Mike Whitney
02/24/06 "ICH" -- -- Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was warmly greeted at the recent meeting of the Council on Foreign Relations. The CFR is the hand-picked assemblage of western elites from big-energy, corporate media, high-finance and the weapons industry. These are the 4,000 or so members of the American ruling class who determine the shape of policy and ensure that the management of the global economic system remains in the hands of U.S. bluebloods.
As the Pentagon’s chief-coordinator, Rumsfeld enjoys a prominent place among American mandarins. He is the caretaker of their most prized possession; the high-tech, taxpayer-funded, laser-guided war machine. The US Military is the crown-jewel of the American empire; a fully-operational security apparatus for the protection of pilfered resources and the ongoing subjugation of the developing world.
Rumsfeld’s speech alerted his audience to the threats facing America in the new century.
He opined: “We meet today in the 6th year in what promises to be a long struggle against an enemy that in many ways is unlike any our country has ever faced. And, in this war, some of the most critical battles may not be in the mountains in Afghanistan or in the streets of Iraq, but in newsrooms—in places like New York, London, Cairo, and elsewhere.”
“New York”?
“Our enemies have skillfully adapted to fighting wars in today’s media age, but for the most part our country has not”.
Huh? Does Rummy mean those grainy, poorly-produced videos of Bin Laden and co.?
“Consider that the violent extremists have established ‘media relations committees’—and have proven to be highly-successful at manipulating opinion-elites. They plan to design their headline-grabbing attacks using every means of communications to intimidate and break the collective will of free people”.
What gibberish.
It’s foolish to mention “intimidating and breaking the collective will of free people” without entering Abu Ghraib, Guantanomo and Falluja into the discussion. Rumsfeld is just griping about the disgrace he’s heaped on America’s reputation by his refusal to conform to even minimal standards of decency. Instead, he insists that America’s declining stature in the world is the result of a hostile media and “skillful enemies”; in other words, anyone with a computer keyboard and a rudimentary sense of moral judgment.
(Our enemies) “know that communications transcend borders…and that a single news story , handled skillfully, can be as damaging to our cause and as helpful to theirs, as any other method of military attack”.
If the Pentagon is really so worried about “bad press coverage” why not close down the torture-chambers and withdrawal from Iraq? Instead, Rumsfeld is making the case for a preemptive-assault on free speech.
“The growing number of media outlets in many parts of the world….too often serve to inflame and distort, rather than explain and inform. And while Al Qaida and extremist movements have utilized this forum for many years, and have successfully poisoned the Muslim public’s view of the West, we have barely even begun to compete in reaching their audiences.”
“Inflame and distort”?
What distortion? Do cameras distort the photos of abused prisoners, desperate people, or decimated cities?
Rumsfeld’s analysis borders on the delusional. Al Qaida doesn’t have a well-oiled propaganda mechanism that provides a steady stream of fabrications to whip the public into a frenzy. That’s the American media’s assignment. And, they haven’t “poisoned Muslim public opinion” against us. That has been entirely the doing of the Pentagon warlords and their White House compatriots.
“The standard US government public affairs operation was designed primarily …to be reactive rather than proactive…Government, however, is beginning to adapt”
“Proactive news”? In other words, propaganda.
Rumsfeld confirms his dedication to propaganda by defending the bogus stories that were printed in Iraqi newspapers by Pentagon contractors. (We) “sought non-traditional means to provide accurate information to the Iraqi people in the face of an aggressive campaign of disinformation….This has been deemed inappropriate—for examples the allegations of ‘buying news’”.
A brazen defense of intentionally planted lies; how low can we sink?
This has had a “chilling effect for those who are asked to serve in the military public affairs field.”
Is it really that difficult to print the truth?
Rumsfeld boasts of the vast changes in “communications planning” taking place at the Pentagon.
A “public affairs” strategy is at the heart of the new paradigm, replete with “rapid response” teams to address the nagging issues of bombed-out wedding parties, starving prisoners, and devastated cities. No problem is so great that it can’t be papered-over by a public relations team trained in the black-art of deception, obfuscation, and slight-of-hand. Trickery now tops the list of military priorities.
“US Central Command has launched an online communications effort that includes electronic news updates and a links campaign that has resulted in several hundred blogs receiving and publishing CENTCOM content.”
The military plans to develop the “institutional capability” to respond to critical news coverage within the same news cycle and to develop a comprehensive scheme for infiltrating the internet.
The Pentagon’s strategy for taking over the internet and controlling the free flow of information has already been chronicled in a recently declassified report, “The Information Operations Roadmap”; is a window into the minds of those who see free speech as dangerous as an “enemy weapons-system”.
The Pentagon is aiming for “full spectrum dominance” of the Internet. Their objective is to manipulate public perceptions, quash competing points of view, and perpetuate a narrative of American generosity and good-will.
Rumsfeld’s comments are intended to awaken his constituents to the massive information war that is being waged to transform the Internet into the progeny of the MSM; a reliable partner for the dissemination of establishment-friendly news.
The Associated Press reported recently that the US government conducted a massive simulated attack on the Internet called “Cyber-Storm”. The wargame was designed, among other things, to “respond to misinformation campaigns and activist calls by internet bloggers, online diarists whose ‘Web logs” include political rantings and musings about current events”.
Before Bush took office, “political rantings and musings about current events” were protected under the 1st amendment.
No more.
The War Department is planning to insert itself into every area of the Internet from blogs to chat rooms, from leftist web sites to editorial commentary. Their rapid response team will be on hair-trigger alert to dispute any tidbit of information that challenges the official storyline.
We can expect to encounter, as the BBC notes, “psychological operations (that) try to manipulate the thoughts and the beliefs of the enemy (as well as) computer network specialists who seek to destroy enemy networks.”
The enemy, of course, is anyone who refuses to accept their servile role in the new world order or who disrupts the smooth-operation of the Bush police-state.
The resolve to foreclose on free speech has never been greater.
As for Rumsfeld’s devotees at the CFR, the problem of savaging civil liberties is never seriously raised. After all, these are the primary beneficiaries of Washington’s global resource-war; should it matter that other people’s freedom is sacrificed to perpetuate the fundamental institutions of class and privilege?
Rumsfeld is right. The only way to prevail on the information-battlefield is to “take no prisoners”; police the Internet, uproot the troublemakers and activists who provide the truth, and “catapult the propaganda” (Bush) from every bullhorn and web site across the virtual-universe. Free speech is a luxury we cannot afford if it threatens to undermine the basic platforms of western white rule.
As Rumsfeld said, “We are fighting a battle where the survival of our free way of life is at stake.”
Indeed, it is.
Saturday, February 25, 2006
Canadians Too Thick to Support Afghanistan Mission: Defence Minister
PEJ News - C. L. Cook - By way of getting to know his new subjects, freshly minted Conservative Defence Minister, Gordon O'Connor summed up what he sees as his greatest challenge: How to get through to the sixty-two percent of Canadians who don't believe the country should be involved with the worsening occupation of Afghanistan.
"The population out there doesn't really understand right now why we're there and what we're doing. You have to say the thing five, six, seven, eight times before it really gets through to a large number of people." - Defence Minister, O'Connor instructs the foreign press.
"The population out there doesn't really understand right now why we're there and what we're doing. You have to say the thing five, six, seven, eight times before it really gets through to a large number of people." - Defence Minister, O'Connor instructs the foreign press.
Canadians Too Thick to Support Afghanistan Mission:
Defence Minister
C. L. Cook
PEJ News
February 25, 2006
A Globe and Mail/ Strategic Counsel poll published yesterday (G&B, Fri. Feb. 24, 2006) pronounced, 'Majority Opposed to Afghan Mission.' As the Canadian Forces prepare to pick up the mantle of the NATO mission in-country this week, and as the nation expands its fifth year of picket duty of Afghanistan's effective occupation, a bewildered Defence Minister can merely shake his head. Or, so Gordon O'Connor would have it.
With his bum barely in the chair at the head of Canada's armed forces, rookie Cabinet Minister O'Connor is holding forth to the world's press, complaining of the dumb-asses, in the form of the majority of Canadians polled, he has to deal with. More amazing perhaps to O'Connor is the desire of an even greater number of Canadians asked that demands be made of Parliament to debate war issues before committing troops, a novel notion not sure to please the Freshman Tories. But, put on the spot, O'Connor bleats:
"Our policy is that, in future, if we're committing troops somewhere in substantial numbers
we would go to Parliament and we'd basically seek the support of Parliament."
But, that future is happening fast. It's a miracle more than eight unfortunate Canadians have seen their futures end so far in Afghanistan to date. If not for the professionalism of the Canadian military, and a deployment in the relatively calmer capital region, the only place effectively ruled by the Karzai government put into power, it would be much worse. But, it's about to get worse. And, Saturday's wounding of a Canadian in a grenade attack near Kandahar is evidence of that.
For those Canucks too stupid to fail to support Minister O'Connor, or to see the gathering cloud, and what it is likely to mean for Canadian families from Victoria to Saint John, prepare for terrible news: Canada is taking over in the heart of the Taliban-led resistance.
Says O'Conner:
"Many Canadians do not know or understand the complexities of what the Afghan mission is about, why we are there, and its importance, its critical importance to Canada."
