Forgotten Occupation: Karzai to Washington

Afghanistan, the Forgotten Occupation
Karzai's Rude Awakening
JACK RANDOM

Is there anyone who still believes in the independence of the American media? After the spectacle of embedded journalism, the evisceration of Dan Rather, the sordid saga of Judith Miller and the New York Times, and the emasculation of Newsweek Magazine, if you require further proof, look to the recent visit of Afghan President Hamid Karzai.

By all appearances, President Karzai is an honest and sincere leader even though his presidency was made possible by the blessings and support of the White House warlords. At the initiation of the war in Iraq, Karzai wisely appealed to the United States Congress not to forget his nation, a nation already conquered and occupied by American led forces. Moved by his compassion, our congressional leaders posed for the cameras to give praise and a solemn promise: We will not forget.

Three years later, the forgotten occupation still seethes with civil unrest. Thousands have taken to the streets in protest. Afghani citizens still fall to American bombs, missiles and renewed military offensives. Tribal warlords still rule most of the country and protect the opium fields upon which Afghanistan still depends for survival.

Against this backdrop, it should not have been surprising that President Karzai had some harsh criticism for his American sponsors. It was time, he argued, for the Afghan government to gain control of military operations. It was not, he observed, the article in Newsweek concerning the desecration of the Koran that led to mass demonstrations across Afghanistan in which dozens of protesters were shot down for exercising their democratic rights; it was the conditions of occupation, a desperate economy, and a lack of progress under virtual military rule.

What was the administration response? The Department of Defense issued stern rebuke of President Karzai and his government for failing to control the opium trade.

What was the story in American media? The failure of the Afghan government to control the opium trade.

It is somehow assumed that the president of Afghanistan is misinformed or not familiar enough with his own people to rewrite a story that has already gone forth as an example of media malfeasance. After all, Newsweek has already accepted the blame. Newsweek has already taken the blood of the innocent on the hands of its reporters. Who is the president of Afghanistan to reassign culpability?

Now that Newsweek (a publication that might have been considered liberal a decade ago) has joined CBS in being humbled before the eyes of the meta-media world, President Karzai must also be bent to his knees by accepting blame for the Afghan opium trade.

Has it occurred to anyone in America's free press that without control of the military there is absolutely nothing Karzai can do about the opium trade? Has it occurred to any mainstream journalist that without the opium trade there is no Afghan economy?

Where is Christianne Amanpour when we need her? Would CNN even allow her to file a report?

Where are those congressional leaders who vowed never to forget? Does it occur to none that the welfare of Afghanistan is now America's burden? Under the circumstances, it was imperative for Karzai to submit the solemn truth: They do not need covert operations on the Pakistani border. They do not need military prisons filled with uncharged suspects. They need basic security and the rule of law. They need a well-supplied Afghan army and the disarmament of the warlords. Most critically, in the absence of the opium trade, they need massive economic assistance.

What Karzai foresaw three years ago, he must now accept in despair: That assistance, along with the dream of a free and peaceful Afghanistan, is not forthcoming.

Before he was muzzled and escorted from Washington, Karzai spoke the truth: The bare minimum a sovereign democratic government can expect is control over military operations within its own borders. If it is denied that minimal authority, it is nothing more than a figurehead for the occupying forces.

It is a rude awakening for a proud man who sincerely cares about the future of his people. The lesson he has learned is familiar to many throughout the world: America may be a partner but it is not a friend.

Jack Random is the author of the Jazzman Chronicles, the War Chronicles (Crow Dog Press) and Ghost Dance Insurrection (Dry Bones Press). He can be reached through his website: www.jackrandom.com.

And the Winner is... U.S.A.

And the Winner Is...U.S.A.: Amnesty's #1 Human Rights Abuser

Look out Uzbekistan, Myanmar, and China, there's a new player on the human abuses scene: And this newcomer is Number One, with a bullet. -{ape}

http://www.fabricattic.com/
Lady%20Liberty.jpg

And the Winner is...U.S.A.
C. L. Cook
May 25, 2005

Well, it had to happen. Every champion has its day, and then is done. It seemed unlikely the seasoned brutes running places like Saudi Arabia, Turkey, North Korea, and Iraq (in the old days) would ever be knocked from their vicious podiums, but in just over four years George W. Bush and his gang have rocketed the charts to top spot in Amnesty International's list of global heavies. And there seems no turning back.

In just four short years, the United States has transformed itself from the Defender of Light and Liberty to become the Dark Lord of Empire. Just imagine the accomplishments another four years promise: Imagine it like a distant scream bellowed from the belly of Abu Ghraib; imagine its echo, ricocheting from Baghdad to Bagram, Gitmo to the unknown outposts of America's global network of proxy gulags; imagine it bouncing from bloodied stone walls, through iron bars and steel doors, inexorably making its way to the surface.

And now, breaking into the light, the scream reveals Lady Liberty naked and gore-flecked.

Of course, you sophisticates out there, well versed in Chomsky and Zinn will yawn at Amnesty's top prize winner: What about Southeast Asia, Central America, the Philippines? What about the destruction of the first "Americans," gifted poxy blankets, whiskey and steel? "What else," you may ask, gentle reader, "is NEW!" While all you say, and much more, is true and has been known for a long time, this time it's different.

While the eminent Mssrs. mentioned above have spent decades banging their typewriters against the stony silence of America's conscience to bring this point home, what's new now is this: America's high horse on human rights abuses has come up lame. Its notable competitors in outrage witness that nag's pasturing and are instructed: No more will the long, wagging finger of Uncle Sam's disaproval hamper their economic, or military interests.

Following the world leader as ever, the pilchards and fry practicing their piddling atrocities in the deep places far from the light, the degraders of dignity, neglectors of humanity's aspirations, are now freed. Never now will a discouraging word be heard coming from Sheriff Sam. Just listen to this laugher from AI's Secretary General, Irene Khan:

" In 1973 AI published its first report on torture. It found that: “torture thrives on secrecy and impunity. Torture rears its head when the legal barriers against it are barred. Torture feeds on discrimination and fear. Torture gains ground when official condemnation of it is less than absolute.” The pictures of detainees in US custody in Abu Ghraib, Iraq, show that what was true 30 years ago remains true today.

Despite the near-universal outrage generated by the photographs coming out of Abu Ghraib, and the evidence suggesting that such practices are being applied to other prisoners held by the USA in Afghanistan, Guantánamo and elsewhere, neither the US administration nor the US Congress has called for a full and independent investigation."

What this says to both the heinous regimes already out there, and those others contemplating the "Marquis de Sade Methodology of Governance" is: "Hey, go nuts! Nobody cares." Sure Italy, you can dispose of your constitution. Sure China, you can practice religious persecution. Sure Uzbekistan, put another pot on the fire! Goody Two-Shoe America is past; time to meet the new number one!


Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, a weekly public affairs program, broad/webcast from the University of Victoria, Canada. He's also a contributing editor to PEJ.org. You can check out the Gorilla Radio blog here.

Unlamented Lacking: The Beeb Dims its Lights

The British (State) Broadcasting Corporation
– A Coalition of the Killing?
William Bowles, I'n'I
24 May 2005

NAGG:Me pap!

HAMM: Give him his pap.

CLOV: There’s no more pap.

HAMM (to Nagg): Do you hear that? There’s no more pap. You’ll never get any more pap.

NAGG:
I want me pap!
Samuel Beckett’s ‘Endgame’: http://www.samuel-beckett.net/endgame.html



Yesterday, May 23, we had an entire day without the BBC’s blanket non-coverage of important events due to a strike by the three main unions over threatened redundancies. A blessing in disguise? Well maybe… And if I may strike a totally au contraire view of the BSBC’s plans for the future, perhaps laying off a few thousand comfortable pen-pushing peons for the state is long overdue? After all, without the complicity of those who prostitute themselves in return for a pension, perhaps they could put their hard-won skills to better use?

