, and the Maoists resumed fighting in November. Gyanendra proclaimed a state of emergency. In January 2002 Colin Powell paid a visit to Nepal, the first ever visit by a U.S. secretary of state, denounced the Maoists as "terrorists," called the war against them part of the war on terror, and offered military aid. Gyanendra officially designated the rebels "terrorists" as well.

But since then the CPN(M) has steadily consolidated control over the countryside, following Mao's strategy of encircling the cities. In the capital of Kathmandu, it repeatedly demonstrated its ability to shut the city down by calling general strikes (bandh). Its student and women's organizations held large demonstrations, pressing demands, wielding much clout in the city. The government held a second round of talks beginning in May 2003, having bowed to a rebel demand that the "terrorist" label be removed. These too broke down. In recent months the rebels have shown their ability to shut down all roads leading to the capital. Last month the king of neighboring Bhutan told reporters in India, "today the Maoists have total control more or less of the whole country."

That was before Gyanendra, on Feb. 1, sacked the prime minister and his cabinet, declared martial law, cut phone and internet lines to Kathmandu, arrested dozens of political leaders and announced he was assuming direct rule for three years. Nearly all political commentators believe this move will only strengthen the insurgency.

For several years the king, parliamentary parties, and the Maoists have engaged in a triangular power struggle. The parties support the constitutional monarchy and deplore Maoist violence, but want talks. The Maoists express contempt for the parties, including the several ostensibly "communist" ones, and insist, with Mao, that "political power grows out of the barrel of the gun." But they unite with the parties in protesting policies of the king. After the breakdown of the second round of talks, they stated that they would only be interested in direct talks with the monarch himself. Now Gyanendra has called for such talks, and indicated he's even willing to discuss a constituent assembly. But it may be too late for the king. The Maoists have declined his offer. "Gyanendra has pushed the country into darkness _ there is no justification for immediate talks," stated CPN(M) leader Prachanda. Meanwhile, on Feb. 9, the Maoists busted out 145 prisoners, including comrades, from a jail in the western district of Kailaliat.

The king of Bhutan is worried, because Bhutan has its own embryonic Maoist insurgency. India has a huge Maoist movement with an increasing degree of organizational unity. Attacking police and landlords, the Maoists have taken control of much of the region around Hyderbad and for some years have been able to shut the city down when they call a bandh. The Maoists of Nepal and India make no bones about the fact that they are coordinating actions and envision People's Wars enveloping much of South Asia, including Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.

One scenario is Indian military intervention in Nepal, producing a Maoist-led nationalistic response, accompanied by protests from the Indian masses and stepped-up guerrilla war within India. But China, however unhappy with a Maoist regime on the Tibetan border (a real Maoist regime to shame the capitalist-roaders in Beijing), would be even less happy with Indian troops in Nepal. The Maoists' victory may come at a time when the U.S. is bogged down in a broadened war against "Islamic terrorism" and has few resources to fight the old bugaboo, communism. Which after all was pronounced dead, with some fanfare, after the collapse of the USSR.

The revival of communism as a global challenge would be the Bush administration's worst nightmare. Maoists aren't likely to hijack planes and crash them into American skyscrapers. But they're likely to strive to build egalitarian societies free of foreign domination, inspiring others in the process, including many in the imperialist countries. It has happened before (think 1968). Back in October 2002 I wrote an article in which I cited a British officer's statement to the Telegraph that the Maoists would "continue to gain ground. Unless something dramatic happens, it's only a matter of time before they win." I suggested then some of the possible international consequences:

The radical left throughout the world would be heartened by a victory, somewhere; impressed to see the red flag planted, as the secretary-general of the CPN(M), Prachanda, likes to put it, atop Mt. Everest, the roof of the world. (I think particularly of the Maoists in the Philippines, and their 14,000-strong New People's Army, who are also engaged in a people's war and have control over 8,000 villages throughout the Filipino archipelago; and of the Senderistas in Peru, who show some signs of revival.) The governments of the world---virtually all of them---would be very highly displeased, and mainstream intellectuals puzzled. The victory would, after all, constitute a challenge to the Fukuyama thesis (about the "and of history" as a clash of ideologies) and the Huntington thesis (about the "clash of civilizations"). We'd be back to the old capitalism vs. communism discussion, which was supposed to be behind us, all settled, and consigned to the rubbish heap of history!