So, what makes Afghanistan worth it? Yes, Gordon do tell we, your dimmer fellow citizens: Why is Canada occupying a nation shattered in an illegal blitzkrieg, employing nuclear weapons of mass destruction, all carried out in the name of avenging the alleged perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks of 2001. Explain now please, what your party failed as the official opposition to do.
Why Gordie, after four and more years of trying to teach the Afghans the glory of our superior ways, are the locals lobbing grenades and firing AKs' at "our" boys and girls? And what about the suicide bombers?
Are they ingrates? Or maybe too dumb to know what's good for them, too? Tell us do, Mr. Minister. But, speak slowly please, we're Canadians.
O'Connor's dismissive opinion of the mental alacrity of the citizenry is an attitude shared by Canada's number one military man, General Rick Hillier, as witnessed by his gape-jawed statement of wonderment:
"Many Canadians do not know or understand the complexities of what the Afghan mission is about, why we are there, and its importance, its critical importance to Canada."
Hillier, those not yet brain-dead denizens of the Great White North may recall Hillier as the author of Canada's answer to George W. Bush's famous "Bring 'em on" performance regarding that other bunch of recalcitrant converts in Iraq. Clever tactical move, General. Original too.
With the exception of some sorrowfully late complaint by the NDP regarding the need to hold open parliamentary debate concerning matters of war in Canada, the house has sat largely silent on the Afghanistan "mission" through two elections. Despite wide-spread rejection of the official line doled over by the Liberals and now reiterated by their superior heirs, Canada and Canadians are being frog marched into George Bush's vision of global militarism.
Maybe O'Connor is right, Canadians just don't understand.
Chris Cook is a contributing editor to PEJ News, and hosts Gorilla Radio, a weekly public affairs program, broad/webcast from the University of Victoria, Canada. You can check out the GR Blog here.
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The Neo-Conquistadors: Glamis Gold, Guatemalan Blood
The Neo-Conquistadors: Glamis Gold, Guatemalan Blood
by C. L. Cook
Object of conquest itself just a year past, Glamis Gold of Vancouver recently announced its take-over bid for Western Silver for a paltry 1.04 billion (US) dollars. So, how did the struggling mining company turn its fortunes around? It starts with the World Bank, and the sacrifice of Mayan villagers on the alter of corporate greed and government malfeasance.
The troubles for the locals began in 1998 when discovery of gold in the Guatemalan highlands. What most would believe a boon was immediately suspect to the Maya who have suffered dislocation, assimilation, and murder by successive oppressors since the first days of contact with European Conquistadors. They wanted environmental, cultural, and labour oversight of the proposed project in their ancestral lands, as was guaranteed in Guatemala's 1996 Peace Accords. The Accords were initiated as part of a national reconciliation effort following the decades-long terror campaign waged against the indigenous Maya by a series of U.S.-supported dictatorships.
As part of the Accords, the government of the day signed on to International Labour Organization (ILO) Convention 169 which commits government to consultations with local indigenous populations regarding natural resources found on their lands. It also provided that communities have the right to decide "development priorities" and the right to participate in any "use, management, and conservation" of those resources. But, the Guatemalan government side-stepped this legislated mandate and granted rights of sub-surface development to "Canadian" mining giant, Glamis Gold and their so-called 'Marlin Project.' The Reno, Nevada-based Glamis, [NYSE:GLG; TSX:GLG] through subsidiary, Montana Exploradora also ignored the tenets of Convention 169 exacerbating an already tense situation.
Though consultation meetings were held with locals, the Maya contend Glamis didn't listen to their concerns about the impact of the project, and say they doubt Glamis' claims of economic benefits for their community. Resistance to the project was wide-spread, but despite the popular rejection, the World Bank in 2004, through its International Finance Corporation (IFC), secured a 45 million dollar loan guarantee for Glamis to push the project ahead. This in clear contradiction to both the ILO's Convention 169, and the World Bank's Extractive Industries Review (EIR).
When questioned about Glamis and the Marlin Project, the Canadian Ambassador to Guatemala said only: "Permits have been granted according to national and international regulations." This despite the clear violations of both by the World Bank and Guatemalan government.
Environmental concerns about the benignly named, Marlin Project have too, the Maya contend, been downplayed, or ignored completely. Glamis' operation is an open pit, cyanide leaching process outlawed by both the European Union and State of Montana in the United States.
To date, protests have been met with harassment, intimidation, beatings, and murder at the hands of the "authorities." All presumably with the express approval of the Canadian Embassy in Guatemala City. The Canadians have been one of the biggest supporters of the project, though Glamis is merely a "Canadian-licensed" operation.
But, not all Canadians are happy about their government's support of Glamis and the Marlin Project. Grahame Russell, a coordinator with the Canadian organization, Rights Action says of the deaths of Maya opposing the Marlin:
"This repression was waiting to happen. The red flags were there since the beginning, but the company, the Canadian government, and the World Bank have been content to let it happen. The communities and the Guatemalan organisations have always said they needed to be consulted." adding, "There needs to be a full investigation into how this happened, who gave the orders, and who knew what was going on."
That was more than a year ago, when Glamis was fighting for its corporate life. Today, the Marlin Project swims on and Glamis is looking to expand its industry profile.
Chris Cook is a contributing editor to PEJ News. He also hosts Gorilla Radio, a weekly public affairs program, broad/webcast from the University of Victoria, Canada. You can check out the GR Blog here.
Sunday, February 19, 2006
Henry Rollins: Threat to Australia
ADE - Kurt Nimmo - Henry Rollins, “nominated as a possible threat” for reading a book about militant Islam (Jihad: The Rise Of Militant Islam In Central Asia) on a recent flight from Auckland, had the right idea when he told the government of Australia and the National Security office to “go f… themselves.”
http://kurtnimmo.com/
images/rollins.jpg
images/rollins.jpg
Rollins Criminalized for Reading
Kurt Nimmo
Another Day in the Empire
February 18th 2006
As well, he would do good to never visit Australia again and urge his family, friends, and fans of his music and stand-up comedy routine to do likewise. If more people did this, the fascist state of Australia and the neocon government of John Howard would get the message—in a particularly hurtful economic way.
I don’t know if it makes a difference, but I have not entered an airport (fascist zones) or boarded a commercial airplane since 2002. I recently drove 2,600 miles round-trip to visit an ill relative.
Of course, if Bush and the Straussian neocons have their way, all freeways will soon become fascist zones as well and you will need a passport to travel from one state to another (we already have worthless ICE checkpoints here in New Mexico) and the trip will cost a small fortune, thanks to the imposition of toll roads everywhere (I was forced to use one in Oklahoma as I traveled to Indiana, a state that will soon have its own toll roads). Neoliberalism is making its mark in a big way here in the heartland.
For now, however, there are few jackbooted thugs on the interstate freeways and I can avoid the sort of abuse Rollins endured.
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"A" is For Ambush: A-Channel "Journalist" Stephen Andrew and Sandbagging the News
A is for Ambush: A - Channel "Journalist" Stephen Andrew and Sandbagging the NewsPEJ News - C. L. Cook - For media students and viewers concerned about the state of the media in these dangerous early days of the 21st Century, last night's (Feb. 16, 2006) supper time newscast served up by Victoria A - Channel reporter, Stephen Andrew is a text book case in slanted, biased, agenda-driven reportage.
www.PEJ.org
www.PEJ.org
A is for Ambush: A - Channel "Journalist"
Stephen Andrew and Sandbagging the News
C . L. CookPEJ News
February 17, 2006
It's not often one gets the chance to see the raw truth behind the manipulation of what passes for news in the corporate media but last night, I was so favoured. Local filmmaker, Andrew Ainsley, an acquaintance of a friend, came around, fresh from his "interview" with crack reporter, Stephen Andrew. At issue, Ainsley's latest documentation of the treatment meted out to the poor and homeless by the authorities here in the Garden City.
The day before, Victoria publication, Monday Magazine featured a story on Ainsley's footage of the arrest of two friends caught searching for food in a local grocer's dumpster, (Trash, Security and Videotape, Andrew MacLeod, Monday Magazine, Feb. 16-22, 2006). The "divers" had been harassed by the store's security personnel a couple of days previous, and told by the security guards food in the dumpster was routinely poisoned. Unbelieving, Ainsley set out to capture those claims on tape. What happened next led to his fateful meeting with Stephen Andrew.
Ainsley's video, surreptitiously shot from the window of a van parked across the bare construction site abutting Food Country, in the heart of the tony Cook Street Village, documents a Victoria City Police take-down of his two friends, complete with audio recorded by a hidden microphone worn by one. What the film revealed is no secret to any of the burgeoning homeless population in this, one of Canada's most expensive cities, but the footage may shock those sheltered citizens in Victoria who assume the police here follow their pledge to honour both the law, and the rights of the people that law is designed to protect.
But, Victorians watching A - Channel's ace reporter, Stephen Andrew didn't see the unedited version of events.
The video, in its unedited form, clearly reveals the private security guards, while police stand by, take it upon themselves to interrogate, berate, and on more than one occasion lay hands on the men in custody. It reveals: Besides ignoring their responsibilities to the law and Charter of Rights, Victoria City Police, through the thuggish attitude displayed toward the entirely peaceable subjects under their control, abandoned too, in this instance at least, their duty as the sole arbiters of the law.
