DYING FOR W

by Robert Parry, Consortium News















George W. Bush admits he has no evidence that a withdrawal timetable from Iraq would be harmful. Instead, the President told interviewer Charlie Rose that this core assumption behind his veto threat of a Democratic war appropriation bill is backed by “just logic.”

“I mean, you say we start moving troops out,” Bush said in the interview on April 24. “Don’t you think an enemy is going to wait and adjust based upon an announced timetable for withdrawal?”

It is an argument that Bush has made again and again over the past few years, that with a withdrawal timetable, the “enemy” would just “wait us out.” But the answer to Bush’s rhetorical question could be, “well, so what if they do?”

If Bush is right and a withdrawal timetable quiets Iraq down for the next year or so – a kind of de facto cease-fire – that could buy time for the Iraqis to begin the difficult process of reconciliation and start removing the irritants that have enflamed the violence.

One of those irritants has been the impression held by many Iraqi nationalists that Bush and his neoconservative advisers want to turn Iraq into a permanent colony while using its territory as a land-based aircraft carrier to pressure or attack other Muslim nations.

The neocons haven’t helped by referring to Bush’s 2003 conquest as the “USS Iraq” and joking about whether next to force “regime change” in Syria or Iran, with the punch-line, “Real men go to Tehran.”

By refusing to set an end date for the U.S. military occupation, Bush has fed this suspicion, prompting many Iraqis – both Sunni and Shiite – to attack American troops. Another negative consequence has been that the drawn-out Iraq War has bought time for foreign al-Qaeda terrorists to put down roots with Sunni insurgents.

Obviously, there is no guarantee that a timetable for a U.S. withdrawal would bring peace to Iraq. The greater likelihood remains that civil strife will continue for some years to come as Iraq’s factions nurse their grievances and push for a new national equilibrium.

But the counterpoint to Bush’s veto threat against a withdrawal timetable is that his open-ended war is doomed to failure. To attain even the appearance of limited success would require American forces to effectively exterminate all Iraqis who are part of the armed resistance to the U.S. occupation.

After all, the only logical reason for not wanting the “enemy” to lie low is so American troops can capture or kill them.

That has been Bush’s strategy for the past four-plus years – longer than it took the United States to win World War II – and the military situation has only grown increasingly dire. Meanwhile, anti-Americanism has swelled around the world, especially among Muslims.

Failed Surge

But a long, bloody stalemate is the likely result from Bush’s stubbornness. With little fanfare, the Bush administration has essentially abandoned its earlier “exit strategy” of training a new Iraqi army so as “they stand up, we’ll stand down.”

Bush’s much-touted “surge” – beefing up American forces in Baghdad and other hot spots – is an indirect acknowledgement that the training was a flop. The “surge” is a do-over of the war’s original approach of relying on American troops to bring security to the country.

The “surge” also places American troops in lightly defended outposts in Iraqi neighborhoods, rather than concentrating U.S. forces in high-security barracks. The Pentagon acknowledges that this approach will put Americans in greater danger, both from insurgents and from Iraqi police whose loyalties are suspect.

The prediction of higher U.S. casualties is already coming true, as al-Qaeda-connected terrorists and Iraqi insurgents adjust their tactics to kill the vulnerable Americans. On April 23, two suicide truck bombers rammed a U.S. Army outpost near Baqubah, exploding two bombs that killed nine American soldiers and wounded 20 others.

As Iraq’s temperatures begin to soar into the 100s, the American troops will have to fight the heat as well as the insurgents. The secure base camps were well equipped with air conditioning, water and other supplies that won’t be as accessible in the remote outposts scattered throughout hostile neighborhoods.

Supplying these American troops will be another invitation for ambushes and roadside bombs.

The chances that U.S. troops will kill Iraqi civilians will rise, too, as may have happened earlier this month when an American helicopter gunship killed an Iraqi mother and her two sons in Baghdad Al-Amel neighborhood. [Christian Science Monitor, April 24, 2007]

Bush’s insistence on an open-ended U.S. occupation also plays into the hands of foreign al-Qaeda terrorists who are estimated to number only about five percent of the armed opposition.

Captured al-Qaeda documents reveal that the terrorist group has had trouble building alliances with Iraqi insurgents. So, al-Qaeda has pinned its hopes on keeping the U.S. military bogged down in Iraq indefinitely while those bridges are built and a new generation of extremists is recruited, trained and hardened.

In addition, having the U.S. military focused on Iraq protects Osama bin Laden and other terrorist leaders holed up on the Afghan-Pakistani border.

An announced date for American withdrawal would put non-Iraqi al-Qaeda operatives in a tighter fix. Without the indefinite U.S. occupation, al-Qaeda would find it tougher to recruit young jihadists and would likely face military pressure from Iraqi nationalists fed up with foreign interference of all kinds.

That is why al-Qaeda leaders view Bush’s open-ended war in Iraq as crucial to their long-range plans for spreading their radical ideology throughout the Muslim world. As “Atiyah,” one of bin Laden’s top lieutenants, explained in a Dec. 11, 2005, letter, “prolonging the war is in our interest.”

[To read the “prolonging the war” passage from the captured Atiyah letter at the Web site of West Point’s Combating Terrorism Center, click here and then scroll down to the bottom of page 16 and the top of page 17.]

‘False Hope’

Military and intelligence analysts have told me that the “surge” is already recognized as a failure by U.S. military officers stationed in Iraq. “It’s just another layer on top of what they’ve already been doing,” one well-placed U.S. military source said.