No doubt I’ll get dumped on for voicing the above but what the hell. Does not a single one of them, when perusing the flood of reports they no doubt receive (but never use) have even a single twinge of conscience about the fact that their masters instruct them to lie about the massive and on-going destruction of life and limb taking place in our name? A war crime of monstrous dimensions that should have all of us throwing up and throwing up our hands in collective horror at the scale of it, let alone that their job is to hide it all from those who pay their fucking wages!

By way of contrast, for decades, the very same people assailed us with tales of woe about how various and sundry authoritarian states manipulated the news to their own advantage, ‘forcing freedom-loving’ journos into doing their bidding, until freed from the jackboot of the secret police etc, they were ‘free’ to manipulate the news for a new master. Well what goes around, comes around…

MediaLens , in yet another missive detailing the mis/non-reporting of the atrocities committed by the ‘coalition of the killing’, continues in its ever so polite manner to assail the hacks who operate on behalf of the British state. All good stuff no doubt and all power to them for doing what the bulk of British journalists should be doing but ain’t, namely taking the voice of the British state to task for its litany of lies.

But then, it’s not as if the B(S)BC is doing anything new, it’s been doing the job of pushing the state line for decades and extremely successfully until quite recently, that is.

What it does succeed in continuing to do is present a façade of objectivity, more through how it presents the news rather than the content per se. But most important of all is the fact that no matter how many missives MediaLens hurls at the managers or the number of letters sent by irate listeners/viewers, all it need do is ignore them, something it’s really quite good at doing and it has the advantage of costing the taxpayer absolutely nothing. Cursing Helen Boaden ( helenboaden.complaints@bbc.co.uk ), or Mark Thompson, BBC director general ( mark.thompson@bbc.co.uk ), or Michael Grade, BBC chairman ( michael.grade@bbc.co.uk ), will, in all likelihood not even warrant a ‘thank your for your comments’ response, unless of course, they were to get thousands of such letters. Well, we live in hope…

And no doubt, with all due respect to the hardworking folks who produce the MediaLens critiques, it is rather like a gnat biting an elephant. And believe me, going through all the tripe the BSBC pours out 24/7 is not easy. It’s time-consuming and soul-destroying for anyone with a conscience let alone a political axe to grind, to meticulously vet the Goebellian newspeak these hardworking journos prepare for public consumption.

By contrast, last night TV Channel 4, ran an exposé (’Dispatches’) of how the Labour Party ‘spun’ the ‘news’ during the ‘election’ campaign, engineering fake public demos, mass-producing letters to the Editor from alleged members of the public but in reality, mostly from paid (and unpaid) hacks of the Labour machine. A refreshing change from the usual diet of house/garden/body/lifestyle/sex/ makeovers that the Brit public seem to avidly consume in lieu of a real life.

What then, is the responsibility of the journalists who work for the B(S)BC for the content they manufacture? And in what way does it differ from the hacks who peddled the Kremlin line or Saddam’s for that matter? Aside from style, not much really but then, style is all when there’s little in the way of content.

No doubt the proposed ‘down-sizing’ being advocated by the British state of its propaganda machine is due in no small part to the fact that the computer and the Internet has made the job of ‘manufacturing consent’ literally a manufacturing process, obviating the necessity for so many expensive, university brainwashed pros. No doubt ‘boiler-plating’ the ‘news’ can be performed under the direction of a handful of ‘spinmeisters’ and a small army of suitably trained simians, conditioned, Pavlovian-style, to push the right buttons on a keyboard. Isn’t progress wonderful, and think how much money it saves for yet more ‘makeovers’ and fake history programmes.

Yet, I must return to the subject of the responsibility of those who prostitute themselves on behalf of a criminal state. At what point does covering up the crimes of the state become too much to bear? Is it really good enough to argue that they have mortgages to pay and expensive, private schools to send their kids to? At what point does one’s personal responsibility, never mind conscience, kick in? Are we all so fucked in the head that there’s a rationale for any action?

If, as those of us who engage with the media on a daily basis argue, the media is now the main weapon of social control, then surely we have reached a point that is a step too far? What will these self-same pros do, when they wake up one day and find that their ‘nice’ neighbourhood is under a ‘lock down’? When it’s too late to protest even if ever so mildly and ever so politely?

Whilst the state with the active collaboration of the media tells us that we must accept responsibility for our actions, what of the responsibility of those who serve up the lies? We, on the left, are at great pains to make a distinction between those who serve and those whom they serve, yet so great is the power of the media to transform reality that a handful of individuals now wield immense power, as individuals. The media’s handmaidens have become ‘celebrities’ in their own write, so much so, that making that fine, ever so fine distinction between master and servant has all but dissolved.

Mr Galloway, are you proud of having got rid of one of the very few black women in Parliament? – Jeremy Paxman, BBC ‘Newsnight’

I quoted from one of my favourite playrights and plays, Samuel Beckett’s ‘Endgame’, at the beginning of this piece, the theme of which is; who is the master and whom is the servant? Judging by the performance that Jeremy Paxman delivered on ‘Election’ ( http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/vote_2005/blog/451955
3.stm ) night, when interrogating the unfortunate George Galloway for defeating that pimp of the imperium, Oona King, the erstwhile Condi Rice of New Labour, it seems that there really is no difference between master and servant, they are now one and the same thing. Samuel Beckett would, no doubt, be quite proud of Paxman’s ‘performance’.

It’s my job to be provocative – John Sweeney, BBC ‘news’ meister

As I was informed by another flacking hack of the BSBC whilst in Blackburn recently, as he interrogated another unfortunate victim of the ‘war on terror’, a recently released prisoner of Guatanamo, and who I dared challenge for the way he attempted to set him up by asking him “why are you supporting Craig Murray, he isn’t a Muslim?”, I was informed that it was his job “to be provocative”. All pretence at news gathering or seeking after the ‘truth’ has been dumped as surplus to requirement. These pimps of the imperium are shameless in their display of power and in their sheer arrogance, seeing themselves not merely as messengers but as the message, bringing an entirely new meaning to the phrase ‘the medium is the message’.

But of course, the lure of money and celebrity status is powerful medicine, especially for people who would have been, in a previous age, nameless, faceless backroom boys and girls, beavering away on behalf of their paymasters in some cramped office on Portland Place. Now they travel the world, they have ‘access all areas’, courtesy the taxpayer. These are the new aristocracy of our times, wielding power formally the exclusive province of diplomats and overt politicians. Hence, they should be treated as media mercenaries, contract cameras, who consider themselves as not answerable to us, mere mortals. Their job is to sell us the New World Order. Of one thing we can be sure, that when the BBC ‘downsizes’, the Sweeneys and Paxmans have an assured future, their jobs are not on the line.




:: Article nr. 12041 sent on 25-may-2005 08:59 ECT


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Lord Preserve US!

http://www.cswu.cz/prequels/
postavy/maul/images/maulface.jpg


The Dark Side of the Empire:
Is Bush a Sith Lord?
PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS
May 24, 2005

The current episode of Star Wars is dynamite for the duplicitous Bush administration. Palpatine, a Sith Lord masquerading as a galactic Republican, becomes Chancellor of the Galatic Republic through deception. Palpatine uses wars that he instigates to elevate security over the power of the Senate and to become dictator.

In a moment of triumph, Palpatine tells the Senate: "In order to ensure our security and continuing stability, the Republic will be reorganized into the first Galactic Empire, for a safe and secure society." The senators respond with sustained cheering and applause. Padme says, "So this is how liberty dies, with thunderous applause."

Sith lords use the powers of the dark side of the force. Jedi knights use the power of the good side. The Jedi are selfless and use their incredible powers to protect the Republic. Sith are evil and crave absolute power.

Palpatine, who is really Darth Sidious, manipulates the Senate and enlists the Jedi Council's patriotism to "defend" the Republic against a "separatist" army that he secretly directs. The purpose of the orchestrated war is to erode liberty in the name of security. The naïve Jedi catch on too late and are decimated. The Republic falls.

Bush's "war against terrorism" is no less orchestrated than Palpatine's war and has led to the same result: a society dominated by security concerns.