It is not legal for private security guards to lay hands on people, let alone push them around while handcuffed and in police custody. But, this breach seemed fine to the several police officers dispatched, lights a-flash to the scene of the dumpster caper.
The video also records the arrest of the filmmaker, Andrew Ainsley, spotted by the intrepid security guards filming from across street. Ainsley faces a "mischief" charge, and had one of his cameras and a tape seized by police. These are as yet to be returned.
The day after the Monday Magazine story hit the streets, A - Channel secured a copy of Ainsley's video. Seeing the video, Victoria City Police Chief Paul Battershill gave a press conference in which he made the unsubstantiated charge of a "set-up" carried out by the filmmaker to make the police look bad. It was a theme eagerly picked up by reporter, Stephen Andrew.
In a classic "ambush" interview (this is the form made famous by that other paragon of good journalism, Geraldo Rivera), Andrew approached Ainsley, who had already declined an interview with him, lights on and camera rolling. A true stenographer to power, Andrew repeated the Chief's points, clearly attempting to lead his subject to reiterate his predetermined conclusions, if only superficially. But Stephen does Geraldo one better, including grisly photographs, provided presumably by the police, of an American police colleague wounded by a small knife. This apparently to make the peaceful arrestees, who knew they were on camera, seem dangerous. The slasher pic preceded Ainsley on camera in Andrew's edited version of reality.
Nice touch, Stepho!
This coercive approach may not be evident to those gentle viewers used to assuming those passing themselves off as "journalists" adhere to a professional code of conduct. They likely rely on Stephen Andrew, and his editors at A - Channel, to present unbiased reports that cover more than one side of an issue. Stephen Andrew gives proof to that lie.
But, Stephen never said he was a journalist. Despite his position as President of the nascent Victoria Press Club (bio. pending), what little is published about Stephen's background omits mention of his journalistic schooling. Presumably, if one never swears the oath, one isn't bound by the code of conduct.
I don't know if Stephen is an accredited journalist. He presumably holds press credentials credible enough to gain entrance to the Legislature, but even if he's not a REAL journalist, or never sat through those tedious Journalism 101 classes where ethics and so forth were instructed and debated, common decency should dictate what even FOX News recognizes as an important element in reportage: Fairness and Balance.
It may not be rare to see skewed news, but it's less common to see the raw abandonment of any semblance of truth or fairness in a story less covered than created. You see Stephen, I've seen the raw footage of Andrew Ainsley's film. And, I've also seen the video shot of you interviewing Ainsley and know, in your case, A stands for more than Ambush.
Andrew Ainsley's "mischief" charge is scheduled to be heard in provincial court March 15th, 2006
You can check out Andrew Ainsley's films at: www.loveandfearlessness.com
President Stephen Andrew's Victoria Press Club is: www.victoriapressclub.com
A -Channel can be found at: www.achannel.ca
Chris Cook is not an accredited journalist either, but he serves as a contributing editor to PEJ News anyway. He also hosts Gorilla Radio, a weekly public affairs program, broad/webcast from the University of Victoria. And, he knows fair and balanced reporting from skewed, agenda-filling propaganda when he sees it.
You can check out the GR Blog here.
Stephen Andrew and Sandbagging the News
C . L. CookPEJ News
February 17, 2006
It's not often one gets the chance to see the raw truth behind the manipulation of what passes for news in the corporate media but last night, I was so favoured. Local filmmaker, Andrew Ainsley, an acquaintance of a friend, came around, fresh from his "interview" with crack reporter, Stephen Andrew. At issue, Ainsley's latest documentation of the treatment meted out to the poor and homeless by the authorities here in the Garden City.
The day before, Victoria publication, Monday Magazine featured a story on Ainsley's footage of the arrest of two friends caught searching for food in a local grocer's dumpster, (Trash, Security and Videotape, Andrew MacLeod, Monday Magazine, Feb. 16-22, 2006). The "divers" had been harassed by the store's security personnel a couple of days previous, and told by the security guards food in the dumpster was routinely poisoned. Unbelieving, Ainsley set out to capture those claims on tape. What happened next led to his fateful meeting with Stephen Andrew.
Ainsley's video, surreptitiously shot from the window of a van parked across the bare construction site abutting Food Country, in the heart of the tony Cook Street Village, documents a Victoria City Police take-down of his two friends, complete with audio recorded by a hidden microphone worn by one. What the film revealed is no secret to any of the burgeoning homeless population in this, one of Canada's most expensive cities, but the footage may shock those sheltered citizens in Victoria who assume the police here follow their pledge to honour both the law, and the rights of the people that law is designed to protect.
But, Victorians watching A - Channel's ace reporter, Stephen Andrew didn't see the unedited version of events.
The video, in its unedited form, clearly reveals the private security guards, while police stand by, take it upon themselves to interrogate, berate, and on more than one occasion lay hands on the men in custody. It reveals: Besides ignoring their responsibilities to the law and Charter of Rights, Victoria City Police, through the thuggish attitude displayed toward the entirely peaceable subjects under their control, abandoned too, in this instance at least, their duty as the sole arbiters of the law.
It is not legal for private security guards to lay hands on people, let alone push them around while handcuffed and in police custody. But, this breach seemed fine to the several police officers dispatched, lights a-flash to the scene of the dumpster caper.
The video also records the arrest of the filmmaker, Andrew Ainsley, spotted by the intrepid security guards filming from across street. Ainsley faces a "mischief" charge, and had one of his cameras and a tape seized by police. These are as yet to be returned.
The day after the Monday Magazine story hit the streets, A - Channel secured a copy of Ainsley's video. Seeing the video, Victoria City Police Chief Paul Battershill gave a press conference in which he made the unsubstantiated charge of a "set-up" carried out by the filmmaker to make the police look bad. It was a theme eagerly picked up by reporter, Stephen Andrew.
In a classic "ambush" interview (this is the form made famous by that other paragon of good journalism, Geraldo Rivera), Andrew approached Ainsley, who had already declined an interview with him, lights on and camera rolling. A true stenographer to power, Andrew repeated the Chief's points, clearly attempting to lead his subject to reiterate his predetermined conclusions, if only superficially. But Stephen does Geraldo one better, including grisly photographs, provided presumably by the police, of an American police colleague wounded by a small knife. This apparently to make the peaceful arrestees, who knew they were on camera, seem dangerous. The slasher pic preceded Ainsley on camera in Andrew's edited version of reality.
Nice touch, Stepho!
This coercive approach may not be evident to those gentle viewers used to assuming those passing themselves off as "journalists" adhere to a professional code of conduct. They likely rely on Stephen Andrew, and his editors at A - Channel, to present unbiased reports that cover more than one side of an issue. Stephen Andrew gives proof to that lie.
But, Stephen never said he was a journalist. Despite his position as President of the nascent Victoria Press Club (bio. pending), what little is published about Stephen's background omits mention of his journalistic schooling. Presumably, if one never swears the oath, one isn't bound by the code of conduct.
I don't know if Stephen is an accredited journalist. He presumably holds press credentials credible enough to gain entrance to the Legislature, but even if he's not a REAL journalist, or never sat through those tedious Journalism 101 classes where ethics and so forth were instructed and debated, common decency should dictate what even FOX News recognizes as an important element in reportage: Fairness and Balance.
It may not be rare to see skewed news, but it's less common to see the raw abandonment of any semblance of truth or fairness in a story less covered than created. You see Stephen, I've seen the raw footage of Andrew Ainsley's film. And, I've also seen the video shot of you interviewing Ainsley and know, in your case, A stands for more than Ambush.
Andrew Ainsley's "mischief" charge is scheduled to be heard in provincial court March 15th, 2006
You can check out Andrew Ainsley's films at: www.loveandfearlessness.com
President Stephen Andrew's Victoria Press Club is: www.victoriapressclub.com
A -Channel can be found at: www.achannel.ca
Chris Cook is not an accredited journalist either, but he serves as a contributing editor to PEJ News anyway. He also hosts Gorilla Radio, a weekly public affairs program, broad/webcast from the University of Victoria. And, he knows fair and balanced reporting from skewed, agenda-filling propaganda when he sees it.
You can check out the GR Blog here.
Stay informed. Subscribe and get the best of PEJ News by email. Free.
Sunday, February 12, 2006
Getting Clean: Kicking the Oil Habit
Michael T. Klare
02/11/06 "Los Angeles Times" -- -- PRESIDENT BUSH was right to say that the United States is "addicted to oil" in his State of the Union address. For too long we have been consuming ever-greater quantities of the stuff without paying heed to the political, economic and environmental hazards involved. Bush also made some useful, if timid, suggestions on how to curb our insatiable thirst for oil. But he failed to address a critical aspect of the problem: Other countries, including China and India, are just as addicted to oil, and unless we strive to suppress their appetites along with our own, the problems we face will continue to multiply.
For decades, the United States has been the world's leading consumer of petroleum, devouring about one-fourth of the global supply daily. Although higher gasoline prices have weakened demand slightly, we are still expected to consume 27% more oil in 2025 than we do today, according to the latest Department of Energy projections. But an even greater increase in demand is expected from Asia. China's oil consumption is expected to rise by 97% between 2004 and 2025, and India's by 78%. The resulting demand crunch could easily overwhelm the global supply of petroleum.