In this view, the “surge” is more a political tactic than a military one, a way for Bush to argue for more money without strings, one more time. Presumably, after the “surge” collapses in obvious failure, Bush and his advisers will point to another mirage on the horizon.

Or, as comedian Lewis Black has put it, “Keep false hope alive.”

Given what the Iraq Study Group has called the “grave and deteriorating” conditions in Iraq, why not give a timetable for American withdrawal a chance? It potentially could help achieve three goals:

First, it might tamp down the violence from Iraqi nationalists who, if Bush’s “logic” is right, would lie low for a while. Second, it might pressure the Iraqi government to get serious about reconciliation during a respite from the violence. Third, it might help isolate al-Qaeda and deny the terrorist group the recruiting advantage from the open-ended U.S. occupation.

There also would be an incentive for the Iraqi nationalists to cooperate in reconciliation, because the United States could reverse its withdrawal plans if Iraq descended into chaos as a failed state or became a haven for al-Qaeda. At minimum, an announced U.S. withdrawal would change the current depressing political and military dynamic in Iraq.

So, a Bush victory in the funding showdown with congressional Democrats might lead to some high-fiving at the White House and mean that President Bush will have saved some political face. But the prospect of an open-ended war will condemn Iraqis and American soldiers alike to nightmarish months ahead and the certainty of many more deaths.

In effect, they will be asked to die for W.

Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories in the 1980s for the Associated Press and Newsweek. His latest book, Secrecy & Privilege: Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq, can be ordered at secrecyandprivilege.com. It's also available at Amazon.com, as is his 1999 book, Lost History: Contras, Cocaine, the Press & 'Project Truth.'

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THE BEAT DOWN

by Malik Isasis






















Senator John McCain, Republican from Arizona, appeared on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart on April 24, 2007 to try and polish this turd of an occupation in Iraq by regurgitating Bush’s talking points. McCain who has usually received a warm and non confrontational welcome from Stewart seemed unprepared for what was about to happened—even though Stewart came out the gate with: “What do you want to start out with—the bomb Iran song or the walk through the market in Baghdad? What do you want to start with?”

McCain appeared genuinely hurt by Stewart’s criticism of him on some of his shows. When McCain criticized Democratic leader Senator Reid about losing the war, his hurt manifested as a little jab at Stewart:

McCain: “You showed a thing on the program where majority leader of the senate said we lost—then tell me who won? Who won? Al-Qaeda? Sunni militia? Shia militia? Who won this? (Cross talk)

Stewart:”In fairness to Senator Reid and God bless me I don’t believe in fairness but uh—

McCain: --“I found that out recently.”

Right out of the gate Stewart hit McCain with an intellectually right and he was stunned—he was in complete disbelief. McCain looked like a man who had fallen in love with his own propaganda, only to be confronted by reality. Sounding like Bush’s water boy, he continued to spit out the Republican talking points of Democratic defeatism, they'll follow us home if we don't beat them there, etc. only to have the talking points completely deconstructed one by one.

The only strategy left for McCain by the end of the interview was to filibuster the conversation—a popular strategy with right wingers, which is to keep talking over the other person while he is trying to make a point. McCain was like an out of shape boxer in the tenth round, out of breath and tired. The only thing he could do was to grab Stewart and hold on and let the clock run down. And kudos to Stewart for taking body shots, even as McCain held on.

McCain looked like a fool, deservedly so. This is the lesson of believing your own hype.

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THE 33%

by Malik Isasis





















The Ghost of former President Richard Nixon has lived comfortably within Karl Rove’s political hackery over the past six years. Rove otherwise known as Turd Blossom—how fitting, is the political advisor to George Bush, and during Bush’s tenure has taken Richard Nixon’s Southern Strategy to the next level.

The Southern Strategy was designed by Nixon and the Republicans to comfort the bigotry, sexism and prejudices of Southern white men who felt disenfranchised by the Democratic Party’s tacit support of minorities’ and women’s challenge to the white male paradigm. The Democratic Party’s embrace of civil rights and civil liberties in the 60s during the empowerment movements caused a mass exodus of disenfranchised Southern white men.

The Nixon Doctrine was not adopted to address the misperceptions or heal the grievances of these so-called disenfranchised but to build a voting block of white men by pitting their interests against those of people of color and women. Although all of the disenfranchised shared more in common than not, the Southern Strategy was a euphemism for divide and conquer. This tried and true strategy works because it fractures communities by individualizing them, if people are fighting rather than discussing their shared grief, a collective revolution is less likely. Politicians and dictators the world over understand this concept.

Steady at 33%

Bush’s support in the polls will always hover between 30%- 33% no matter what he does because the foundation was laid down by Nixon, and turned into fundamentalist right-wing ideology by the Turd Blossom. During the Republican Party’s rise to absolute power, Turd Blossom used so-called “wedge issues” to introduce prejudiced, paranoia into the 2002, 2004 and 2006 election cycles. These “wedge-issues” were gay marriage, sexist propaganda such as the feminization of America, abortion and fear mongering such as the invasion of the US territory by Mexicans. The “wedge issues” were used to keep the American public asleep while the federal government was being used as a money laundering service for Bush and his corporate raiders.

The neocons’ propaganda machine has created a simple narrative, not simple in the pejorative sense, but simple in a brilliant way. The neocons’ fictional narrative folds neatly into America’s white supremacy values. It is in this brilliant strategy that the Republicans are able to get people to vote against their own interests.