The top secret British government memo that was leaked to the London Times proves beyond all doubt that Bush invaded Iraq for none of the changing reasons that he has given a too-trusting public. Bush did not invade Iraq because of weapons of mass destruction or because he wanted to bring democracy to Iraq.

Why did Bush invade Iraq? No one, least of all the Bush administration, has come up with a believable reason. Yet, there is no shortage of patriotic Republicans who sincerely believe that Bush has made America safer by turning the Muslim world against us and stirring up a hornets nest of terrorists united by their hatred of America.

Moreover, like Palpatine's war, Bush's war in Iraq appears to be interminable. US military commanders say the US will be fighting in Iraq for years to come. Forecasts are that the war will have cost taxpayers $600 billion by 2010.

Meanwhile, Bush, like Palpatine, has brought civil liberties to a crisis. In the US civil liberties are everywhere biting the dust. Not content with the Orwellian-named "Patriot Act," the Bush administration is pushing for expanded secret police powers. Even conservative Republican Bob Barr (Washington Times, May 17) writes that provisions of the "Patriot Act" go far beyond fighting terrorism "and undermine our constitutional freedoms and Fourth Amendment rights."

Barr is chairman of a coalition, Patriots to Restore Checks and Balances. In other words, dear readers, the checks and balances are gone. Bush has enabled the police to bypass the courts. Executive power rules, and there are no Jedi knights.

http://www.cmerrill.com/archives/zell.palpatine.jpg

The Sith, however, are everywhere. In our day the Sith masquerade as neoconservatives. Neocons deal in absolutes. They believe the end justifies the means. As the Jedi master Obi-Wan tells Anakin, who is turning to the dark side and emerging as Darth Vader, "only a Sith Lord deals in absolutes." Anakin to Obi-Wan: "If you're not with me, you're my enemy."

Palpatine is able to manipulate the Galactic Senate with the clever use of words that play upon emotions. People want to feel secure. They want their side to prevail and will do whatever it takes to win, including trading their Republic for an Empire. Palpatine prevails because people deceive themselves.

Republicans have become adept at self-deception. They will believe any argument that justifies Bush and no news report that casts doubt on Bush's war. The leaked British government memo is dismissed as just more anti-Bush propaganda from the liberal media, like Dan Rather and Newsweek.

Newsweek's retraction of its story that US soldiers flushed a Koran down a toilet proves to Republicans that the only problem is an anti-American liberal media. The fact that Newsweek was absolutely correct in reporting desecration of the Koran by US troops--and only got wrong the particular way in which the holy book was desecrated--has been totally ignored by Republicans.

Republicans believe everything Bush says. When he tells them he needs a police state to save them from terrorists, they believe him.

Who will save us from Bush's police state?

Just as Child Protective Services has had to frame innocent parents and child care providers as child abusers in order to justify its budgets and a massive bureaucracy, the vast Homeland Security apparatus will have to "find" terrorists. Otherwise, there is no point to all the expanded police powers and the huge budget.

Just as the indignities of Airport Security and its assorted searches fall on loyal American citizens, the police state measures will also fall on loyal American citizens.
With the courts bypassed, a terrorist is whoever the secret police say is a terrorist. The US government is already committing the crime of kidnapping people mistakenly identified as terrorist suspects and flying them to brutal regimes to be tortured.

Police states have an insatiable need for enemies. In Stalin's time, the secret police conducted "street sweeps." People waiting for buses and shopping for food were carted off to prison, where they were tortured until they implicated others. Thus was the Gulag filled with innocents.

"It can't happen here," but the beginnings of it already have. The US prison at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba is full of mistaken identities and people who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time-including, according to the Associated Press, a chicken farmer and an invalid. Bush's brand of democracy--a regime that holds people in prison for three years without charges-does not have civil liberties at heart.

Republicans are cheering. According to news reports Congress has passed-and Bush is about to sign-a law requiring a national identity card (Real ID) containing invasive digital information about the person.

How long will it be before the card specifies whether the person is a gun owner? If it is dangerous for air travel to permit a passenger to have a toothpick or nail clippers, how can a terrorist-threatened society permit mass gun ownership?

If the constitutional protections of civil liberties can be suspended in order to better fight terrorism, the Second Amendment doesn't have a chance. A government that spies on its citizens will not trust them with guns. When gun control becomes an essential feature of Homeland Security, the National Rifle Association and talk radio conservatives will be as astounded as Bail Organa and Padme when they hear Palpatine declare "an empire . . . and a sovereign ruler chosen for life."

Paul Craig Roberts has held a number of academic appointments and has contributed to numerous scholarly publications. He served as Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. His graduate economics education was at the University of Virginia, the University of California at Berkeley, and Oxford University. He is coauthor of The Tyranny of Good Intentions.He can be reached at: pcroberts@postmark.net

Ex Maple Flag

Israeli F-16s to participate at Maple Flag XXXVIII
Posted by Lieven on May 13, 2005 - 07:15 AM

For the first time, the IDF/AF [1] is dispatching fighter jets to Canada to participate in the Maple Flag exercises which will take place May 15-June 24. They will have 10 F-16s and about 150 air crew in Alberta.

[2]The Israeli air force [3] confirmed that it had accepted a Canadian invitation to participate in the annual war games and was sending F-16 Fighting Falcons there. The move follows a policy by the IAF to participate in more international air exercises. The IAF has trained with the Italian, Romanian, German, Polish and Turkish air forces. It has also said it will hold a joint exercise with the Indians, but no date has been set.

Reports from Canada said that the IDF/AF [4] was sending 10 F-16s and about 150 air crew to Alberta.

More than 5,000 military personnel from 11 nations and a NATO Airborne Early Warning and Control (AWACS) contingent will participate in exercise Maple Flag XXXVIII. In addition, seven nations will observe the exercise as part of the International Observer Program (IOP). The exercise stretches over three two-week periods through May and June:

Period 1: 15 May - 27 May
Period 2: 29 May - 10 June
Period 3: 12 June -24 June
Maple Flag XXXVIII "Blue Air" Friendly Forces

[5]The following forces are scheduled to participate in this year's air combat exercise as "Blue Air." They will deploy to provide conventional ground attack, air superiority, SEAD (suppression of enemy air defence), tactical resupply, reconnaissance, air-to-air refueling, and AWACS (airborne early warning and control):
Canadian Forces
Belgian Air Force
German Air Force
French Air Force
Israeli Air Force
NATO AWACS (airborne early warning and control contingent)
Royal Air Force
Royal Netherlands [6] Air Force
Royal New Zealand [7] Air Force
Republic of Singapore [8] Air Force
Swedish Air Force
United States Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps
Maple Flag XXXVIII "Red Air" Opposing Forces

The following forces are scheduled to participate in this year's coalition exercise as "Red Air." They will deploy to provide air and ground threat:
14 CTS (United States Air Force)
64th AGRS (United States Air Force aggressor squadron)
266th Range Squadron (United States Air National Guard)
A number of Arab countries have been invited, but none is sending active aircraft. Qatar and the United Arab Emirates [9], which is currently receiving the F-16 Block 60 [10], are sending observers.

Maple Flag XXXVIII Observing Nations

The following nations are sending military members who will observe but not participate in the exercise:
Brazil
Argentina
Chile
Greece
Qatar
Singapore
United Arab Emirates
The Cold Lake range spreads across more than 11,000 sq.km. of northern Alberta bush land. With civilian traffic banned from the area, military pilots have free rein to practice combat skills.

The range contains dozens of mock targets for planes to attack, including airfields, industrial complexes and military installations.

A number of different combat and combat support aircraft will be participating in this year?s exercise, including: Mirage F-1 and Mirage 2000N, F-15 Eagle and F-15E Strike Eagle, F-16 Fighting Falcon, CF-18 Hornet, EA-6B Prowler, Tornado GR4, B-1B Lancer, E-3 Sentry AWACS, Transall C-160, C-130 Hercules, B-707.