In the U.S., oil demand is largely spurred by Americans' collective love affair with the automobile. We also own far more vehicles, on a per-capita basis, than any other large nation. But all indications are that Chinese and Indian consumers are beginning to emulate us: In 2001, 16 million Chinese owned private cars; by 2020, the number is expected to hit 130 million; India's ownership rate is expected to grow just as fast.
The rising demand for oil in rapidly developing countries has enormous implications for the United States. To begin with, it is driving up energy prices for American consumers. With global petroleum supplies tighter than they have been in decades, and China and India competing with the U.S. for available supplies, the price is bound to rise. A year ago, the Energy Department was predicting that oil prices would hover in the $30 to $35 a barrel range over the next 20 years; now it is projecting $50 to $55 a barrel for that same period. Some energy analysts expect prices to climb even higher, especially if China's economy continues to grow at 10% a year and the global supply of oil fails to keep pace.
But this is the least of our problems. In their quest for foreign sources of petroleum, China and India are buying up fields around the world and, in some cases, forging close ties with such states as Iran, Sudan, Uzbekistan and Venezuela, which are considered unfriendly or even hostile to the U.S.
"A more troubling aspect of the recent surge in overseas energy deals by China and India is their willingness to invest in countries that are pursuing policies that are harmful to global stability," Assistant Secretary of State E. Anthony Wayne told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in July. For example, "both Chinese and Indian firms have reportedly been involved in oil and gas-sector deals in Iran that raise concerns under U.S. law and policy." This is especially true when such investment is accompanied by arms and military technology, as has been the case with Chinese links to Iran and Sudan.
It is easy to condemn Beijing and New Delhi for such behavior, but it's hardly surprising that they're prepared to shop anywhere for oil. Under these circumstances, the world is likely to become increasingly well-armed and unstable, posing acute dangers for the U.S. whether or not we reduce our own consumption of petroleum.
And this is not the only danger we face. The U.S. is the leading emitter of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, thus heightening the risk of catastrophic climate change. If we implement Bush's proposed initiatives and consume less petroleum (which accounts for the largest share of our carbon emissions), we stand a chance of slowing climate change. But, according to the Energy Department, developing nations in Asia now account for about 19% of the world's oil-related carbon emissions (compared with 24% for the U.S.); by 2025, their share is projected to rise to 28%.
It follows from all this that it is not enough to curb the U.S. addiction to oil. We also need to work with China, India and other oil-addicted countries to curb their fast-growing demand. This means persuading the leaders of those countries to adopt the same sort of initiatives as those proposed by Bush. Even better, the president should invite them to join the U.S. in these efforts as equal partners. U.S. companies should also be encouraged to form partnerships with foreign firms to develop new energy alternatives and transportation systems that would spur economic growth in participating countries.
Yes, Americans are addicted to petroleum, but so are others around the world. Unless we work together to curb its harmful effects, we will all suffer from the resulting damage.
MICHAEL T. KLARE, a professor at Hampshire College, is the author of "Blood and Oil: The Dangers and Consequences of America's Growing Petroleum Dependency."
Copyright 2006 Los Angeles Times
This Week on Gorilla Radio
PEJ News - C. L. Cook - Freelance Canadian journalist, Anthony Fenton and Haiti's tumultuous election. Dr. Arthur Clark and turning the tide of global militarism. And, Janine Bandcroft bringing us up to speed with all that's good to do in and around Victoria this week.
Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, airing live every Monday, 5-6pm Pacific Time. In Victoria at 101.9FM, 104.3 cable, and on the internet at: http://cfuv.uvic.ca He also serves as a contributing editor at the progressive web news site:
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You can check out the GR blog at:
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Gorilla Radio for
Monday February 13, 2006
C. L. Cook
Democracy has suffered a precipitous decline since the ascension of George W. Bush, both within the self-anointed homeland of modern western democracy, where constitutional freedoms and guarantees have been eroded and in some case abandoned entirely, and abroad, where sham elections are manipulated by the great powers, and legitimately elected governments go unrecognized, or are overthrown.
Last week, after suffering nearly two years of an illegal regime, the Haitian people finally got their chance to vote. But, it seems their choice of a new government is as unacceptable to the great paragons of the democratic ideal as was the previously government. Anthony Fenton is a Canadian freelance journalist who has reported extensively on the Haitian situation.
Anthony Fenton and whither democracy for Haiti in the first half.
And; Humanity is today at a crossroads. It is up to this generation to make the hard choices that will shape the future world, choices that may determine whether our species survives at all. One of the greatest threats we face, contends Professor Arthur Clark, co-founder of the organization ‘CANDIL’ (Canada, Democracy, and International Law) is militant nationalism, a quickening trend seen around the world today. Dr. Clark will present ‘Beyond Militarism: Choosing the Future’ this Wednesday at UVic.
Dr. Arthur Clark in the second half.
And; Janine Bandcroft will be here at the bottom of the hour to bring us up to speed with all that’s good to do in and around Victoria this week.
But first, Anthony Fenton and Haiti’s clouded future.
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Saturday, February 11, 2006
Riding-high with Hugo Chavez
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Riding-high with Hugo Chavez
Mike Whitney
Mike Whitney
02/11/06 "ICH" -- -- Hugo Chavez’s meteoric rise on the world stage has as much to do with his defiance of Washington as it does with his leadership of a hemispheric revolution. At great personal risk, Chavez has consistently lashed out against his witless-nemesis, George Bush, and the coterie of sycophants who do his bidding.
Yesterday, it was Bush’s poodle, Tony Blair, who entered the Chavez crosshairs. Blair has been Bush’s main ally in the illegal occupation of Iraq and the ongoing war of terror. In Parliament this week, Blair admonished Chavez that he should “respect the rules of the international community”, ignoring his own gross violations of the UN Charter and the Nuremburg Tribunal. Chavez responded to Blair with a hearty salvo:
“Don’t be shameless, Mr. Blair. Don’t be immoral, Mr. Blair, that you are one of those who have no morals. You are not one that has the right to criticize anyone about the rules of the international community”…You are an “imperialist pawn” who attempts to curry favor with “Danger Bush-Hitler, the number one mass murderer and assassin there is on the planet.”
“Go straight to hell, Mr. Blair,” Chavez roared.
What Chavez lacks in discretion, he makes up for in candor. While the feckless US Congress quivers at every edict issued from the White House, the barrel-chested Venezuelan fires off another round of grapeshot at the fraudster-and-chief:
“Bush is the world’s greatest terrorist”…”a madman”… (who) “thinks he owns the world and now is making plans to invade Iran, and plans to invade Venezuela, too…The American people are going to have to tie him down one of these days, because if they don’t he’s capable of destroying half the world.”
Chavez is the polar opposite of his arch-rival, George Bush. Raised in a dirt-floor shack, Chavez worked his way up through the ranks of the elite paratrooper-corps dreaming of becoming of becoming a baseball player and moving to the United States.
Bush, on the other hand, is a patrician slacker, who drank his way through high school and college, went “missing” during his tour with the Champagne Unit of the Texas National Guard, and ran three companies (Spectrum, Arbusto, and Harken) into the ground. He finally, found his niche in politics when he realized he could translate his family name and connections into political capital. Since then, he has faithfully served the corporate interests that catapulted him to the presidency; providing lavish subsidies to industry giants, tax cuts to the wealthy, and deregulation to nearly every area of commerce.
The divisions between Chavez and Bush are more than just personal. Chavez imagines a world where government is deeply involved in the health and welfare of its citizens and where certain guarantees of security are provided under the rule of law. He has worked tirelessly to actualize a modern Bolivarian Revolution, loosening the centuries-long grip of colonial rule and binding the continent together in a shared vision of peace and cooperation.
He’s become the bane of the petro-oligarchs who see his efforts to redistribute some of Venezuela’s vast oil wealth into social programs as a direct challenge to their authority. (Ironically, Chavez’s attempts to share oil profits are not nearly as extreme as the many programs initiated by FDR under the New Deal. Even into the 1950s the highest tax rate for anyone making over $200,000 was 92%. This “socialistic” redistribution of wealth explains the explosive growth of America’s middle class following the Second World War)
Chavez has provided clinics and schools in every barrio in Caracas; ensuring that even the neediest citizens will enjoy federally funded health care, literacy programs, and a minimal standard of living. His vision of social justice is sharply contrasted to that of Bush who has consistently hacked away at education, public television, Medicaid, student loans, and the crumbling social safety-net that provides vital resources for the destitute. In Bush-world, the solitary function of government is to enhance the wealth of America’s “privileged few”.
While Chavez is working to create a nationally-owned web of oil and gas pipelines that will knit the continent together, Bush is pursuing a global resource war that has destroyed much of Iraq and killed tens of thousands of innocent people. The Chavez approach requires partnership and cooperation, whereas the Bush strategy is merely a continuation of smash-and-grab imperialism.
Chavez is correct to dismiss Bush’s wars as an expression of “savage capitalism”, the likes of which Latin Americans have endured for more than a century.