Let the discussion begin.

Gary Leupp is Professor of History at Tufts University, and Adjunct Professor of Comparative Religion. He is the author of Servants, Shophands and Laborers in in the Cities of Tokugawa Japan; Male Colors: The Construction of Homosexuality in Tokugawa Japan; and Interracial Intimacy in Japan: Western Men and Japanese Women, 1543-1900. He is also a contributor to CounterPunch's merciless chronicle of the wars on Iraq, Afghanistan and Yugoslavia, Imperial Crusades.

He can be reached at: gleupp@granite.tufts.edu

Do Democrats Make a Difference?

Wednesday, February 16, 2005

Will Dean Make a Difference? Does Howard Dean at the helm of the Democratic Party matter?
Dave Lindorff
Wednesday, February 16, 2005


Most analysis and pundits, as well as many critics on the left, are saying no. First, as N.Y. Times columnist Paul Krugman pointed out (quoting that "muckraking" left-wing publication, Counterpunch), Dean is no progressive, and second, the party chairman is just a fund-raiser, with no power to set policy or direction.


In fact, however, Dean could make a difference, particularly on the issue of Social Security, and that could make a difference in the party's fortunes in next year's Congressional elections.


It seems clear that the Bush administration has overstepped badly in its attack on Social Security. The effort to scare young people with talk of the system going bankrupt has not worked. Even the tame corporate media have not bought this story for the most part. While they submissively adopt the administration's terminology, calling the president's demolition plan a "reform" effort, many news outlets have pointed out the falsehood of that bogus bankruptcy claim.


Now many Republican in Congress, faced with the prospect of going to the voters next year, are anxiously telling the president to back off, to slow down.


Where Dean comes in is in his instinct to be combative.


The reflexive Democratic response to every issue in recent years has been to seek compromise, to back off.


Social Security is no place for this to happen. As any general knows, with the Republicans in retreat, the Democrats need to go on the attack.


Democrats have their strongest issue in decades in the fight over Social Security and they should be going for the jugular on it.


They have a president who has squandered his credibility, first with his now fully exposed lies about Iraq, and now about his transparent lies regarding Social Security.


Meanwhile, Republicans as a party have been exposed as liars. For years, the GOP has cried foul saying the Democrats unfairly tried to frighten voters by saying that Republicans were out to weaken or destroy Social Security. They always insisted that they had no such intention.


Now that claim stands fully exposed. The Bush administration and the Republican majority in Congress clearly are on an ideological crusade aimed at gutting the retirement program and causing its collapse.


Dean needs to make that case, and to bring the party, and its elected officials with him. They need to make the argument that Democrats will not compromise on Social Security, and that they will not allow the president’s plan to peel younger workers off of the program with a promise of "private" investment accounts.


But they need to go further and make the point that only the return of a Democratic majority in both houses of Congress can insure against further, or future attacks on the system.


That's something that Dean should yell about. The louder the better.


10:44 am pst


Monday, February 14, 2005

All the president's friends: A Riefenthal moment in Montgomery County, PA
I had a close encounter with the president last week--at least as close as someone of my political leanings and lacking James Guckert’s press pass can hope to get.


It felt a little like a Leni Riefenthal moment, scripted to the last detail.


The Man was coming to my neighborhood--the Montgomery County Community College gym just a few miles down the road from my house--to take his Social Security wrecking campaign to the people.


I had just covered a press conference by local activists protesting his planned divide-and-conquer strategy of offering private investment funds for the still young and foolish, and decided to swing by the college to see what was happening there.


Along the way, which turned out to be the route the president's motorcade was to take an hour or so later from the Willow Grove Naval Air Station to the college, the security was astonishing. Every police and emergency vehicle in the county seemed to have converged on this stretch of highway. Every driveway and intersection sported a vehicle blocking access. Bridges over the roadway each had what appeared to be a Secret Service SUV parked nearby, lights flashing.