Exercise Maple Flag is a Canadian variation of the United States Air Force Red Flag exercise, held several times a year at Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada. Both exercises were developed in response to a Vietnam War finding that 90 percent of aircraft losses took place during the first ten combat missions. Aircrew who survived these critical first ten missions were more likely to survive the remainder of their combat tour.

The IDF/AF has long been a participant in the US Red Flag exercise.


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I'll Bet it All, Alex

http://wwwimage.cbsnews.com/
images/2004/09/01/image640056x.jpg

And Now, It's Time For... "Media Jeopardy!"

by Norman Solomon

Monday, May 23, 2005
by CommonDreams.org


The endless show that seems to fill America's every waking moment -- and many of its nightmares -- could be called "Media Jeopardy!"

Before proceeding, here's a reminder of the rules: Listen to the answer and then try to come up with the question.

Let's get started.

The first category is "Media Untouchables."

* They're an ideological pair and stylistic opposites. On television, one is a slathering fount of bombast, the other is icy cerebellum, but both are widely syndicated columnists dedicated to helping the right wing of the Republican Party. One had a role in the scandal involving the Bush administration's payback "outing" of a critic's wife who was a CIA undercover agent.

The other has been guilty of numerous ethical lapses, from unacknowledged conflicts-of-financial-interest to utilizing debate-prep papers stolen from the Carter White House to coach then-challenger Ronald Reagan in the fall of 1980. Yet neither man seems to suffer professional or legal consequences.

Who are Robert Novak and George Will?

* This cable network, partly owned by a major Pentagon contractor, has been trying to "outfox Fox" ever since the start of the Iraq invasion.

What is MSNBC?

Our next category is "Prejudice and Jingoism."

* He has spewed out vile bigotry against Arabs on his morning show that's nationally simulcast on radio and television. Yet network managers don't seem to mind, and many politicians across the narrow liberal-to-conservative spectrum never seem to tire of cozying up to him on the air.

Who is Don Imus?

* While tributes are often paid to members of the U.S. Armed Forces who lose their lives in Iraq, these human beings are rarely mourned in the mainstream American media.

Who are Iraqi people?

Now it's on to "Not-So-Public Broadcasting."

* This network is now under so much effective political pressure from the Bush administration that alarm has spread across the nation. In a May 2005 editorial (headlined "A Publicly Funded Fox News?"), the St. Petersburg Times expressed concern that the network is apt to "increasingly find itself at the mercy of government and corporate masters with deep pockets and hidden agendas."

Yet the current media debate rarely mentions that -- for more than a quarter of a century -- this network has done very little to challenge those masters ... and much to help them.

What is PBS?

http://images.amazon.com/images/
P/B0000690P7.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg

We're now in Double Jeopardy.

The category is "Real Live Journalists."

* As a Newsday reporter specializing in science and health, this journalist broke new ground with books and countless articles. She won the Peabody, the Polk and the Pulitzer prizes. In February 2005, resigning from the Newsday staff, she left a memo to colleagues that noted the recent evolution of the newspaper's ownership, first with management changes at the top of Times Mirror and then the purchase by the Tribune company.

"Ever since the Chandler Family plucked Mark Willes from General Foods, placing him at the helm of Times Mirror with a mandate to destroy the institutions in ways that would boost dividends, journalism has suffered at Newsday," the reporter wrote. What's more, she added, "The deterioration we experienced at Newsday was hardly unique.

All across America news organizations have been devoured by massive corporations, and allegiance to stockholders, the drive for higher share prices, and push for larger dividend returns trumps everything that the grunts in the newsrooms consider their missions."

Who is Laurie Garrett?

* This intrepid journalist broke many stories about the Iran-Contra scandal during the 1980s when he worked for The Associated Press. Years ago, he founded the website ConsortiumNews.com, which features ongoing investigative journalism.

Who is Robert Parry?

* She has covered the White House for longer than anyone else alive. Now, as a syndicated columnist, she is so insightful that President Bush goes out of his way to prevent her from asking questions at news conferences.

Who is Helen Thomas?

Now, we're moving into Final Jeopardy. Our ultimate question is in the category of


"Use It or Lose It."

* They're just a few words. And these days, many people in top positions of government power don't seem to have the foggiest notion what they mean. But those words express the most crucial principle that journalists and the rest of us are depending on to preserve a constitutional system in the United States.


Time's up. Can I see your answer please?

That's correct. The First Amendment.

Norman Solomon's latest book, "War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death," will be published in early summer. His columns and other writings can be found at: www.normansolomon.com

Galloway on Victory

http://www.indymedia.org.uk/images/2004/01/284247.jpg


An Exclusive Interview with George Galloway:
How to Build a Successful Progressive Alliance
ESTHER SASSAMAN
and THOMAS NAGY

At the Dirksen Senate Office Building this Tuesday, a pack of reporters followed George Galloway, Respect Coalition Minister of Parliament for Bethnal Green, London, before and after his testimony at the Government Committee on Investigations.

He had offered to go before the committee to clear his name. His electrifying testimony and subsequent cross-examination - by senators Coleman and Levin as well as by a gathering of broadcast reporters from the U.S. and Europe - has been aptly described by many progressive reporters.

Sadly, few of the reporters gathered that day asked Galloway about his newsworthy victory as a Respect candidate in the seat of Bethnal Green, a seat of immigrants and working class people in east London. What's more, the progressive reports of Tuesday's hearing have largely focused on his refutation of the charges and rhetorical prowess, not his historic success as a Respect candidate.

We caught up with Galloway and his team at Union Station, in a restaurant on a circular platform towering above the busy station. As he puffed a cigar, we asked him about the victory of Respect and its applicability to the problems faced by American activists.

* * *

Esther Sassaman: The questions I'm going to ask u are basically a totally different ball of wax from what others have asked today. These are organizing questions, because you just won the holy grail recently in Bethnal Green. We need help from you guys.

George Galloway: Oh yeah, definitely.

ES : Respect is an innovative alliance between Muslim and socialist forces. Why was it instituted and why was it successful, especially in Bethnal Green?

GG: Well, I have been quite central to the development so I guess I'm well placed as anyone to comment on it. I have long felt the things that divide us, the left and the Muslim community, were much less important than the things which united us. That's not to say the things are not important, just that they're much less important than the things that divided us. I have felt that one of the reasons why in places like France the Muslims were impotent and weak, and the left was impotent and weak, was because no fusion existed between them. Not even a fringe seemed to link them - over time, really dating back to the role of religion in the time of the French Revolution. Well, the role of religion has changed since the French Revolution. And nowadays most religious people are on the same side as most progressive people on these really core issues of war, peace and exploitation and the domination one by another, Zionism, the war, and so on.

So I've long felt that this alliance could be built -- in the Stop the War movement, in which I was one of the leaders, which was really a precursor of Respect, we achieved that. We had people under the same roof,people marching in the same demonstrations. We had Trotskyists, Stalinists, social democrats, liberals, Jews, Muslims, Christians, people of all kinds, who united around the basic demands of our movement, which were: No war on Iraq, freedom for Palestine.

And out of that experience was born Respect. And everyone thought that it would be an unholy alliance, But actually it has worked incredibly well. We not only won a seat, coming from nowhere, one of the most historic results in British political history, but we came second in three others, and we were third in another, and fourth in four seats. Four of the ten best results of the night were scored by us.

All over east London, and in the center of Birmingham, where the poor people live, where the immigrant people live, where students live, we showed that we are the real challengers of New Labour, except where we beat them. And that alliance is holding fast.

And I commend it to other countries. You can't transfer one political model all around the world - heaven knows the left's made mistakes along that line - long before us. But basic truth, seeking unity of those forces that are against war, imperialism, occupation and globalization must be there. And if that means that you have your view on abortion and I have mine, then I think that's a price worth paying.

ES: That moves me onto the next question - which is, you know, as an American, a little bit of a selfish question, but very useful to us - You already said that such an alliance can prosper in the US. My question is - how? One of the main problems we have here as progressive Muslim and non-Muslim activists in the US is we have trouble mobilizing the larger Muslim community due to an atmosphere of fear after September 11th. How - how do we overcome that?