Starting in the “lost decade” of the 1980s, the policies which sprouted from the “Washington consensus” have increased poverty and despair throughout the continent on an incalculable scale. The IMF and World Bank forced austerity measures, deregulation, privatization of public services and resources, as well as painful cuts to social programs and education. The “free market” policies have curbed hyperinflation, but left 128 million Latin Americans living on less that $2 a day.
Chavez’s political fortunes are due in large part to the widespread rejection of the exploitative neoliberal policies and market-oriented reforms that have failed to reduce poverty. His ascendancy has breathed life into a vision of socialism that is essentially non-ideological, but deals with the immediate needs of the people and the obligation of government to meet those needs.
Chavez’s new-found wealth and celebrity presents a serious challenge to Washington. The Pentagon issued a report 2 years ago that warned of the dangers of “radical populism” spreading through Latin America. The Bush administration is concerned that real democracy will take root in the region and undermine the dominant role of US industry.
Equally worrisome, is Chavez’s threat to divert vital oil supplies going to the United States to foreign tenders if Washington continues meddling in Venezuelan politics. (Venezuela currently provides 15% of US oil imports.)
Chavez star seems to be rising just as Bush’s is beginning to fizzle. While Bush is mired in scandal and war, Chavez is grabbing headlines by promising to give away $4 billion in aid to his neighbors, provide assistance to victims of Hurricane Katrina, and donate cheap heating fuel to the needy in Massachusetts. His generosity has enhanced his stature as a world leader while America’s moral authority vanished sometime between the carpet-bombing of Falluja and the sadistic treatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib.
Chavez’s popularity has only grown with every scathing brickbat he hurls at the Bush claque. The public obviously enjoys seeing David tweak Goliath’s nose while the giant stumbles blindly from one bloody conflict to the next.
“We are happy that the maximum representatives of the assassin and genocide Empire attack us and call us what they like,” Chavez boomed. “If the dogs are barking, Sancho, it’s because we are riding”.
Chavez’s comments elicited a sharp response from Donald Rumsfeld who said, “We’ve see some populist leadership appealing to masses of people in those countries” that is “worrisome”…Chavez “was elected legally- just as Adolf Hitler was elected legally-and then consolidated his power.”
“Adolf Hitler”?
That’s a stretch even by Rumsfeld’s standards.
Never the less, Chavez dismissed the Defense Secretary’s remarks saying, “Let the dogs of imperialism bark…that’s their role, to bark. Our task is to consolidate this century and the real liberation of our people right now.”
In recent months, Chavez has been aggressively trying to buy weapons from Russia anticipating another American coup or (possible) invasion. (He said that he has proof of a US plan code-named Balboa that was worked out under the Bush administration) He has vowed to cut off the flow of oil to the US if the Bush administration makes another attempt on his life and promised a century-long war if the US invades. Never the less, the prospect of hostilities hasn’t intimidated the effusive Chavez or caused him to tone down his rhetoric.
“The imperialist, mass-murdering, fascist attitude of the president of the United States doesn’t have limits”, Chavez said. “I think Hitler could be a nursery-baby next to George W. Bush”.
Ouch.
Chavez undoubtedly grasps the gravity of his situation and the likelihood that Bush will take military action against him sometime following an attack on Iran. As he noted last week when he was awarded the prestigious Jose Marti prize by UNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural organization:
“They will forever try to preserve the US Empire by all means, while we do everything possible to shred it.”
Chavez is persisting with his ambitious plans for agrarian reform, public housing, free health care, and redistribution of wealth. He is reshaping Venezuelan politics and influencing the way we think about governments’ obligations to its citizens.
As Chavez said, “The world needs development and peace, and the only road to peace is justice.”
Vive Chavez.
Restless Haitian Demonstrators Demand Vote Results
PEJ News - C. L. Cook - "We voted for Preval to move this country." If there is a problem [with the election] we will have an explosion. There will not be enough water to put out the fire in this country." - Haitian voter, Jean-Paul LeBlante
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Restless Haitian Demonstrators
Demand Vote Results
C. L. Cook
PEJ News
February 11, 2006
Judging from released election poll results, Rene Preval is the new president of Haiti. But, winning an election is no guarantee of assuming, or maintaining office, as recent history in Haiti and other "democratic" countries demonstrates. Former president, and protege of ousted president Jean-Bertrand Aristide, now living in exile in South Africa, Rene Preval had, at last count, achieved the better than 50% of the popular vote required to avoid a run-off vote and assume the presidential office, but further results have slowed to a crawl prompting calls of gerrymandering from Preval supporters.
As Reuters reports, hundreds of Preval supporters have marched in the capital, Port-au-Prince suspicious of the more than four day delay in tabulating the results. Earlier today, demonstrators surrounded the National Palace, reportedly tearing down opposition candidate's posters.
Rene Preval's campaign office too is tired of the wait, and has demanded documentation of the election council's claim of more than 100,000 "spoiled" ballots. The Preval camp has seen its official support numbers steadily sink from an initial exit poll estimate of more than 61%, to 51%, and expected to fall further as more votes are rendered "spoiled" by the election council.
Calls for an investigation of the process have also come from within the election council, with at least one councillor calling the process 'suspect." Patrick Fequiere says; "It should be investigated. It is suspect."
Millionaire garments industrialist and Preval opponent, Charles Baker is also making claims of voter fraud, demanding an investigation into the legitimacy of the election that saw him gain a paltry 8% of the popular vote.
Washington meanwhile has remained circumspect on the subject of who may be the next president; surprising considering the Bush administration's documented role in the overthrow of the former, democratically elected leader of the country and its support of the "interim" government authority.
Claude Parent, speaking for a mission representing eight countries in the Americas including Canada and the United States, says; "We think this election should be something that the international community should accept and we think the Haitian people should accept it."
Whether or not that happens has more to do with the "people" in Washington, Paris and Ottawa than the residents of Cite Soleil, or Bel Air.
Chris Cook is a contributing editor to PEJ News and host of Gorilla Radio, a weekly public affairs program, broad/webcast from the University of Victoria, Canada. You can check out the GR Blog here.
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Thursday, February 09, 2006
Iran at the Plate
Iran: the next war
Bush and Blair are gearing up for it, and they are preparing us, too - just as they did before attacking Iraq. But where is the threat?
By John Pilger
02/09/06 "ICH" -- -- Has Tony Blair, our minuscule Caesar, finally crossed his Rubicon? Having subverted the laws of the civilised world and brought carnage to a defenceless people and bloodshed to his own, having lied and lied and used the death of a hundredth British soldier in Iraq to indulge his profane self-pity, is he about to collude in one more crime before he goes?
Perhaps he is seriously unstable now, as some have suggested. Power does bring a certain madness to its prodigious abusers, especially those of shallow disposition. In The March of Folly: from Troy to Vietnam, the great American historian Barbara Tuchman described Lyndon B Johnson, the president whose insane policies took him across his Rubicon in Vietnam. "He lacked [John] Kennedy's ambivalence, born of a certain historical sense and at least some capacity for reflective thinking," she wrote. "Forceful and domineering, a man infatuated with himself, Johnson was affected in his conduct of Vietnam policy by three elements in his character: an ego that was insatiable and never secure; a bottomless capacity to use and impose the powers of his office without inhibition; a profound aversion, once fixed upon a course of action, to any contradictions."
That, demonstrably, is Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and the rest of the cabal that has seized power in Washington. But there is a logic to their idiocy - the goal of dominance. It also describes Blair, for whom the only logic is vainglorious. And now he is threatening to take Britain into the nightmare on offer in Iran. His Washington mentors are unlikely to ask for British troops, not yet. At first, they will prefer to bomb from a safe height, as Bill Clinton did in his destruction of Yugoslavia. They are aware that, like the Serbs, the Iranians are a serious people with a history of defending themselves and who are not stricken by the effects of a long siege, as the Iraqis were in 2003. When the Iranian defence minister promises "a crushing response", you sense he means it.
Listen to Blair in the House of Commons: "It's important we send a signal of strength" against a regime that has "forsaken diplomacy" and is "exporting terrorism" and "flouting its international obligations". Coming from one who has exported terrorism to Iran's neighbour, scandalously reneged on Britain's most sacred international obligations and forsaken diplomacy for brute force, these are Alice-through-the-looking-glass words.
However, they begin to make sense when you read Blair's Commons speeches on Iraq of 25 February and 18 March 2003. In both crucial debates - the latter leading to the disastrous vote on the invasion - he used the same or similar expressions to lie that he remained committed to a peaceful resolution. "Even now, today, we are offering Saddam the prospect of voluntary disarmament . . ." he said. From the revelations in Philippe Sands's book Lawless World, the scale of his deception is clear. On 31 January 2003, Bush and Blair confirmed their earlier secret decision to attack Iraq.
Like the invasion of Iraq, an attack on Iran has a secret agenda that has nothing to do with the Tehran regime's imaginary weapons of mass destruction. That Washington has managed to coerce enough members of the International Atomic Energy Agency into participating in a diplomatic charade is no more than reminiscent of the way it intimidated and bribed the "international community" into attacking Iraq in 1991.