The neocon narrative tells Southerners that their moral and religious values are superior, beyond reproach—they are the moral compass of America, the corporate media coddles this folklore by persistently referring to this voting block as “Values Voters” (see here) If they are Value Voters what does that make the rest of us?

The Disconnect

There is an interesting dichotomy with the 33% in which the corporate media glosses over, take for example, the abortion and the culture of life propaganda; some voters vote Republican on abortion alone (The Turd Blossom understands this), it is their only issue. However, these same voters are supporting the Occupation in Iraq, which has killed hundreds of thousands of innocent men, women and children.

The Republican presidential candidates are twisting themselves into pretzels, trying to out do one another to see who can become more primitive. The regression of John McCaine, Rudy Guiliani, and other once social progressive Republicans are the canaries in the mine--the representation of just how despotic and puerile the political system has become. Their catering to the religiosity of the 33% right wing ideology is shameful, and they’re shameless.

The corporate media’s responsibility in all of this is that they have bought into using the “Values Voters” as a gold standard to marginalize the Democratic Party, and liberals. The neocons have been successful at getting the corporate media to portray conservatism as the only value on the political spectrum. Conservatism is the new center.

The corporate media’s worship of this false idol has legitimized bigotry and sexism and has made it easier for the Southern voting block to operate proudly in their ignorance, completely unaware of the moral conflicts and consequences that their voting patterns have on domestic and foreign policy.

Fascist America, in 10 Easy Steps

From Hitler to Pinochet and Beyond, History Shows There Are certain Steps That Any Would-Be Dictator Must Take To Destroy Constitutional Freedoms. And George Bush and His Administration Seem To Be Taking Them All

by Naomi Wolf, The Guardian






















Last autumn, there was a military coup in Thailand. The leaders of the coup took a number of steps, rather systematically, as if they had a shopping list. In a sense, they did. Within a matter of days, democracy had been closed down: the coup leaders declared martial law, sent armed soldiers into residential areas, took over radio and TV stations, issued restrictions on the press, tightened some limits on travel, and took certain activists into custody. They were not figuring these things out as they went along. If you look at history, you can see that there is essentially a blueprint for turning an open society into a dictatorship. That blueprint has been used again and again in more and less bloody, more and less terrifying ways. But it is always effective. It is very difficult and arduous to create and sustain a democracy - but history shows that closing one down is much simpler. You simply have to be willing to take the 10 steps.

As difficult as this is to contemplate, it is clear, if you are willing to look, that each of these 10 steps has already been initiated today in the United States by the Bush administration.

Because Americans like me were born in freedom, we have a hard time even considering that it is possible for us to become as unfree - domestically - as many other nations. Because we no longer learn much about our rights or our system of government - the task of being aware of the constitution has been outsourced from citizens’ ownership to being the domain of professionals such as lawyers and professors - we scarcely recognize the checks and balances that the founders put in place, even as they are being systematically dismantled. Because we don’t learn much about European history, the setting up of a department of “homeland” security - remember who else was keen on the word “homeland” - didn’t raise the alarm bells it might have.

It is my argument that, beneath our very noses, George Bush and his administration are using time-tested tactics to close down an open society. It is time for us to be willing to think the unthinkable - as the author and political journalist Joe Conason, has put it, that it can happen here. And that we are further along than we realize.

Conason eloquently warned of the danger of American authoritarianism. I am arguing that we need also to look at the lessons of European and other kinds of fascism to understand the potential seriousness of the events we see unfolding in the US...read on.

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DICK FICTION
written & directed by Bill Caco, What Else is on Television





Starring: Bill Caco, J. Robert Thompson, Josh Axelman, Cari Finken, Kelly Bakst

Synopsis: We all know Dick Cheney shot some guy in the face, but do we know what really went down? This is the never-before-seen true story.

"Dick Cheney will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those that attempt to poison and destroy his Republican brothers."

NAKED LIFE

written & directed by Malik Isasis






















TRAILER

I decided that I would take a day or two off from social commentary. I'm starting to feel the effects of secondary trauma. I'm going to need another day of recovery. So, I decided that I would take this opportunity to promote my film Naked Life , which will be playing at the Langston Hughes African American Film Festival here in Seattle. I will be in attendance. So, if you are in the area please stop by and introduce yourself.

Location:
Langston Hughes Performance Arts Center
104 17th Ave S
Seattle, WA 98144
(206) 684-4757

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IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH

by Malik Isasis

















If we retreat -- were to retreat from Iraq, what's interesting and different about this war is that the enemy would follow us here…Now, the Democrats who pass these bills know that I'll veto them, and they know that this veto will be sustained. Yet they continue to pursue the legislation. And as they do, the clock is ticking for our troops in the field. In other words, there are consequences for delaying this money. In the coming days, our military leaders will notify Congress that they will be forced to transfer $1.6 billion from other military accounts to cover the shortfall caused by Congress's failure to fund our troops in the field. That means our military will have to take money from personnel accounts so they can continue to fund U.S. Army operations in Iraq and elsewhere.

This $1.6 billion in transfers come on top of another $1.7 billion in transfers that our military leaders notified Congress about last month. In March, Congress was told that the military would need to take money from military personnel accounts, weapons and communications systems so we can continue to fund programs to protect our soldiers and Marines from improvised explosive devices and send hundreds of mine-resistant vehicles to our troops on the front lines. These actions are only the beginning, and the longer Congress delays, the worse the impact on the men and women of the Armed Forces will be.
President Bush, April 10, 2007

In typical fashion Bush speaks of the Occupation of Iraq and the condition of the troops as if he had nothing to do with it. This is the narcissism that has so crippled his intellectual and emotional maturation. The corporate press, the despotic Republican Party and the go-along to-get-along Democratic Party continues to enable him to use the troops as props and sacrificial lambs in the theatre of a bloody and destructive colonization effort.