This is clearly a popular fellow, this George W. Bush.


At the campus, I found a parking space near the gym and started walking towards a long line of people stretching back from the door.


At the end of the line were a cop car, one local police officer in uniform, and several very large young men in sports jackets. The cop looked diminutive and inconsequential next to them, and he wasn't doing anything. The young men were clearly in charge.


I approached them and they looked at me--dressed in jeans and bearded--skeptically, I thought.


"Do you have a ticket?" one of the big guys asked, unsmilingly.


"No. Where do I get one?" I replied.


"You can't. It's too late." Now there a smile.


"Where did you get them, before it was too late?" I asked him.


"Senator Santorum," he said, referring to Pennsylvania's junior and extremely right wing senator, Rick Santorum, who is up for re-election next year.


"How would I have known that?" I asked. "I don't recall reading any announcements in the media about how to get tickets for the president's visit."


"I don't know," the young man said. Now the smile was a kind of smirk.


"Pretty strange way for a president of all the people to behave, don't you think?" I asked. "I mean, don't presidents want to have people come to their speaking engagements?"


This time I got no answer.


"So who are you guys?" I asked them. "You don't look like Secret Service."


"We're from the Republican Party," one of them answered.


"The president's having the Republican Party handle security for his visit?" I think I sounded a little incredulous. I was. This was, after all, not a campaign appearance; the campaign ended back in early November. This was the president of the United States making a visit to my neighborhood, wasn't it? So what is the deal here? Saving money on security by having Republican goons do the security, like Hells Angels at a Stones event?


I revealed myself as a member of the press at that point, mentioning In These Times, a publication that had once issued me an identity card. They looked suspicious.


"The White House press officers are arriving with the president," I was told. "You can talk with them then about getting to cover the event."


I didn't have time for that, and was pretty sure I wouldn't have had any luck on such short notice anyhow, especially with no assignment letter in hand, and wearing a "No War in Iraq" T-Shirt under my parka.


The following day, the local media were full of stories about how the president, speaking to a full room of local residents, had warned about Social Security going "bankrupt" and about how those of us now over the age of 55 had "nothing to worry about" regarding our retirement.


There wasn't a word about how the adulating audience in that hall had been hand-selected by the office of one of the Senate's most hard Right members. My guess is that most of the people sent to cover the event didn't even think to ask how the crowd had been assembled.


No doubt the same thing was repeated across the country at the various venues where the president went to "sell" his "reform" program for Social Security.


Little wonder then that he's being allowed to get away with presenting this plan to wreck the system as its opposite--a plan to save it.


He only presents it to people who ideologically oppose Social Security, or who are too ill informed to know what he's up to.


There is something sick going on in this country, when the president has to be so hermetically sealed off from dissent, and when the media are so ready to help to protect him, and the rest of us, from reality.


8:44 am pst

Gorilla Radio Goes Nation Wide

I did an interview the other day with Mickey Z. Mickey's been on GR a number of times, and as he says, it was his chance to turn the tables! -ape


Tuesday, February 15, 2005
Radio Active North of the Border
Mickey Z. Interviews Gorilla Radio’s Chris Cook

For full disclosure, I will admit that an essential factor in my own subversive self-education was WBAI radio here in NYC. In other words, I’m not an objective listener to radical radio. Which brings me to Chris Cook...who broadcasts his show, Gorilla Radio, on CFUV, 101.9 FM (http://cfuv.uvic.ca) out of the University of Victoria in British Columbia. Why radio? “Well,” Cook explains, “it’s more easily accessible than television, and easier than writing for print.”

Gorilla Radio is a weekly one-hour show that features lively, provocative discussion between Chris and guests like M. Shahid Alam, William Blum, Helen Caldicott, Noam Chomsky, Laura Flanders, Sander Hicks, Julia Butterfly Hill, Naomi Klein, Kurt Nimmo, and yours truly. I figured it might be interesting to turn the tables, toss some questions back at Cook, and see what happens.

Mickey Z.: What role do you think radio can play today in waking people up and inspiring them to action?