Iran offers no "nuclear threat". There is not the slightest evidence that it has the centrifuges necessary to enrich uranium to weapons-grade material. The head of the IAEA, Mohamed ElBaradei, has repeatedly said his inspectors have found nothing to support American and Israeli claims. Iran has done nothing illegal; it has demonstrated no territorial ambitions nor has it engaged in the occupation of a foreign country - unlike the United States, Britain and Israel. It has complied with its obligations under the Non-Proliferation Treaty to allow inspectors to "go anywhere and see anything" - unlike the US and Israel. The latter has refused to recognise the NPT, and has between 200 and 500 thermonuclear weapons targeted at Iran and other Middle Eastern states.
Those who flout the rules of the NPT are America's and Britain's anointed friends. Both India and Pakistan have developed their nuclear weapons secretly and in defiance of the treaty. The Pakistani military dictatorship has openly exported its nuclear technology. In Iran's case, the excuse that the Bush regime has seized upon is the suspension of purely voluntary "confidence-building" measures that Iran agreed with Britain, France and Germany in order to placate the US and show that it was "above suspicion". Seals were placed on nuclear equipment following a concession given, some say foolishly, by Iranian negotiators and which had nothing to do with Iran's obligations under the NPT.
Iran has since claimed back its "inalienable right" under the terms of the NPT to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes. There is no doubt this decision reflects the ferment of political life in Tehran and the tension between radical and conciliatory forces, of which the bellicose new president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is but one voice. As European governments seemed to grasp for a while, this demands true diplomacy, especially given the history.
For more than half a century, Britain and the US have menaced Iran. In 1953, the CIA and MI6 overthrew the democratic government of Muhammed Mossadeq, an inspired nationalist who believed that Iranian oil belonged to Iran. They installed the venal shah and, through a monstrous creation called Savak, built one of the most vicious police states of the modern era. The Islamic revolution in 1979 was inevitable and very nasty, yet it was not monolithic and, through popular pressure and movement from within the elite, Iran has begun to open to the outside world - in spite of having sustained an invasion by Saddam Hussein, who was encouraged and backed by the US and Britain.
At the same time, Iran has lived with the real threat of an Israeli attack, possibly with nuclear weapons, about which the "international community" has remained silent. Recently, one of Israel's leading military historians, Martin van Creveld, wrote: "Obviously, we don't want Iran to have nuclear weapons and I don't know if they're developing them, but if they're not developing them, they're crazy."
It is hardly surprising that the Tehran regime has drawn the "lesson" of how North Korea, which has nuclear weapons, has successfully seen off the American predator without firing a shot. During the cold war, British "nuclear deterrent" strategists argued the same justification for arming the nation with nuclear weapons; the Russians were coming, they said. As we are aware from declassified files, this was fiction, unlike the prospect of an American attack on Iran, which is very real and probably imminent.
Blair knows this. He also knows the real reasons for an attack and the part Britain is likely to play. Next month, Iran is scheduled to shift its petrodollars into a euro-based bourse. The effect on the value of the dollar will be significant, if not, in the long term, disastrous. At present the dollar is, on paper, a worthless currency bearing the burden of a national debt exceeding $8trn and a trade deficit of more than $600bn. The cost of the Iraq adventure alone, according to the Nobel Prizewinning economist Joseph Stiglitz, could be $2trn. America's military empire, with its wars and 700-plus bases and limitless intrigues, is funded by creditors in Asia, principally China.
That oil is traded in dollars is critical in maintaining the dollar as the world's reserve currency. What the Bush regime fears is not Iran's nuclear ambitions but the effect of the world's fourth-biggest oil producer and trader breaking the dollar monopoly. Will the world's central banks then begin to shift their reserve holdings and, in effect, dump the dollar? Saddam Hussein was threatening to do the same when he was attacked.
While the Pentagon has no plans to occupy all of Iran, it has in its sights a strip of land that runs along the border with Iraq. This is Khuzestan, home to 90 per cent of Iran's oil. "The first step taken by an invading force," reported Beirut's Daily Star, "would be to occupy Iran's oil-rich Khuzestan Province, securing the sensitive Straits of Hormuz and cutting off the Iranian military's oil supply." On 28 January the Iranian government said that it had evidence of British undercover attacks in Khuzestan, including bombings, over the past year. Will the newly emboldened Labour MPs pursue this? Will they ask what the British army based in nearby Basra - notably the SAS - will do if or when Bush begins bombing Iran? With control of the oil of Khuzestan and Iraq and, by proxy, Saudi Arabia, the US will have what Richard Nixon called "the greatest prize of all".
But what of Iran's promise of "a crushing response"? Last year, the Pentagon delivered 500 "bunker-busting" bombs to Israel. Will the Israelis use them against a desperate Iran? Bush's 2002 Nuclear Posture Review cites "pre-emptive" attack with so-called low-yield nuclear weapons as an option. Will the militarists in Washington use them, if only to demonstrate to the rest of us that, regardless of their problems with Iraq, they are able to "fight and win multiple, simultaneous major-theatre wars", as they have boasted? That a British prime minister should collude with even a modicum of this insanity is cause for urgent action on this side of the Atlantic.
With thanks to Mike Whitney. John Pilger's new book, Freedom Next Time, will be published by Bantam Press in June
First published in the New Statesman
Haitian Election: Hamas Redux for Bush?
PEJ News - C . L. Cook - There has been death on both sides of the Haitian political divide, (the most gruesome the mobbing of a policeman who shot dead a queued voter), but early accounts report a mainly peaceful poll, if complicated by gross partisan gerrymandering by the ruling Pretenders in Port au Prince. Early returns look like the ascension of populist Jean Bertrand Aristide pal, Rene Preval to the nation's presidential office; but, the next hours will tell which course Haitian democracy takes.
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Haitian Election: Hamas Redux for Bush?
C. L. Cook
PEJ News
February 8, 2006
Over-shadowed by most accounts of Haitians returning to the poll following a two year period of political chaos is the fact: Haiti had a perfectly functioning electoral process two years ago. Their president enjoyed greater public support, in terms of total percentage, than any democratically elected counterpart in the world. The problem? Jean Bertrand Aristide wasn't the "right man" to do the bidding of Haiti's wafer thin elite, and their international friends in business.
On the night of February 29, 2004, the president was "rescued" by elite U.S. military and "security" personnel, whisked for his own safety across the Atlantic, to then find himself held incommunicado at a villa in the Central African Republic (CAR).
In a plot later found to be hatched by a tripartite collusion between elements within the U.S., French, and Canadian governments, a group of terrorists and murderous thugs, well employed during Haiti's dark pre-Democracy period, were again placed in power, supported by "police" from the conspirator nations, aided by an United Nations imprimatur, augmented by troops from Jordan and neighbouring Brazil.
The results have been political arrests, the curtailment and harrassment of the press, terrorizing of perceived supporters of the ousted Aristide, and an increasingly bitter and militant population.
And of course, lots of death.
After repeated postponements of this election, and the Florida-like disenfranchisement tricks, it's almost inconceivable that the same men representing the interests that went to the trouble of ridding the country of Aristide, a man professing the greater good of the poor majorities, introducing education, health care, and moving toward liveable wages and the end of the slavish conditions of Haiti's labour force, only to see him replaced two years later by a politcal protege.
The United Nations is reported to have grabbed election results from remote villages, and will deliver them to the capital for tabulation. As of late Wednesday pst, no results are official, suggesting either the total vote tally hasn't reached the mandated 20% needed before announcements can be made, or the regime is stalling the count while conferring with its foreign patrons.
The next few hours are literally a matter of what kind of life, or death Haiti's democracy will embrace.
Chris Cook is a contributing editor to PEJ News, and hosts Gorilla Radio, a weekly public affairs program, broad/webcast from the University of Victoria, Canada.
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Afghanistan: Media Fiddles While Canadians Come Under Fire
PEJ News - C. L. Cook - The "muscular" new Canadian approach to fulfilling the foreign policy objectives of the Bush administration today again bore bitter fruit for Canadian soldiers serving in Afghanistan. Dismissing the damage to troops and their Light Armoured Vehicle (LAV) as "minor," the national broadcaster missed entirely the damage being done to Canada's international image.
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Afghanistan:
Media Fiddles While Canadians Come Under Fire
C. L. Cook
PEJ News
February 9, 2006
Four Canadian soldiers were hurt when their convoy, on what was described as a joint U.S.- Canadian reconnaissance mission, was struck by an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) planted along their route. The Canadian contingent, dubbed 'Task Force Orion,' are recently arrived in the Taliban heartland city of Kandahar, and are expected, according to the Canadian general slated to take command of the greater, 'Task Force Afghanistan,' Brigadier-General David Fraser, to both "kill and die" there.
Indeed, just last month, Glyn Barry, Canada's head diplomat to the country was killed, and three Canadian soldiers wounded when their convoy was hit by a suicide car bomber. Attacks have been on the increase for at least a year in Afghanistan; attacks increasingly emulating the tactics seen in Iraq.
The Brigadier-General minces no words about Canada's involvement and his upcoming role as the Number One of the Multinational Brigade in Regional Command South, adjunct of the greater, American-led 'Operation Enduring Freedom,' saying; "This is a dangerous mission. This is a dangerous environment, and I cannot reduce the risk to zero."