Bush and the neocons need to use fear-based tactics in his governance of this country in order to cause a distraction away from his exceptional lack of talent as a Statesman. Nearly everything that dribbles out of his petulant mouth is a lie. He is a pathological liar willing to say anything to keep the American people from becoming hip to his cowboy hustle; but his hustle was exposed during the Hurricane Katrina aftermath. Aside from the 33% that will support him no matter what, the rest of the American population has caught on to Bush’s attempt to scare his way into the history books as one of the most inept men to ever run the so-called free world.

Bush thrives on violence and death. He’s the Pied Piper of death and death surely follows him like hatchlings.

Not surprisingly, tragedies like the Virginia Tech incident is exploited and assimilated into trite and nonsensical gibberish that is disconnected from his personal wake of tragic destruction.
"It's impossible to make sense of such violence and suffering," He said at the convocation ceremony. "Those whose lives were taken did nothing to deserve their fate."

“It's impossible to make sense of such violence and suffering. Those whose lives were taken did nothing to deserve their fate." Those very words can be said for the suffering of the Iraqi and Afghani people. Bush doesn’t grasp the irony of the bullshit that comes out of his mouth because he is not thoughtful and has no insight into what he says or what he does.

War to the End

Bush’s Administration is mired up to its eyeballs in corruption, and in an attempt to distract, Bush and his flying monkeys are doing what they do best: whipping up fear, fear about September 11, 2001. In every speech this week and last, he has referred to 911 and the terrorists invading the eastern seaboard if we were to leave Iraq. This may have worked with a large majority of the American people two years ago; however, the American people have seen George W. Bush slip on way too many banana peels in a time of crises—from September 11, 2001, the Occupation in Iraq, the Occupation of Afghanistan to Hurricane Katrina; he has lost the confidence of the American people.

Who is he trying to fool? We’ve all seen his cowardice on September 11, 2001 when he was paralyzed with fear after he was told about the planes going into the towers. He fled in Airforce One…and since then, he has been trying to rewrite history by showing us how brave he is by calling himself a war president and using other people’s children to fight an unwinnable occupation.

Bush and his neocons are propagandizing a war with Iran, even in the face of failure in Iraq and everything that he touches. No matter, the next president will have to clean up this pile of shit Bush has left behind. He’s like a kid who sucker-punches and dashes off so that others will take the blame. What a punk.

He and his neocons can no longer govern using Arabs and Muslims as boogey men, so now they’ve just become outright, outlaws—thugs, kicking over trash cans and knocking over mailboxes in the international community.

Sanctity of Life

Bush and his two newly appointed right wing jurists Roberts and Alito has paid big dividends for the Evangelical and Corporatist Right, in a decision on April 18, 2007 to uphold the Partial-Birth Abortion law [Public Law 108-105, HR 760, S 3, 18 U.S. Code 1531] that was passed by the despotic Republican 109th Congress, which deals with abortion in the second trimester.

”The Supreme Court decision is an affirmation of the progress we have made over the past six years in protecting human dignity and upholding the sanctity of life," Bush said in a statement. "We will continue to work for the day when every child is welcomed in life and protected in law."

Johnny Two Buicks Bush is an affront to humanity. In his complete disconnectedness from reality, he can spew the words “sanctity of life” in a time when he is responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands, and the displacement of millions.

Thanks to a corporate media full of fools, sycophants, corporatists, despotic Republicans and the Democratic Party, Bush is able to continue to destroy this country and everything that he touches.

In the words of my favorite truth seeker, Mike Malloy, "Did I tell you how much I hate these people?"

BLACK AMERICA AND PALESTINE

by Margaret Kimberley, Black Agenda Report













African Americans are the group that most supports the rights of Palestinians to be treated justly - which makes Blacks the most vulnerable targets of the Israel lobby. Effectively controlling the U.S. Congress, the Israel lobby creates endless enemies for the United States, abroad, endangering every American citizen. Yet an imposed silence prevents any semblance of national dialogue on the subject. Relentlessly, the Israel lobby launches political "hit men" to attack anyone who challenges the U.S. alliance with the Zionist State.

A nation that inflicts collective punishment on civilian populations, tortures minor children, uses civilians as human shields, and commits extra judicial killings ought to be condemned by all decent, civilized nations. It seems like a no-brainer. If that country is Israel, those common sense assumption no longer apply. The United States routinely vetoes any and all United Nations resolutions that condemn a variety of Israeli actions.

Israel's existence depends totally on America's largesse, yet Israel calls the shots. That nation receives $15 million aid every single day. In return Israel sends spies to the United States and effectively controls the Congress through its American allies...read on.

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HUMAN WASTE UNCENSORED

America’s Dissociative Amnesia
by Malik Isasis


What if the killing spree in Blacksburg, Virginia happened every single day for four years in this country? What would the response be? In the Occupation of Iraq, an average of 100 violent deaths by gunshot or explosion occurs each day. Where is the corporate media’s outrage? Where is the country’s outrage? Where is the international community’s outrage?

The killing spree in Blacksburg, Virginia is a tragedy, but there is no sense of perspective in this country. Violence and destruction is the way our government solves its problems, so why are we surprised when individuals choose to use violence as a way to cope with their emotional ills? Violence in this country is a well-compartmentalized fetish. The corporate media with its wall-to-wall coverage has already scored music and branded the Virginia Tech killing spree as The Massacre at Virginia Tech. The corporate media will cover the incident ad nauseum without adding anything substantive to the conversation about America's cultural violence. The incident will just end up exploited by politicians and the corporate media.