GG: Well, ithats understandable, and at the beginning you will only be able to mobilize the most courageous and the best established. There's a clear difference between someone who - whose "jacket is here on a shaky nail" as we say, and someone who was born here, of Muslim extraction. That person is likely to be more courageous in facing up to the prevailing atmosphere - than someone who has just arrived or thinks that that they might be just a transient here. But of course the local population is, more and more, the second generation population. And that's where I'd start. I'd start with the most politically advanced of the older generation and I'd start targeting the younger generation. And say to them: politics can change things. Democracy can change things. The extremists .... the Salafids, they argue that voting is haraam, that elections are haraam, that working with what they call the kufr, the unbelievers, is haraam. We say, no, it's vital. And, it works. And Bethnal Green is a good example of it.

ES: These questions to follow are more about the political culture problems we have here in the US.

Tom Nagy: The problem we have here in the us is that the right wing - on media, communications skills, and finances - is so far ahead of the progressives. Like, Esther and I were only two of the small number of progressive people here to cover the hearing.

ES: And the only two [progressives] from the United States, I believe.

TN: Do you have any suggestions for us? It's a problem throughout the United States.

ES: How do we catch up?

TN: They've got a thirty year advantage, all the institutions.

ES: The think tanks, the newspapers...

GG: But, the Muslim community here is a very substantial one, and it's very prosperous. And it must be fought for with assiduous work. If I can help in any way I'll try to, -- to tap the kinds of fund raising that would allow you to get started with a project. I've been in three taxi cabs since I've been here. All of them were driven by Muslims. All of them recognized me immediately. And all of them were huge supporters of everything I stand for. Eh, extraordinary! And really encouraging. Two Pakistanis and one Afghan. And that's before you even touch the Arab-American community, which is likely to be better-established and even more prosperous. So I think that it's important that this get started. Maybe I'll come and do something, some speaking around the United States.

TN: That would be great.

ES: On a tangent I do know these folks in Cleveland that would be overjoyed to host and hear you, I'll get contact info to your folks.

GG: Thank you

ES: I'm going to ask the epistemology question - epistemology, for the people who may not know that fifty cent word that are reading this, is the science of knowing - what kind of theory of knowledge is out there. And it's my personal belief that the Republican Party and to a larger and larger extent, the Democratic Party - is inventing its own epistemology. Basically, instead of having a rigorous investigation of facts, for example at your hearing today, they just make an assertion. And because they say it in this vertically integrated media machine, it's true! And the problem is, if that epistemology spreads across the United States, then we have a huge disadvantage because even the facts won't save us if they can invent their own facts, How do we fight that?

GG: Well that's a brilliantly formed question.

ES: Thank you.

GG: I have no easy answer to it. Beyond - nobody ever said it would be easy. We are, in our two countries, fighting against an imperialist monster...that thinks nothing of massacring large numbers of people. And this is Jack Londons Iron Heel. And it may be that in my lifetime, Tom's lifetime, I hope not in yours - that we do not break through. We may move forward. We may merely stop them from pushing us back as far as they might have done if we weren't here. But we have a duty to try. What else are we here for, but to fight for the truth and fight for justice? In the end, if we're talking about epistemology, all we're asking for is justice! Justice - We believe in a society of justice in the world. Justice for the Palestinians and justice for everybody. That's all we're asking for. Now, there are a number of constituencies who are predisposed, if stripped of anything that gets in the way, predisposed to the idea of justice. And religious people, many religious people, are amongst those. I think of the Cardinal Archbishop of Detroit. who came to Baghdad a couple of times.... The Roman Catholic Church - I speak as a Catholic - the Roman Catholic Church, even in right wing countries like this, is seeded closely with ideals of justice. Black churches, black Christians, must be open to the ideals of justice.

ES: Yeah I sing in a Baptist gospel choir.

GG: All right, you'll know that then. And the Muslim community, however many millions it is in America, is definitely predisposed towards justice - both because Islam expounds the idea of justice, in a very powerful way, more powerful actually than the other religions, and because most of the people suffering injustice in the world on the international level are Muslims. You can speak to Kashmiris about injustice very easily. You can speak to Arab-Americans about injustice very easily.

ES: But there's often been a problem spreading that outside of their national interests. How do you purport to overcome that? That's something definitely that we've got to work on here.

GG: Yeah. I think that the task is to demonstrate that this injustice is a system. It's not an accident, it's a system. And the system requires that injustice. Injustice is its currency. People ask me, in mosques and so on, why are Muslims hated so much by the powerful governments? And I say, 'You don't have to be a Muslim to be hated.' Cuba is hated. Second, they [the US] quite like the Saudi royal family, and they pray five times a day. What they hate is the command in Islam that the believer must hate injustice and must struggle against it and must refuse tyranny. And, that these people are the tyrants. And their currency is injustice. Inevitably, that puts them on a collision course with Islam - with genuine believers in Islam. So, it is possible to generalize from the specific. There are some specifics that are more specific than others. For example, an Egyptian is equally outraged about what happens in Palestine as a Palestinian. A Kashmiri might not be so quickly and totally able to pass their feelings about one to another. But it's definitely not beyond us to try and to make progress.

ES: One example of that would be in Iran, which is a really good example of non-Arabs, Persians in this case, having a strong solidarity with Palestine and the people of Palestine.

GG: There are no Shi'ites in Palestine.

ES: Right.

GG: None at all.

ES: Yeah.

GG: But the people of Iran are deeply committed to the Palestinian cause.

ES: So that's a good sign.

GG: Yeah, after the revolution they took over the Israeli embassy and gave it to the PLO! Alhamdulilah! And, they called the street in which the British Embassy was in Bobby Sands Boulevard!

TN: Wow, that's real solidarity.

ES: And that sort of thing really has a cultural currency, and these symbolic gestures really spread all over the world.

GG: Sure they do.

ES: And that's something that we on the left really need to catch up on. The right is really dominating the field.

GG: I think - talking as a leftist, to leftists - let me say, the first hang up we have to get over is that somehow religion is a reactionary thing.

ES: Hear, hear.

GG: Whether you believe in God or not, it can hardly be a bad thing that people want to live their lives by a value system of peace, which is what in the end religion is. Religions say, don't harm other people. Treat people as you would wish to be treated. Don't steal. Don't kill people. And so on and so on. Well there's nothing wrong with that. Even if you don't believe in God there's nothing wrong with that. And a person who sincerely believes that sort of thing is the kind of person that can be won to a broader progressive agenda.

Esther Sassaman is a freelance journalist and Palestine solidarity activist. Tom Nagy is a anti-sanctions and anti-imperialist activist and writer. They can be reached at: esassaman@gmail.com

Rejecting Lady Liberty

The Real Newsweek Scandal
By Stephan Richter
The Globalist

WASHINGTON, D.C., MAY 20, 2005 — Over the decades, a subscription to the international edition of Newsweek or Time Magazine has been a near-indispensable tool for many high school and college students in Europe, Asia and Latin America who were interested in the United States — and wanted to attend a U.S. university.

The assumption had always been that the international editions of these renowned magazines were a "best of" compilation of articles on the events and people driving the U.S. debate on key domestic and international issues.

Relying on the editors' good judgment, the reader could count on finding articles that best explained complex issues, that did not shrink away from covering controversial topics — and that ultimately equipped a foreigner with a solid understanding of Americans' current thinking.

It must be a sign of the times that the basic assumption — that you get to read a selection of the most interesting features read by Americans themselves in the domestic edition of the weekly magazine — no longer applies.

The current "Newsweek scandal" is all about the White House's charge that Newsweek besmirched the image of the U.S. military with a careless and inaccurate article alleging desecration of the Koran. As many others have pointed out, much of the Bush Administration's criticism is wrongheaded and hypocritical.

Dream on, America

Put in the broader context of how Americans view their role in the world, the truly disconcerting scandal at Newsweek took place several months ago — at the end of January 2005.