Chris Cook: Radio is important. There used to be a guy here in Victoria who had a show at the University before I got involved there. If memory serves, it was called “Bad News,” a play on the Chomsky title. I’ll never forget the first time I happened on his program: He was basically reading various materials he’d found in alternative print. (We didn’t have the Internet in “them days.") It was so heartening to hear someone speaking the truth you felt in your own heart, but had never had validated. That’s the thing with media: The very fact that something is in print, or broadcast lends it credibility. And, hearing these messages, and knowing that you’re not the only one who thinks these “radical” thoughts is very empowering. It helped me continue with my own work.

So, when you ask about radio waking people up; for me, hearing the dissenting view, right up front, over the airwaves, I thought: “There’s a place I can go and do the kind of radio I think important. It’s one thing to know things are screwed up; another to carp about to your poor friends and relations; but until you can feel you’re an active participant in addressing the problems, even if the effects are minute, or impossible to measure, you’re doomed to victimhood and frustration. Just think, instead of shouting at your TV, you can do it through a microphone; and guess what? There are a lot of ears out there, dying to hear affirmations of what they too know in their hearts.

MZ: Tell me about your radio show and how you got started?

CC: I graduated from a college communications program back in the eighties. After several years working in the film industry in Toronto I burnt out. The stuff we produced was largely inane, commercial stuff; not particularly well done. So, I decided to leave the big city, see the world, and then go home to the west coast. I figured something would come up when I got there. When the answers didn’t magically appear, I sat down and thought: What next? I remembered enjoying radio production at school, so I volunteered as an intern, the oldest in history I expect, at a local news station. Of course, it was a horribly right wing outfit, but they did read some of my stories, so it made it worthwhile for a few months. But, I knew I had no future in corporate news. Luckily, the local university has a radio station, CFUV. I approached them, and started producing a short news program, which led to Gorilla Radio.

When I first started the show, someone asked for a couple lines of description for the Program Guide. I wrote it up on the spot and have never felt the need to amend it: “Gorilla Radio is dedicated to social justice, the environment, community, and providing a forum for people and issues not covered in the mainstream media.”

MZ: How do you decide on topics and guests?

CC: I try to interview people that are doing admirable things; things for their communities, for the hard done by, for truth, justice, and the American Way. I don’t necessarily try to be provocative. I want listeners to share in my outrage. There are some pretty gruesome crimes going on and a lot of them are walking away home-free, with their pockets crammed to the gunnels with public money. And all the murder and terror and suffering. It’s just too much to keep shut up about.

MZ: What are you hoping to provoke with each show?

CC: There you’ve really hit on it. Why do I believe the things I do? I’ve been hip to propaganda as long as I can remember. As a kid, we lived in a pre-TV country. When we returned to civil Canada I started fiendishly watching the tube. I’d stay up late into the night, secure in my basement bedroom, eating up those old Republic Pictures war films from the Second War era. You have to dig some of these up, they’re hilarious. Fucked up. But really obvious. Even as a kid who’d seen none of this before, or maybe because of it (?), I could see right through the racist, hate-bilging operation that was Republic. Once you’ve seen the lie, and stopped laughing about it, you can’t let it stand unchallenged. Well, I can’t. The hope is, once the truth is out, then the injustice it masks will be addressed. And there’s a lot of that going on. When I first came to your page Mickey, I can’t remember offhand what you were talking about, but I’m sure it was something well-written, well-thought out, and well-intentioned. I support that attitude wherever I find it. And, thankfully I don’t have to look too hard to find people out there, and especially from within the U.S.! Most of my guests have been Americans—I have been accused, typically, as being “Anti-American.” It’s a blanket statement in Canada, designed to dismiss anyone critical of U.S. Government policy, used by a certain element in this country: The Continentalists!

MZ: The “anti-America” label is more popular than ever these days. What does that mean? Do you hate jazz, the Grand Canyon, baseball?