Neither Canada's number one commercial broadcaster, nor Brig.-Gen. Fraser seem overly concerned with the greater danger the country's military adventurism poses for Canadian citizens, at home and abroad, or Canada's squandered reputation as mediator and peacekeeper on the world stage.
Instead, as Stephen Thorpe of Canadian Press reports, the increase IED and suicide attacks have led to "more liberal rules of engagement" for NATO troops, allowing they "fire on suspect vehicles and other attackers in Afghanistan." It can only be hoped, NATO will take more care than their American counterparts in Iraq, where un-tolled numbers of civilians have been killed at checkpoints, and just last week, a car carrying Canadian diplomats was shot at.
There will doubtless be more stories to come of Canadians wounded to a less "minor" degree as the campaign in Afghanistan continues, but few published by Canada's over-concentrated media are likely to explore their own role in down-playing the nature of the conflict before the fact, the sea-change in Canadian foreign policy it represents, or the new understanding of Canada's role in further military deployments to Afghanistan, and those other "hot spots" around the edges of America's burgeoning empire.
Chris Cook is a contributing editor to PEJ News and hosts Gorilla Radio, a weekly public affairs program, broad/webcast from the University of Victoria, Canada. You can check out the GR Blog here.
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Thursday, February 02, 2006
Google Does Evil
PEJ News - C. L. Cook - It’s okay when Wal-Mart takes advantage of China’s prison labour; alright when Microsoft allows its environmental standards sink, like so much heavy metal, to the levels of the “developing world” countries hosting its manufacturing; no problemo! when Cisco Systems develops software better able to aid and abet the imprisonment of cyber-dissenters; these companies never pretended to be anything but bottom-line, corporate bottom feeders. But, it’s another story when Google, they of the famous ‘Don’t Do Evil’ motto, turn to the Dark Side...
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Google Does Evil
C. L. Cook
PEJ News
February 2, 2006
We're recently enough arrived in the Technological Age that the very mention of the T-word is enough to send those inhabiting the crustier segments of the demographic pie into either panicked flight, or yawning paroxysms; but whether awed by technology’s whiz-bangery, or deadened by the tedium of techno-babble, Google’s burgeoning bad press regarding its policies in China are raising old questions; questions vital to the shape and nature of not only the future of China’s nascent technological society, but the societies we'll all inhabit tomorrow.
Being Googlers means striving toward the highest possible standard of ethical business conduct. This is a matter as much practical as ethical; we hire great people who work hard to build great products, but our most important asset by far is our reputation as a company that warrants our users' faith and trust. That trust is the foundation upon which our success and prosperity rests, and it must be re-earned every day, in every way, by every one of us. – Google Code of Conduct
For those who don’t follow the exploits of corporate tech. giants: Yahoo, Microsoft, Cisco, and most recently, search engine megalith Google, have all set up shop in China. That’s “Red” China for those old enough to remember the name of Ronald Reagan’s Vice President. (For those young enough to know who R. Kelly is; “Red” refers to Communism: Please google “Cold War”). Back in Reagan’s day, communism, as practiced in Russia, Cuba, Vietnam, and North Korea was simply referred to as ‘The Evil Empire.’ You might say it comprised a kind of “axis” that stood four-square against the virtues the then “Free World” so passionately espoused: Freedom of religion, freedom of association, freedom of thought and expression, and the freedom to fully participate in the political process.
China’s exception from righteous condemnation as an equally evil member of the communist “Axis Powers” was not due to any inherent virtue found within their particular application of Marxist-Leninism, (if anything, China was then, and continues today to be, one of the most brutal, repressive, and regressive regimes the world has ever known), but rather courtesy of Richard Nixon’s ministrations. China was redeemed through its willingness to embark on a journey of discovery into world trade and “free” market capitalism. Considering it’s guides, the ever slimy Tricky Dick and his Igor, moral troglodyte Henry Kissinger, it’s unsurprising the journey would inevitable prove a road to hell.
Along for the Ride
Our informal corporate motto is "Don't be evil." We Googlers generally relate those words to the way we serve our users – as well we should. But being "a different kind of company" means more than the products we make and the business we're building; it means making sure that our core values inform our conduct in all aspects of our lives as Google employees. - Google Code of Conduct
Little has changed. Google has, in decided to assist China's repression, simply joined the chorus of corporations enabling the new fascism. Today, Google joins corporations and governments conducting the most vile operations in China and around the world without feeling the need to coat their dastardliness with even the merest patina of good intent. Not even for “public consumption,” as Google includes in its manifesto of Enlightened Corporatism. They believe the public doesn’t give a damn. And, why shouldn’t they?
We, the public have come, in a few short decades, from a power that could bring down an industry with outraged indignation at the way workers were treated, to a tacit partner in crimes too great to fathom. While we are mostly all aware of some of the more grotesque aspects of the current Chinese regime: The repression in Tibet; a rapine attitude toward the environment; the repression of the Falun Gong; Tiananmen Square; slave labour; domestic economic injustice; the hypocrisy and destruction of the ideals of the revolution; but, what's really important surrounds us. How far need any of we look to find some product, either overt, or embedded within some other product, without seeing the trademark sealing our collective damnation: Made in China?
So, why should Google be any different?
What’s so insidious, Google may argue, when placed beside the billions of gallons of toxic effluents daily destroying the land, sea, and air of not only China, but the world, about putting a few filters on the information accessible to the Chinese people? Of its new service in China, Google contends they’re doing nothing more than what millions of American Moms do when they want to protect their children. It’s their country, after all.
But, beyond keeping young Wang and Billy safe from smut and demented paedophiliacs, Google is, as Declan McCullough reports at searchenginewatch.com, practicing a self-censorship in the service of China that sounds to be a pathetic, pre-emptive kow-towing taken to the extreme. Covetous as they are for China’s more than 110,000,000 internet users, Google has proved itself a depressing affirmation of the moral bankruptcy endemic in the modern world. Theirs is a surrnender to profit preceded to it’s ultimate conclusion, by rival Yahoo ratting out a Chinese journalist, effectively fingering him to take a ten year prison sentence. Today he languishes in one of the Chinese prisons you won’t find at Google.cn.
The citizens of China and the United States, Iraq, and Iran, are in in the middle of the battle for oil and information. It's a battle fast coming home, and reverberating around the planet. Those “filters” and spy technologies are coming back across the Pacific; along with an entrenching of the attitude that allowed the spawn of this new kind of totalitarianism in Asia. It's what the Bush administration once called 'Total Information Awareness, and it's coming on strong in China and everywhere.
Chris Cook is a contributing editor to PEJ News, and hosts Gorilla Radio, a weekly pubic affairs program, broad/webcast from CFUV Radio, at the University of Victoria, Canada. You can check out the GR Blog here.
San jose Mecury news
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/business/13735129.htm
SF Chronicle
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/
c/a/2006/02/01/MNG24H13K78.DTL&type=printable
http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/060201-131124
actual document from google:
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2006/02/human-rights-caucus-briefing.html
link to another study about google search results in china:
http://www.pandia.com/sew/index.php
a picture says 1000 words about google's chinese censorship:
http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/060130-080248
chinese government gives search engines advice about censorship, but it's up to them to do the actual dirty work:
http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/060127-150726
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Tuesday, January 31, 2006
Harper's Marching Orders Made Clearer
PEJ News - C. L. Cook - Unsurprisingly, some of Stephen Harper's biggest fans are fanatical "culture warriors," who feel little need for the quaint notions of truth and justice. Witness Paul Weyrich of the Free Congress Foundation. What the FCF hopes to "free" the American congress from is the fetter of the last hundred and some-odd years of political progress. And Mr. Weyrich would like to see the same liberties taken with Canadian progress.
www.pej.org
Canadians may recall Paul Weyrich's name coming up in the waning days of the federal election. Using the heft of his position as the head of the Free Congress Foundation, one of America's most extreme, and lately best connected "think tanks," to issue a fatwah to his fellow Christian Conservatives forbidding interviews with members of the Canadian press. As the memo explained, liberal elements in Canada could try to use U.S. fundamentalist enthusiasm for Stephen Harper against their favourite.
Typical of the moral fibre of the man credited with coining the term 'moral majority,' Weyrich denied, in the tense days leading to the election, authoring the memo, instead fingering an over-zealous underling for the faux pas. A denial he doesn't bother to make now his philosophical protege is in power.
Late last week, with his P.M. of choice firmly ensconced, Weyrich took another stab at the Canadian body-politick, suggesting years of "cultural Marxism" has rendered Canadians too "liberal" and "hedonistic" to adopt the enlightened views of he and his friends, yet. But, Stephen's good friend still holds out hope Canadians will over time see the err of their ways and come to reject Marxist ideals like same-sex marriage and abortion on demand.
If Weyrich worried Canadians may be worried about affiliations between he, his ilk and a national leadership hopeful, he has shown more political astuteness than too many voters here. What Harper represents, if at arm's length is precisely the pseudo-religiosity infecting, perhaps fatally, the American Republic.
But, as Weyrich's own FCF explains; "Our movement will be entirely destructive, and entirely constructive. We will not try to reform the existing institutions. We only intend to weaken them, and eventually destroy them." In the case of the United States of America, their program is, as George W. Bush may say, 'Mission Accomplished.'