In the January 31, 2005 issue, Newsweek International — edited very capably by Fareed Zakaria — treated its readers around the world to a courageous, well-written and extensively researched cover story. It was principally authored by Newsweek columnist and Princeton University political scientist Andrew Moravcsik — and entitled "Dream On America."

An American problem

The article begins by describing just how out of tune President Bush's second inaugural address on January 20 was with how the United States is perceived in many countries around the world.

But the piece quickly moves beyond discussing global anti-Bush sentiment. Rather, the author lays out — in great detail and supported by numerous on-the-record quotes and detailed polling data — that it is the American model itself that many foreigners have become disillusioned with.

And Mr. Moravcsik also quickly dispels any notion that his article is merely a dressed-up anti-Bush rant: "A President Kerry would have had to confront a similar disaffection."

As he puts it, "Americans are living in a dream world. Not only do others not share America's self-regard, they no longer aspire to emulate the country's social and economic achievement."

The American model — discredited?

This global disaffection with America described in the feature stretches from the U.S. political system (too much money and influence peddling), to its economy (Americans are getting a raw deal in terms of working hours, social protection and health insurance) and social model (racial tensions, high incarceration rates and gun violence).

But the hardest blow to America's self-image may be Mr. Moravcsik's detailed description of how newly democratic countries around the world opt in favor of Europe's political model rather than America's.

Pretending to have a debate

In short, it is an article that shows that the author has his finger on the pulse of how people around the world feel about the United States at the beginning of the 21st century.

And it is decidedly not an anti-American manifesto. Rather, it is an article that must have given hope to the many friends America still has around the world who read it in Newsweek International.

"Finally," these pro-American Europeans, Asians and others must have thought, "the U.S. debate is moving in the right direction. America's self-corrective mechanism can now get to work and ultimately restore the true American leadership the world still needs."

Except, of course, that this was not the case. This uniquely well-argued article — with additional reporting from locales around the world — never made it into Newsweek's U.S. edition.

But why?

Would the article have made any huge difference in the domestic U.S. debate? Maybe, maybe not. But the simple fact that Newsweek's editors decided against publishing such an important and illuminating article speaks volumes.

One can only guess what their motives may have been: Maybe there wasn't enough room for such a rather lengthy feature, which would be a poor excuse at best.

Cutting readers out of the loop

Another reason might be that the magazine did not want to upset its corporate advertisers with an article that is highly critical of corporate lobbying and other excesses of the U.S. political and economic systems.

Or maybe the editors simply thought that their readers were not interested in, or simply did not want to hear, the article's uncomfortable message — the worst possible reason for not running it.

So contrary to what most people outside of the United States think, Newsweek — and Time, for that matter — are cutting some readers out of the loop. But it's not the foreigners who are being kept away from some of the best and most provocative stories.

Rather, the most pointed pieces are often commissioned by — and printed in — the magazines' international editions. Doing so gives international readers an impression of a vigorous U.S. debate that, sadly, does not always take place.

Telling truth to power

This is all the more appalling given that the real audience for the essay was not the readership abroad, but Americans at home.

It would have been a powerful contribution to journalism's highest function — telling truth to power — to make the article available to its intended audience, especially if it does not like to hear that truth.

The real crisis

What we have to contend with is a situation where the problems of American journalism extend far beyond the admittedly too widespread use of anonymous sources. The real crisis is about an increasing unwillingness to tell hard truths it when it really matters.

In that sense, the current Newsweek scandal has it backwards. Newsweek's editors surely do not deserve all the blame that was heaped upon them in the wake of the Koran story.

But the real con job on the American people took place in January, when the same editors apparently decided that — for whatever reason — the "Dream On America" essay should not be published in their magazine.



— Stephan Richter is Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of The Globalist, the daily online feature service on the global economy, politics and culture. Mr. Richter is also founder and president of TransAtlantic Futures, Inc., a Washington-based global strategy, media and education firm, which was established in 1989.Mr. Richter is also a monthly columnist for Les Echos, France's leading financial daily, and writes regularly for the Financial Times Deutschland.

The Man and Mr. Murdoch

Murdoch and the Pentagon:
Psywar Warriors Working Hand-in-Hand
Kurt Nimmo
May 22, 2005

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It is almost hilarious the Pentagon tells us the Geneva Conventions were violated when the British tabloid, the Sun, published photos of Saddam Hussein in his underwear. I said almost because the Pentagon, under the sway of Bush and his outfit of Straussian criminals, is currently the most notorious violator of the Geneva Conventions on the planet, from Iraq to Afghanistan to Colombia and beyond. “US officials promised an aggressive investigation into who was responsible for the photographs, which they believe were taken more than a year ago. They said the images violated Pentagon rules and may have breached the Geneva Conventions,” reports the New Zealand Herald.

As Signs of the Times notes, we can discard the Pentagon’s newfound concern for the human rights of Iraq’s most famous prisoner (or a double pretending to be Iraq’s most famous prisoner) because the Sun “is owned by die-hard Israeli supporter and media mogul Rupert Murdoch. Note the fact that the reason given for the release of the pictures was in order to deal a ‘body blow’ to the Iraq insurgency. The clear implication in this statement is that the Iraq insurgency is being carried out by Saddam loyalists, which is of course completely untrue. Yet it suits the US and Israel very well for the world to believe the lie that the Iraqi insurgents are a fringe group of supporters of an evil tyrant rather than the truth that they are ordinary Iraqis attempting to oust a foreign occupying power.” It is, as well, not unlike the humiliation of Abu Ghraib, a way to further anger Iraqis and Arabs in general, thus cranking up the heat in the Middle East, as Bush and the Strausscons are wont to do as part of their overall plan to sow chaos and foment violence in that part of the world.

Publishing the photos “might or might not be the handiwork of the Western intelligence agencies,” writes Mohammed A.R. Galadari for the Khaleej Times. “But, more importantly, I was shocked to hear from an American journalist, as he spoke to a famous TV channel, that the publication of those pictures might lead to demonstrations and a show of anger in the Arab world,” same as the revelations of U.S. military yahoos dunking the Koran in a bucket of urine and feces, published (and then retracted) by Newsweek recently, angered the Muslim street. In the latter case, the Pentagon killed two birds with one stone, so to speak—it riled up faithful Muslims and also dealt an embarrassing blow to the spineless “liberal media,” in fact the center of right corporate media.

Galadari, however, gets it wrong, writing that, with the publication of the photos, deliberately released by U.S. intelligence, Bush is sending “a clear message to all those who practice dictatorship and fail to care for the welfare of their peoples,” a joke if one scratches the surface and takes a good hard look at the real reasons Bush and Crew invaded and now occupy Iraq, none having to do with the welfare of people, at least not the vast majority of Muslim and Arab people. It makes infinitely more sense, considering the easily researched pronouncements of the Strausscon “think tanks” and foundations such as PNAC and AEI, to conclude that the photos were released as yet another salvo in the psychological war against Islam (note how the photos of Saddam and the gruesome sexual torture of detainees at Abu Ghraib—common enough fare in a debased American cultural milieu—are designed specifically to outrage conservative Muslim sensibilities).

It stretches credulity to believe that demeaning photos would simply emerge undetected from Camp Cropper, the top-secret Baghdad prison (called a high-value detention site) at Baghdad international airport where Saddam Hussein or rather his double is being held by U.S. and British intelligence, and find their serendipitous way to Rupert Murdoch, the premier of Bush propaganda.

Finally, as al-Jazeera reports, Murdoch’s Sun “quoted an unidentified ’senior British military source’ as saying that the top brass at the British Defense Ministry and the Pentagon were secretly pleased by the media exposure. While the Pentagon publicly expressed anger about the pictures, ‘commanders on the ground will be secretly quite pleased. It is a morale blow to the resistance to see their great leader so humbled,’ the source said, according to the Sun.”

Cui bono, anyone?

Afghanistan: Canada's Iraq?