Over the last seven years, the corporate media and the America people cheered Bush on as he used the United States military to drop cluster bombs, use white phosphorus munitions, and gun ships to rip into and pulverize the human flesh of civilians in Iraq.

A recent report by the Iraqi Ministry of Health showed that 70% of Iraqi children are suffering from trauma—bedwetting and stuttering caused by the occupation and insurgency.

Many Iraqi children have to pass dead bodies on the street as they walk to school in the morning, according to a separate report last week by the International Red Cross. Others have seen relatives killed or have been injured in mortar or bomb attacks.

Iraq has lost approximately 7% of its population due to mass exodus to Syira and Jordon. Approximately half of 34,000 doctors in the country has fled.

The Independent reported in February 2007:

They flee because they fear for their lives. Some 3,000 Iraqis are being killed every month according to the UN. Most come from Baghdad and the centre of the country, but all of Iraq outside the three Kurdish provinces in the north is extremely violent. A detailed survey by the International Organisation for Migration on displacement within Iraq said that most people move after direct threats to their lives: "These threats take the form of abductions; assassinations of individuals or their families."

Occupation Uncensored

If the Democrats and Republicans have the capacity to show compassion for the 33 innocent victims of Blacksburg, Virginia, they should show an equal amount of compassion for the disturbing rate of loss and indignity of the Iraqi people. They grieve killing sprees, daily.

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THE YELLOW BRICK ROAD

by Malik Isasis

















Iraq’s civilian population continues to sink beneath the blood soaked soil of Iraq like quicksand. The death and destruction is almost unimaginable to the average American citizen. The sanitized visuals and omissions of the occupation are transmitted by the corporate media to help Bush and his corporate raiders and the neocons in Israel, bide time so that they can continue to colonize the country for future wars in the Middle East. Meanwhile, the civilian population is caught in the middle of a violent and destructive civil war and a violent and destructive occupation and colonization effort.

Bush has knelt before the Gods of War and offered tens of thousands more troops, and in addition, 90-day extensions for the troops he claims he supports and honors. The mass human sacrifice has already created one of the bloodiest months in the Occupation of Iraq. The Democratic Party’s feeble attempt to stop Bush’s offerings of flesh and blood to the gears of war, has only encouraged his recalcitrance, and contempt.

The Blueprint

Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian people is the template for which Bush and his neocons are using for the Bush-McCaine surge in troops.

In Robert Fisk’s article in The Independent, Fisk reveals the truth about the real intentions of the Bush-McCaine surge.

Faced with an ever-more ruthless insurgency in Baghdad - despite President George Bush's "surge" in troops - US forces in the city are now planning a massive and highly controversial counter-insurgency operation that will seal off vast areas of the city, enclosing whole neighbourhoods with barricades and allowing only Iraqis with newly issued ID cards to enter.

The campaign of "gated communities" - whose genesis was in the Vietnam War - will involve up to 30 of the city's 89 official districts and will be the most ambitious counter-insurgency programme yet mounted by the US in Iraq.

Bush’s goal is to create massive imprisonments of the Iraqi people throughout Baghdad to quail the insurgency. Bush’s strategy of solving terrorism is a two-prong approach: mass incarceration and mass murder.

The troop surge in part is setting the stage for an attack on Iran. Although Bush appears more and more isolated by his distorted worldview, he is not isolated from the support of the neocons, AIPAC, Christian Zionists and the government officials in Israel, all encouraging the continuation of the Iraq Occupation and planned attacks on Iran.

It now appears that the US military intends to place as many as five mechanised brigades - comprising about 40,000 men - south and east of Baghdad, at least three of them positioned between the capital and the Iranian border. This would present Iran with a powerful - and potentially aggressive - American military force close to its border in the event of a US or Israeli military strike against its nuclear facilities later this year.

The Yellow Brick Road

The corporate media has laid down every yellow brick along this path of delusion and perpetual war that Bush and the neocons are skipping along on. It is also the road to the end of America’s superpower status. Like superpowers before it, the United States government is under the illusion that it can hang onto power, by keeping others from obtaining it through world dominance. Ultimately, it will be the United States who will be dominated by its over stretched economic and military abilities, which inevitably will result in its economic collapse.

If the Democratic Party were a viable opposition, maybe they would understand this Greek tragedy and heed the lessons of previous failed superpowers.

How the Bush Administration Destabilized the ‘Arc of Instability’

by Tom Engelhardt, Tom's Dispatch











Chaos is the inevitable result of the U.S. quest to conquer the world. Nothing else could possibly result. Defeat is also inevitable, but millions of deaths will be left in the wake. The real "rogue nation" is the United States, which has under George Bush launched a poorly planned and criminal assault on human civilization. Tom Engelhardt gives a blow-by-blow account of the ideology behind the crude aggression that went so wrong for the perpetrators, but which is, like a snake, coiled to strike once again. It's in its nature. The imperative to conquest can only be countered by the fact of defeat.

"Iraq is the poster-boy for the Bush administration's ability to turn whatever it touches into hell on Earth."