CC: Yeah; there’s a lot of strange stuff happening in my Canada. The slur, because it is thrown as one here, of “Anti-Americanism” really means: Shut your mouth! The term is aspiring to equal that other great gob-stopper, “Anti-Semite.” The funny thing is; I love America. The great promise of the founders, the refutation of the monarch, something we’ve yet to accomplish here—and just the vastness of its history. And the Grand Canyon! America is fortunate to have wild places left. That’s very rare, especially in a country as industrious as the U.S., and should be greedily protected by the people. Now! Though I’ve never been there physically, I feel I would greet it as an old familiar. That’s true of all America. I stood on the roof of one of the Twin Towers, I think it was the South. I remember tripping around Manhattan, Central Park, the Statue of Liberty, Greenwich Village at night. And everywhere was something we’d seen a million times in the movies and on TV. In a sense, America belongs to the world. Hate America? I say: Goddess Save America.

MZ: Well, since you’re answering my question more literally than I expected, what about baseball and jazz?

CC: We Canadians spend the long winter nights watching TV. And most programming is American. And baseball? You know, I tried to look into the origin of the game. It’s very Masonic. But I couldn’t find its author. Abner Doubleday is credited, but that’s apparently not quite the case. Like much of America’s history, the myths are so much greater in the public mind than the truth of the matter. I just wish the Blue Jays would get it together. I lived in Toronto in the days the team was up and coming. Heartbroken a couple times in the pennant race. Those damn Tigers! But the beautiful thing about baseball is: you don’t have to pay to much attention to it. It’s a pastime. Maybe the Jays will do something this year?

But jazz? What is it? The term conjures so many connotations, it’s not something to be contained within anything as flimsy as a single word, or emotion. Even hearing “Jazz” evokes the images of dozens of giants. But for me, it means Black America foremost. And that racial history is somewhere we two neighbors part company. I certainly won’t claim we gentle Canucks are not racist. The First Nations’ unfortunate “contact” experience with our founders was horrible. And racism is still strong here; and institutional. But, the easy way race is accepted as shorthand, especially in the media. A Canadian news reporter, however shoddily equipped morally, would never lead a story, “Black woman was found frozen in her car.” But, watching the Seattle stations we pick up here, racial identification is always within the first two lines.

MZ: Here in the U.S., we just endured a divisive election year in which even within the Left very clear battle lines were drawn. As I’m sure your guests discuss, there’s plenty that needs fixing...but in all your radio interviews, have you heard solutions that sound like they might work? New ideas? Strategies? Something to inspire the inactive to action and push activists into direct action?

CC: Well, the whole world has endured America’s last election. And worse, endured the results, these four bloody, tragic years resulting the previous one too. It’s difficult to remain hopeful. These issues are mountainous. It’s a matter of economies of scale. The elections in the States and Palestine and Iraq and the Ukraine, and some of the “Stans” have driven out hope of unfettered democracy being allowed to flourish anywhere. Look what happened to Chavez and Aristide. I try to ask the question, less frequently now it occurs, “What hopeful thing...” But it’s the fight that matters. There’s only one strategy: fight injustice where you find it. If you need further motivation: You’re fighting for your own life! I’ve talked to a lot of people these past years. It’s been an enormous education. None of them, that I can remember, have ever mentioned final victory. Things are always going to be screwed up. So, you identify them and get to work setting it right. But there’s a growing sense now, some people don’t want things fixed, they feel they will profit by monkey-wrenching the works. And that’s disheartening. When you can’t trust the plumber, you’ll never defecate in piece again.

MZ: What do you say to someone who wants to embark on a radical radio career?

CC: I’m still trying to figure that one out. I have a day job. But, the radio makes the day job easier to take. I know I can go through the daily motions of earning my bread and know I’ve got another facet to my life where I try to make a difference; if only at 2300 watts. But, to aspirants I would say; things are a lot more promising now than when I got started. Technology is expanding almost as quickly as network news, talk-radio, and the major newspapers are losing credibility. There is a profound hunger for the “real” story, and if that appetite can’t be supplied by the NYT, FOX, and the rest…

MZ: Thanks, Chris...and don’t hold your breath with the Blue Jays.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Mickey Z. is the author of several books and can be found on the Web at http://www.mickeyz.net.

More from Mickey Z.