Defence Minister, Bill Graham says the plan to re-deploy Canadian operations currently in and around the northern capital city of Kabul are to go ahead. He also announced, an additional 1250 troops by early next year. -{ape}

http://www.canada-afghanistan.gc.ca/
site/images/Minister_in_Kabul.jpg

Afghanistan: Canada's Iraq?
C. L. Cook
May 22, 2005

Last week, in a speech to the Standing Committee on National Defence and Veterans Affairs and the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, National Defence Minister Graham reiterated how Canada will face its "new" role in global military affairs. He cited the completion of a new Defence Policy Statement and its central document, A Role of Pride and Influence in the World.

According to Graham, that pride and influence will be expanded in Afghanistan first, then on to other "failed and failing states" around the globe. How those "failed and failing" will be chosen, or by whom, was left unsaid, but the minister did make it clear, Canada will move towards a "more sophisticated" operational integration with the U.S. military. Presumably, enhanced sophistication isn't necessary on the diplomatic front.

Graham informed the assembled worthies, Canada recognizes, "security at home often begins with security abroad," adding the new policy means his government will be "enhancing Canada's contribution to global security and peace building." The new direction is, in Graham's view, "informed by the rich operational experience of the Canadian Forces, both in Canada and locations ranging from Afghanistan to the Balkans, to Haiti.

That that "rich operational experience" includes the death and maiming of Canadian soldiers, as in Afghanistan; providing assistance to murderous thugs in the overthrow of a democratically elected government in Haiti; allowing the world's fastest growing human trafficking region in the Balkans; uselessly witnessing the explosion of heroin production, again in Afghanistan, Minister Graham will excuse a lack of enthusiasm for his proudly announced new initiatives.

Never mind the more than $600 million cdn price tag for the first phase in Afghanistan alone that comes with Mr. Graham's new found muscularity. Never mind that what the minister and his government recognize as splendid achievements are less charitably described in the countries where his largesse is experienced.

The problem with Mr. Bill Graham's Role of Pride and Influence in the World is the precise diminishment of Canada and Canadians it will bring. Unleashing well-heeled NGO's like CIDA, in accompaniment with military logistic support, a la the U.S.A., will undoubtedly put Canada in the sights of the very terror groups he so sonoriously warns against. But, there is a more immediate problem with Graham's thinking: Afghanistan.

After four years of occupation, the coalition occupiers have little "influence" beyond the city limits of Kabul. Hamid Karzai is in Washington, D.C. at this very hour, readying to break the news to George Bush. But Bush's knows this. His pre-emptive jab at Karzai for allowing the heroin trade to flourish, designed to take some of the steam out of Karzai's "demands" that justice be brought against American soldiers involved in Afghanistan's Abu Ghraib-like abuses against prisoners at U.S. air-base/detention centre Bagram, tacitly acknowledges as much.

Now, Bill Graham will preside over the relocation of the Canadians from their secure base, Camp Julien, to the south and west of the country, both areas seeing a resurgence of Taliban rebel activity; activity bearing more resemblance to Baghdad than the relatively calm Kabul.

Though Graham may like to believe all's well in Afghanistan, and Haiti for that matter, due to Canada's foreign adventurism, the fact is: things are not rosy in Afghanistan, and they're poised to get worse. Canadians are being marched into the mouth of the lion, while the pied Bill Graham pipes merrily away.


Chris Cook host Gorilla Radio, a weekly public affairs program, broad/webcast from the University of Victoria, Canada. He also serves as a contributing editor to PEJ.org. You can check out his blog here.

Bush Hounded out of Mosque

Worshippers Hound Laura Bush Out of Jerusalem Mosque

PEJ News - In further efforts to boost her political profile, First Lady, Laura Bush is currently conducting a "good-will" visit of the middle-east. But, good will was not apparent in the Dome of the Rock mosque, today. When Bush and her entourage entered the holy shrine, outraged worshippers harangued her, shouting "Koran, Koran" and demanding she leave the mosque. -{ape}

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Worshippers Hound Laura Bush
out of Jerusalem Mosque
C.L. Cook
May 22, 2005

Laura Bush kicked off her goodwill trip to the middle-east Friday. The timing could not be worse for her. The scandalous revelations by Newsweek magazine of practiced desecration of the Holy Koran by interrogators at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba's Camp X-Ray prison has ignited anti-U.S. demonstrations across the Muslim world, (Newsweek's subsequent retraction of elements of the story has done little to appease broad public outrage) and a recent escalation of hostilities in Gaza over the ongoing Israeli occupation both conspire to sink Bush's goodwill efforts.

Bush's arrival at the al-Haram al-Sharif mosque, the highly sensitive shrine claimed by both Muslims and Jews and the flashpoint of the current Intafada, with an Israeli and American secret service escort was too much for surprised worshippers already in the mosque. One worshipper cried out, "You are not welcome here. Why are you hassling our Muslims? How dare you come in here?" Soon, dozens were shouting her out of the mosque. Israeli security and U.S. Secret Service agents surrounded the embattled first lady and began pushing back the gathering crowd.

Things didn't go much better for Bush at the Western Wall, a site holy to Jews. While placing a prayer in a crevice in the wall, Bush was accosted by Jews upset at the arrest and imprisonment of Israeli spy, Jonathan Pollard. The demonstrators, identified by Reuters reporter Adam Entous as "Nationalist Jews" shouted and waved placards. For her part, Bush acknowledged the damage to United States' image in wake of prison torture abuses and the war in Iraq. She said the protests reveal, "what an emotional place this is as we go from each one of these very, very holy spots to the next."

She made a call for peace in the region, saying "We're reminded again of what we all want, what every one of us prays for...what we all want is peace."

While visiting Jericho, a group of Palestinian women granted audience complained to Bush about Israeli occupation policies. Bush reassured them the so-called "Roadmap" could work and that, "The United States will do what they can in this process. It also requires the work of the people here, of the Palestinians and the Israelis, to come to the table."

Galloway and Taking the "Left" to the Woodshed

An Open Letter to Democrats
Listen to Galloway and Learn Something
STAN GOFF
May 19, 2005

Dear Democratic Elected Officials of the United States (with damn few exceptions),

I am writing this open letter to call your attention to the remarks made day before yesterday, May 17, 2005, to the United States Senate, by British MP George Galloway of the independent Respect Party. I do this because he serves as an example of why your party should be abandoned by the U.S. working class, by U.S. women, by oppressed nationalities in the United States, and by anyone who professes to be a progressive or a leftist.

George Galloway did that for which you have proven incapable; he spoke as an opposition. Since there seems to be a great dark space in the middle of your heads where the notion of opposition should be ­ a void filled by parliamentary molasses and the pusillanimous inabilty to tell simple truths ­ I suggest you all review the recordings of Galloway's confrontation with Republican Senator Norm "Twit" Coleman to see exactly how effortless it is to stand up to these cheap political bullies (watch the video). While you are at it, you can watch your colleague Carl Levin demonstrate exactly what I mean about most of you and your party, as he alternately hurls petulant cream-puff insults at Galloway and kisses Coleman's stunned, clueless ass to give that toothy dipshit some comfort in the wake of Galloway's verbal drubbing.

Galloway didn't have to walk up to the docket and slap the cowboy shit out of Coleman ­ though I admit I still struggle with my own secret urges to do just that with most of the air-brushed, combed-over, Stepford meat-puppets who now people the United States Congress. No, all Galloway had to do was tell the unvarnished truth, and it had exactly the same effect. If Democrats had half the spine that Galloway does if you would stop chasing your creepy little careers through the caviar and chicken-salad circuits of duck-and-cover American political double-speak, then not only would people like me not be calling for all to abandon the Democratic Party and take their fight to the streets like good Bolivians not only that, but you'd have won the last election.

The reason Galloway was able to break from your mirror party in UK ­ Blair's sell-out Labor Party ­ and still get elected, is that Galloway fights for his convictions and the real needs of his constituents, and doesn't run for cover every time the bully-boys of the capitalist extablishment attempt to take him down.

Here's a hint.