One night when I was in my teens, I found myself at a production of Pirandello's Six Characters in Search of an Author. I had never heard of the playwright or the play, nor had I seen a play performed in the round. The actors were dramatically entering and exiting in the aisles when, suddenly, a man stood up in the audience, proclaimed himself a seventh character in search of an author, and demanded the same attention as the other six. At the time, I assumed the unruly "seventh character" was just part of the play, even after he was summarily ejected from the theater...read on.

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THE ROMAN CIRCUS

by Malik Isasis



















The conservative talking points have worked their way through the right wing echo chamber and into the corporate media, like I knew it would. It would appear that gangsta rap and hip hop is the reason Imus called the female basketball players “Nappy-headed hoes”; after all, where would a 70 year old white man learn such a phrase?

The corporate media’s coverage of Don Imus’ racist flap has caused more destruction than the bile that spilt out of Imus' mouth. The corporate media’s political operatives, their punditry, have dug in their heels and have begun defending Imus by blaming the culture of hip hop for misogyny in America, rather than looking into the systemic sickness in American culture known as white supremacy.

Take a look at the following exchange taken from an interview of Al Sharpton by Meredith Vieria of the Today’s Show; and watch out when she uses the word “sir” it usually means that a character assassination is in progress.

SHARPTON: It has to start with a standard of government-regulated broadcasting.

VIEIRA: Let's talk about accountability, sir. Because when you had Imus on your show on Monday you brought your daughter out at one point, and this really resonated with me because I have a daughter. And you asked him to look at your daughter and you said "this is not a ho. This is my daughter." A lot of people around the country understood what you were saying because so many young ladies and young men, every day on the airwaves are exposed to ugly language: to the n-word, to the b-word, to the word 'ho,' much of it originated in the black community with rap music, with hip-hop music, as you have acknowledged. What are you going to do now to immediately stop that filth that is coming over the airwaves in the way you've tried to stop Don Imus?

When Sharpton claimed that he and Jesse Jackson's group have been trying to deal with the issue, Vieira interjected: "But it's all over the place. What have you done?"

What is disturbing about the exchange is the greatness of Meredith’s ignorance. She incorrectly stated that the word “nigger” or as she referred to it “n-word”, “bitch” or as she referred to it “b-word” came from the “black community.”

The corporate media often tries and often succeed in normalizing oppression, that is, women and minorities are in the positions that they are in because of their ability. Writer Kendall Clark articulates it better, “If you can convince everyone, but especially members of the oppressed group itself, that the way things are is natural or inevitable or unavoidable, people will be less likely to challenge the way things are”

Misogyny is an American value—so is racism.

Here is another gem:

The real villains in the Don Imus bad nappy-hair day incident are the intellectually dishonest black leaders, journalists and celebrities who have shamelessly exploited the opportunity for political and personal gain.

How about this one from a so-called liberal:

And Al Sharpton says of his decision to not go on the Don Imus show, "(It) is not about courage to appear on his show. I could not tell people to don't watch him, don't listen to him, don't appear, and then go myself. I'm not in the business of creating an audience for him." Well that kind of thinking sure didn't stop Al from appearing on The O'Reilly Factor to talk about Hillary Clinton's plantation comments.

Doing What They Do Best

The corporate media has a history of discrediting and debasing black activists by portraying them as agitators, and a nuisance so that they can be easily dismissed and marginalized. They did this to Martin Luther King Jr.

There are no statute of limitations on black social activists for past mistakes, however, white politicians such as Trent Lott is able to become the new Minority Leader for the Republican Party in the Senate, four years after making an incendiary comment about racial segregation and former Republican House Leader Tom Delay who is able to write a book and make his rounds in the media and not be challenge for his political corruption.

The entrenchment of white supremacy allows for such intellectual incongruencies. Therefore, racism will remain a repressed emotion, deep in America’s sub consciousness where it will stay buried, manifesting and morphing into fear.

Harold Ford, Enemy of Black America

by Margaret Kimberley, Black Agenda Report















The leopard never changes his spots. Such is the case with Harold Ford, Jr., the darling of the corporate media and the rightwing of the Democratic Party, who was rewarded for his fawning dedication to white supremacy with a corporate-financed appointment as chairman of the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC). The DLC was created in the mid-Eighties by white southern Democrats to suppress the growing power of Black voters in the South. In former Memphis congressman Harold Ford, they have found a champion - the quintessential enemy of African Americans, in blackface...read on.

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REFRACTION

By Malik Isasis























David Brooks, a conservative New York Times columnist wrote an Op-Ed piece in the April 8, 2007, Sunday edition of the New York Times. In his column Brooks critiqued a conference on democracy in the Middle East in which he attended in Jordan. The conference was sponsored by the University of Jordan and the conservative think-tank American Enterprise Institute.

I’m not going to critique Brooks’ worldview; instead, I would like to juxtapose his column with that of Palestinian writer, Rami G. Koury on Middle East-American relations. Enjoy

A War of Narratives

by David Brooks, New York Times


On the Dead Sea, Jordan

I just attended a conference that was both illuminating and depressing. It was co-sponsored by the Center for Strategic Studies at the University of Jordan and the American Enterprise Institute, and the idea was to get Americans and moderate Arab reformers together to talk about Iraq, Iran, and any remaining prospects for democracy in the Middle East.

As it happened, though, the Arab speakers mainly wanted to talk about the Israel lobby. One described a book edited in the mid-1990s by the Jewish policy analyst David Wurmser as the secret blueprint for American foreign policy over the past decade. A pollster showed that large majorities in Arab countries believe that the Israel lobby has more influence over American policy than the Bush administration. Speaker after speaker triumphantly cited the work of Stephen Walt, John Mearsheimer and Jimmy Carter as proof that even Americans were coming to admit that the Israel lobby controls their government.