What gives Paul Weyrich hope that Stephen Harper can overcome Canada's laxity of character is the great unilateral power of the Canadian Prime Minister's office, unlike its U.S. counterpart, to make appointments to the judiciary and in other areas of governance vital to a program of cultural adjustment.
The packing of the courts with fellow-travellers in Canada as seen in the recent history of the United States is, as the Canadian website, Benedictionblogson.com observes, something that should scare all Canadians concerned about preserving their traditions and culture, however "Marxist" it may seem to some outside our borders.
Chris Cook is a contributing editor to PEJ News. He also hosts Gorilla Radio, a weekly public affairs program, broad/webcast from the University of Victoria, Canada. You can check out the GR Blog here.
Stay informed. Subscribe and get the best of PEJ News by email. Free.
www.pej.org
January 31, 2005
Canadians may recall Paul Weyrich's name coming up in the waning days of the federal election. Using the heft of his position as the head of the Free Congress Foundation, one of America's most extreme, and lately best connected "think tanks," to issue a fatwah to his fellow Christian Conservatives forbidding interviews with members of the Canadian press. As the memo explained, liberal elements in Canada could try to use U.S. fundamentalist enthusiasm for Stephen Harper against their favourite.
Typical of the moral fibre of the man credited with coining the term 'moral majority,' Weyrich denied, in the tense days leading to the election, authoring the memo, instead fingering an over-zealous underling for the faux pas. A denial he doesn't bother to make now his philosophical protege is in power.
Late last week, with his P.M. of choice firmly ensconced, Weyrich took another stab at the Canadian body-politick, suggesting years of "cultural Marxism" has rendered Canadians too "liberal" and "hedonistic" to adopt the enlightened views of he and his friends, yet. But, Stephen's good friend still holds out hope Canadians will over time see the err of their ways and come to reject Marxist ideals like same-sex marriage and abortion on demand.
If Weyrich worried Canadians may be worried about affiliations between he, his ilk and a national leadership hopeful, he has shown more political astuteness than too many voters here. What Harper represents, if at arm's length is precisely the pseudo-religiosity infecting, perhaps fatally, the American Republic.
But, as Weyrich's own FCF explains; "Our movement will be entirely destructive, and entirely constructive. We will not try to reform the existing institutions. We only intend to weaken them, and eventually destroy them." In the case of the United States of America, their program is, as George W. Bush may say, 'Mission Accomplished.'
What gives Paul Weyrich hope that Stephen Harper can overcome Canada's laxity of character is the great unilateral power of the Canadian Prime Minister's office, unlike its U.S. counterpart, to make appointments to the judiciary and in other areas of governance vital to a program of cultural adjustment.
The packing of the courts with fellow-travellers in Canada as seen in the recent history of the United States is, as the Canadian website, Benedictionblogson.com observes, something that should scare all Canadians concerned about preserving their traditions and culture, however "Marxist" it may seem to some outside our borders.
Chris Cook is a contributing editor to PEJ News. He also hosts Gorilla Radio, a weekly public affairs program, broad/webcast from the University of Victoria, Canada. You can check out the GR Blog here.
Stay informed. Subscribe and get the best of PEJ News by email. Free.
Sunday, January 29, 2006
Beating Around the Bush By the Bourse
http://www.schnews.org.uk/
images/499-peak-oil.gif
Beating Around the Bush By the Bourse
Ingmar Lee
January 27, 2006
bourse / /n. (also Bourse) a stock exchange, esp. in Europe. ~Canadian Oxford Dictionary
Only bimbos believed Bush when he said it was WMD's that made him attack, invade, occupy and massacre Iraq. Most of us thought it was to steal Iraq's oil, but we were only partly right. What totally terrorized the tyrannical Texan tycoon was when Saddam played the oil bourse card in November, 2000.
When Saddam started selling Iraqi oil in euro's, he jeopardized greenback hegemony as the world's supreme foreign exchange transaction currency. If this brilliant idea catches on, it will trigger the total collapse of the USA economy. The oil grab is a sideshow. The main feature is the oil bourse.
The Neocon global domination agenda is engendered by the denomination of global oil transactions in greenbacks. America prints out the bucks that are required for the purchase of oil, and the world has to produce stuff they can sell to get the bucks they need to buy oil. Printing Monopoly 'fiat' money only costs America the paper and green ink, so the USA dollar has been fattened on oil-enriched chicken feed since Tricky Dick delinked the buck from the bullion.
The oil bourse scheme could so seriously setback US suzeiranty that Saddam got stomped to smithereens.
Saddam was just the first wavelet in the coming tsunami. On March 20, 2006, Iran will start selling oil in euros.
Here's what the Bush cabal's
"At present the United States faces no global rival. America's grand strategy should be to preserve and extend this advantageous position as far into the future as possible. There are, however, potentially powerful states [read Europe, China, India] who are dissatisfied with the current situation and who wish to change it, if they can, in directions that would endanger the relatively peaceful, prosperous and free condition the world [read USA] enjoys today.
Up to now, they have been deterred from doing so by the capability and global presence of American military power [read terrorist menace]. But as that power declines, [read currently being defeated in Iraq] relatively and absolutely, the happy conditions that follow from it will be inevitably undermined."
The latest Neocon ramp-up rhetoric for attacking Iran is a dreary fearmongering rerun of the same old lies that launched Bush's disastrous Iraq-attack. The same old WMD drumbeat is now rattling to attack and destroy Ahmadinejad's nascent civilian nuclear program.
Bush will fail to get IAEA support to forward his Iran-sanctions feint to the UN Security Council, so there won't be any UN 'coalition of the willing.' Russia and China aren't interested, and Bush's
Bush has stated that "All options are on the table.The use of force is the last option for any president. You know we have used force in the recent past to secure our country."
Freaky Dick's office has tasked STRATCOM to draw up a plan which includes a large-scale air assault on Iran using conventional and tactical nuclear weapons.
Condoleeza Rice says that "time had run out for talking to Tehran."
John Bolton says that Bush "has made clear that a nuclear Iran is not acceptable."
Newt Gingrich, who won't rule out a run for the presidency in '08, said, "If we don't have a very serious systematic program to replace the government of Iran, we're going to live in an unbelievably dangerous world. This is 1935 and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is as close to Adolf Hitler as we've seen."
Israel's Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz said that Israel was preparing to protect itself if international diplomatic efforts failed to convince Iran to give up its nuclear program.
When the Neocons conquered the White House in 2000, the U.S. surplus was approximately $5 trillion. That's all gone and the domestic deficit now stands at somewhere around $500 billion. The world's largest debtor nation owes
Here's how the Neocons hoodwinked and swindled the world:
From the
"Oil can be bought from OPEC only if you have dollars. Non-oil producing countries, such as most underdeveloped countries and Japan, first have to sell their goods to earn dollars with which they can purchase oil. If they cannot earn enough dollars, then they have to borrow dollars from the WB/IMF, which has to be paid back, with interest, in dollars. This creates a great demand for dollars outside the U.S. In contrast, the U.S. only has to print dollar bills in exchange for goods.
For its own oil imports, the U.S. can print dollar bills without exporting or selling its goods. For instance, in 2003 the current U.S. account deficit and external debt has been running at more than $500 billion. Put in simple terms, the U.S. will receive $500 billion more in goods and services from other countries than it will provide them. The imported goods are paid by printing dollar bills, i.e., "fiat" dollars."
China has more than $800 billion reserved in a giant stack of basically green, ink-smeared paper. When Iran starts selling its oil in euros, why wouldn't China just go ahead and convert that stack of paper to euros and use real money to buy oil instead?
In January 2002, Canada unloaded nearly 20% of its gold stocks in exchange for euros, thereby bringing its euro holdings to the equivalent of about US$14 billion. That's about 42 percent of the total US$33 billion in foreign deposits and securities held by the government. Just 2 years previous, euros accounted for the equivalent of about US$7 billion of Canada's reserves, only 23 percent of the total. The gold sale reduced Canada's U.S. dollar share to 55 percent from 75 percent.
Under Hugo Chavez, Venezuela is brokering barter deals for trading oil with 12 Latin American countries thereby cutting out the USA cut. At the OPEC summit in September 2000, Chavez delivered the report of the "International Seminar on the Future of Energy ." One of its key recommendations was that "OPEC take advantage of high-tech electronic barter and bi-lateral exchanges of its oil with its developing country customers." That would be the end of dollar hegemony over OPEC oil transactions.
The
The Neocon oil-mens cabal has an even clearer understanding of Peak Oil, and its equally ominous implications for the American economy.
In this horrific context, it's not too difficult to understand why the Bush Neocon cabal is preparing to risk all to go on a global oil-stealing spree, and to attack Iran, perhaps even with nukes. It's also easy to understand the cringing wimp-ass non-response of the Democrats. There's no way America can win, and America's got everything to lose. As
Paradoxically, that crash is this world's only hope for evading global ecological catastrophe. We should support Iran's oil bourse. Bring it on!
Ingmar Lee is a Canadian freelance writer currently living in Pondicherry India. He is appalled and embarrassed that Canada has elected a Bush-lackey Neocon creep for Prime Minister. He can be reached at
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