People follow those who speak plainly and fight. Aside from Maxine Waters, Barbara Lee, and Cynthia McKinney (not surprisingly Black women who know where it goes if you let rich white men get away with giving you a bunch of shit) and a precious few others, the Democratic Party is not only just another party controlled by big capitalists; it is not even a good *capitalist* opposition party (much less a real opposition).

You don't deserve anyone's support, not even as a tactical matter any longer, because you end up doing ritual verbal combat then give the "cornpone Nazis" of the Republcan Party any goddamn thing they want. That's why Galloway rhetorically spanking that soap-opera-looking shitbird was the most satisfying thing many of us have seen in months.

That's exactly why some of us are saying go Bolivian on their asses. Tell the Democratic Leadership Council to eat shit and die. Stop working, stop obeying, block the streets and highways, shut down the capital, and watch them choke on their own sewage. If Americans weren't so bewildered by television, so addled and soft from junk food and cars and electronic appliances, and so addicted to their own cultural superficiality, they might begin organizing general strikes: women's strikes, workers strikes (without union bureaucrats to calm them down), Black people strikes, Brown people strikes, info-tech strikes, eco-strikes, all working our way up to One Big Strike.

It's a ways off, but it's coming. Of course, there won't be any Democrats there. They'll be wringing their hands about their defunct careers, and conducting focus groups to see how they can shift further to the right in the next election.

And the reason this doesn't happen is that people still hang their thin hopes on you, on electing Democrats who stab them in the back the first chance they get. But Galloway's appearance before the U.S. Senate moved us an inch closer to the Big Strike, and an inch further away from your worthless asses.

Because Galloway didn't, as some are saying, expose the Republicans.

Someone with a full frontal lobotomy could expose a Republican politician.

He exposed the spinelessness of the Democrats.

Yours very truly,

Stan Goff

(My thanks to James Howard Kunstler for the term "cornpone Nazi." I've known quite a few... even been related to some of them.)

Stan Goff is the author of "Hideous Dream: A Soldier's Memoir of the US Invasion of Haiti" (Soft Skull Press, 2000), "Full Spectrum Disorder" (Soft Skull Press, 2003) and "Sex & War" which will be released approximately December, 2005. He is retired from the United States Army. His blog is at www.stangoff.com.

Goff can be reached at: sherrynstan@igc.org

Black Helicopters Down

The Black Helicopters and the GOP
Dave Lindorff
May 20, 2005

It's always been an article of faith on the "loony" right that the black helicopters of the Jewish-United Nations fascist government would arrive to take over America and turn it into a hellish police state through the machinations of the liberal Democrats. Who would have thought that it would be the conservative Republicans who would be waving the landing lights to direct the troop planes to the gate?

But there it is.

In four short years, following the 9/11 attacks, we have moved a long way down a very dark and dead-end alley.

First we had the Patriot Act, the handiwork of John Ashcroft (now out to pasture nursing his wet dreams of a restoration of slavery and the Confederacy) and his able assistant Michael Chertoff, now Sith overlord of the Department of Homeland Security. This obscene 362-page pile of totalitarian legislation has dangerously undermined the First and Fourth Amendments of the Bill of Rights.

Then we had the assertion of a Justice Department and Presidential right to revoke one’s citizenship (as witness the cases of Mssrs. Hamdi and Padilla. The former, a native-born American, was stripped of his birthright and sent off to a jail in Saudi Arabia, his parents' place of origin. The latter, also a native-born American citizen, but with no other ancestral country he can be sent to, has remained in jail in a military lock-up now for two years, with no access to family or even an attorney, with no charge against him and no right to challenge his arrest and indefinite incarceration).

Couple that with the Bush/Cheney-sanctioned policies of rendition, where people are kidnapped by government agents and whisked away on unmarked planes to other nations like Syria and Egypt where extra-judicial killings are routine, and torture (see Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, Bagram, etc.), and you have the very real threat of American citizens like all of us being disappeared, just they way they did it for years (under American instruction and direction) in Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Argentina and Chile.

In communities across this land where believers in Islam dwell---both immigrants and native-born citizens--there is these days a permanent state of terror, as FBI, ATF, Secret Service and other nefarious federal agents slink around grabbing people from their homes, interrogating others, hauling off computers and files, leveling trumped-up charges, and threatening people into becoming unwilling informants on their neighbors--all, with no sense of irony, in the name of fighting "terror."

Thousands of decent, hard-working immigrants have been snatched from their families (many of whom are American citizens, and often young children) and shipped off to home countries to face arrest and torture and, in some documented cases, death, with no access to hearings. We never learn about most of them. The government doesn't have to tell us they've been taken. Even their own families are often left in the dark.

Citizens who try to exercise their First Amendment right to protest the actions of this president and vice president are herded into fenced in "free-speech zone" holding pens, or arrested and jailed, often after first being beaten or maced, on orders of the Secret Service. Others have been blacklisted and barred from events because they had the temerity to wear an anti-Bush T-shirt or to paste an anti-war bumper sticker on their car.

Now the Republican leadership in Congress has quietly pushed through a law establishing a national identity card which Wired magazine says will be enable the government to set up a computerized data bank on every citizen, telling authorities where we've been, where we are, who we've met, what we buy, what our political affiliations are, what web sites we visit and a whole lot of other stuff.

And they're pushing ahead, at urging from the White House, with a new and improved Patriot Act that continues to define terror as anything that interferes with the business of the state (including a simple act of protest), and that in the name of fighting that loosely defined evil, will essentially eliminate the Fourth Amendment protection against illegal search and seizure, giving the administration the power to spy and obtain records on virtually anyone without even going to a judge for a "probable cause" warrant.

Not content with that, the right is also stuffing the courts with judges who don't give a damn about any of those old rights and freedoms--who think state power is just dandy.

That's what this fight over the filibuster is all about--getting rid of judges who take the Bill of Rights and the rest of the Constitution with its hoary concerns about separation of powers seriously--and of course paving the way for "Justice" Antonin Scalia or Clarence Thomas to assume the post of Chief Justice.

Sadly, while they are leading the parade, the Republicans are not alone in this march to fascism and a 21st-Century police-state tyranny. They've been doing it with the willing connivance of a number of conservative Democrats, including the likes of Joe Lieberman, Hillary Clinton, John Kerry and Diane Feinstein (this is hardly a complete list). And the way was paved, of course, by anti-Democratic police-state measures introduced earlier by the Clinton administration. They've also had the help of a somnolent corporate media and a blissfully ignorant public caught up in "American Idol" and the Jackson trial or whatever the latest entertainment diversion might be.

I used to think that right-wing warnings about jackbooted agents of the federal government landing in black Cobra gunships and storming our homes in dead of night were the fevered ravings of lunatics, but no more.

With this push to stack the courts, create a computerized national ID card, equate protest with support for terrorism, and making citizenship a revocable privilege, comes official government promotion of an intolerant, medieval Christian fundamentalism which provides the whole thing with an ideological gloss that makes any outrage not just permissible, but "God’s will."

Still, it's surprising to see the right turning off the lights of liberty, after all those years of warnings about liberal Democrats and the dreaded "nanny" state.

5:30 am pdt

Baghdad: Assassin Squad Hit

Eight members of elite Iraqi force killed;
Sunnis form alliance

BAGHDAD, Iraq Eight members of an elite Interior Ministry force have been killed in an ambush in Iraq.

Their 20-vehicle convoy came under attack in downtown Beiji (BAY'-zhee), north of Baghdad. Two U-S Army Apache attack helicopters responded. Associated Press Television News footage shows them firing on targets near the ambush site. The attack comes amid accusations by minority Sunni Muslims that the elite force, known as the Wolf Brigade, was involved in recent killings of Sunni clerics. Meanwhile, Sunni Muslim groups in Iraq are joining forces. A thousand Sunnis assembled in Baghdad today and formed an alliance of religious, political and tribal groups to push for a stronger role in the government. As their first act, the group called for the resignation of the Shiite interior minister, accusing his office of having a role in the killing of several Sunni clerics. He denies the allegations, and says he won't step down. Copyright 2005 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.