The problems between America and the Arab world have nothing to do with religious fundamentalism or ideological extremism, several Arab speakers argued. They have to do with American policies toward Israel, and the forces controlling those policies.

As for problems in the Middle East itself, these speakers added, they have a common source, Israel. One elderly statesman noted that the four most pressing issues in the Middle East are the Arab-Israeli dispute, instability in Lebanon, chaos in Iraq and the confrontation with Iran. They are all interconnected, he said, and Israel is at the root of each of them.

We Americans tried to press our Arab friends to talk more about the Sunni-Shiite split, the Iraqi civil war and the rise of Iran, but they seemed uninterested.
They mimicked a speech King Abdullah of Jordan recently delivered before Congress, in which he scarcely mentioned the Iraqi chaos on his border. It was all Israel, all the time.

The Americans, needless to say, had a different narrative. We tended to argue that problems like Muslim fundamentalism, extremism and autocracy could not be blamed on Israel or Paul Wolfowitz but had deeper historical roots. We tended to see the Israeli-Palestinian issue not as the root of all fundamentalism, but as a problem made intractable by fundamentalism.

In other words, they had their narrative and we had ours, and the two passed each other without touching. But the striking thing about this meeting was the emotional tone. There seemed to be a time, after 9/11, when it was generally accepted that terror and extremism were symptoms of a deeper Arab malaise. There seemed to be a general recognition that the Arab world had fallen behind, and that it needed economic, political and religious modernization.

But there was nothing defensive or introspective about the Arab speakers here. In response to Bernard Lewis’s question, “What Went Wrong?” their answer seemed to be: Nothing’s wrong with us. What’s wrong with you?

The events of the past three years have shifted their diagnosis of where the cancer is — from dysfunction in the Arab world to malevolence in Jerusalem and in AIPAC. Furthermore, the Walt and Mearsheimer paper on the Israel lobby has had a profound effect on Arab elites. It has encouraged them not to be introspective, not to think about their own problems, but to blame everything on the villainous Israeli network.

And so we enter a more intractable phase in the conflict, which will not be a war over land or oil or even democratic institutions, but a war over narratives. The Arabs will nurture this Zionist-centric mythology, which is as self-flattering as it is self-destructive. They will demand that the U.S. and Israel adopt their narrative and admit historical guilt. Failing politically, militarily and economically, they will fight a battle for moral superiority, the kind of battle that does not allow for compromises or truces.

Americans, meanwhile, will simply want to get out. After 9/11, George Bush called on the U.S. to get deeply involved in the Middle East. But now, most Americans have given up on their ability to transform the Middle East and on Arab willingness to change. Faced with an arc of conspiracy-mongering, most Americans will get sick of the whole cesspool, and will support any energy policy or anything else that will enable them to cut ties with the region.

What we have is not a clash of civilizations, but a gap between civilizations, increasingly without common narratives, common goals or means of communication.

Where columnist David Brooks Went Wrong

by Rami G. Khouri, Daily Star

David Brooks' column in the Sunday issue of The New York Times deserves a few thoughts from a colleague who has generally admired his work, but finds him now reflecting the troubling intellectual and ideological gap between the United States and the Arab world. One of the grave new threats facing both sides is the declining quality of public analysis and discussion of American-Middle Eastern relations, especially in the mainstream American media that have lived so cozily with the exercise of American military power in the Middle East in recent years.

I was particularly struck by this column because I read it on the last day of a two-week trip to the US that allowed me to mix with a wide range of Middle East experts, scholars in various fields, and many other Americans. Everywhere, I encountered and sometimes engaged in a lively, healthy discussion on the deteriorating relations between various quarters of the US and many people in the Arab and Islamic world. In all the discussions and encounters I had - including with many fine men and women at the US Army War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, at the University of Chicago, and the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, and in Philadelphia, Boston and New York City - the dominant tone was that American-Middle Eastern relations were in deep trouble and that we needed to put our heads together to find a way out of the mess we had created.

I have had the exact same discussions with a variety of Arabs, Iranians, Israelis, and Turks for many years; but for some reason this deeper reality of an ongoing quest for rational problem-solving rarely gets into the mainstream American media.
Brooks in his column wrote about his views after attending a weekend conference in Jordan that brought together Arab intellectuals and activists with leading American neoconservatives. He concluded: "The events of the past three years have shifted [the Arabs'] diagnosis of where the cancer is - from dysfunction in the Arab world to malevolence in Jerusalem and in [the American Israel Public Affairs Committee]."

He saw Arab elites becoming less introspective, and instead "blaming everything on the villainous Israeli network. And so we enter a more intractable phase in the conflict, which will not be a war over land or oil or even democratic institutions, but a war over narratives ... Americans, meanwhile, will simply want to get out. After 9/11, George Bush called on the US to get deeply involved in the Middle East. But now, most Americans have given up on their ability to transform the Middle East and on Arab willingness to change ... What we have is not a clash of civilizations, but a gap between civilizations, increasingly without common narratives, common goals or means of communication."

I've spent my whole life between the US and the Arab world, and I strongly disagree. While Arabs do blame Israel and the US for many of their contemporary ills (and European colonial powers, too, not to forget that older culprit), they have also spent much of the last quarter-century criticizing their own elites and power structures, and trying to figure out how to make things better at home.

American and Arab civilizations share many common goals, and can use numerous means of communications should they make the effort. My experience in traveling between these two civilizations is that Arabs and Americans share predominantly common values and goals. However, they are plagued by the problem of entangled relations in the Arab-Israeli-American web, and poor political leadership verging on the morally deficient and criminally negligent on all sides.

Focusing only on Arab criticism of the United States and Israel while ignoring the rest of this cycle, and sidestepping the impact of American and Israeli policies in the Middle East, is both factually inaccurate and politically inflammatory. Our most useful job as newspaper columnists is not to lounge in an ideological fog that mediocre statesmen and angry citizenries generate, but rather to cut through it, to make way for more complete, honest communication.

Powerful American leaders like President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice choose to inhabit worlds in which Arabs and Muslims suffer terrible faults that must be rectified by the values-changing and swamp-draining actions of the noble American armed forces. Arab dictators, extremists and terrorists respond with equal ferocity and intellectual dishonesty.

Those who have the opportunity to shape and enrich the public debate should describe, understand and repudiate all such fanaticism, not just be irritated and perplexed by it. That many journalists abandoned this responsibility four years ago, when the Iraq war started, has proven terribly costly to all of us. We should avoid repeating that shortcoming by making a more rigorous effort to understand and describe our world in all its integrity and complexity, however perplexing things may appear on any one weekend.

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THE SICKNESS

by Malik Isasis























Last Wednesday, April 4, 2007 Don Imus, radio talk show host referred to Rutger University women’s basketball team as, “Nappy-headed hoes.” For those of you who are unfamiliar with Mr. Imus, he is a white, shock jock with a long history of slinging offensive racial epithets toward people of color, specifically African Americans on his radio show. Read transcript and see the video here.

Nearly a week later the story has escalated in the call for Imus to be fired. MSNBC who simulcast his radio show live on television and CBS Radio who produces and syndicates his radio show, has decided to suspend Imus for two weeks (with pay) starting April 16, 2007.

Imus issued what appeared to be a sincere apology on the air on April 9, 2007 and his list of usual mainstream journalists, soothed Imus’ wretched nerves with validation and sympathy as if he had been the one victimized by racial slurs.

Here is Newsweek editor, Howard Fineman:

"[I]t's a different time, Imus ... it's different than it was even a few years ago, politically," and added that "some of the stuff that you used to do, you probably can't do anymore." Fineman continued, "I mean, just looking specifically at the African-American situation. I mean, hello, [Sen.] Barack Obama's [D-IL] got twice the number of contributors as anybody else in the race," and added, "[T]hings have changed. And the kind of -- some of the kind of humor that you used to do you can't do anymore. And that's just the way it is."

Later, Boston Globe columnist Tom Oliphant stated, “Solidarity forever, pal.”

Throughout the day cable news shows and their punditry all forgave Imus for his racial slur. Along with forgiving Imus, the pundits took their rage out on Al Sharpton and Jessie Jackson for demanding that Imus lose his job.

The white corporate media and punditry have appointed Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson the leaders of Black America, strategically setting Sharpton and Jackson up as straw men so when they, the white punditry, spout out racial epithets, they can justify their bigotry by deflecting attention to Jackson and Sharpton. Of course, this is the height of racial arrogance to believe that black people have a leader.

Is there a leader of white people? If so, where is he/she? We need to have a talk.

The corporate media has tried to marginalize Sharpton and Jackson, civil rights activists, by calling them “race pimps” and constantly using them as a firewall to deflect responsibility. This can be seen throughout the coverage of the story.

“While I'm not defending Imus for comments — not worth repeating here — during a segment on his radio show, I am a little confused over the outrage coming from the likes of the Rev. Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson and several more who want the man fired, including The National Association of Black Journalists.”

The white punditry and corporate elites have decided that since Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton publicly flogged Imus, that it is more than enough. The corporate shills cannot stand the idea of reflecting on the pain that they cause others…because they don’t have to. Anything that it is outside of their worldview is little more than opinion; they get to choose whether or not our feelings, life experiences and our worldview are legitimate. This is the sickness of white supremacy.

Three hundred years of American taxonomy of blacks--the physical, emotional and intellectual deconstruction of our African features like our nose, skin and hair has had a crippling effect. If you tell a people that they are ugly, and ignorant for three hundred years, those feelings then become internalized, which is why some rappers can say those very same things with abandon. It’s called internalized oppression.

Of course, the gangsta rap is another straw man argument, again to deflect attention away from their responsibility.

White supremacists like those in the media and government have created a narrative, which comforts their delusion and completes their emotional dissociation. They believe people of color are simple, child-like, which is why they are surprised when we are “articulate”. They don’t respect our life experiences, nor do they respect what we have to say—it is why they marginalize our feelings.

Their inability to do any inner work, is a testament to their sickness.

U.S.-MADE MESS IN SOMALIA

by Ivan Eland, Consortium News












The media often report overseas developments, but don’t always explore their underlying causes, which, in many cases, conveniently lets the U.S. government off the hook. The recent internecine violence in Somalia provides a classic example.

The U.S. media have focused to date almost exclusively on the rising Islamist movement in Somalia and U.S. “covert” assistance to the Ethiopian invasion that supported Somalia’s transitional government against the stronger Islamists. The media should be focusing on one of the major causes of the Somali mess: U.S. government meddling...read on.

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WHAT IF IRAN HAD INVADED MEXICO?

Putting the Iran Crisis in Context
by Noam Chomsky, Tom's Dispatch















Unsurprisingly, George W. Bush’s announcement of a “surge” in Iraq came despite the firm opposition to any such move of Americans and the even stronger opposition of the (thoroughly irrelevant) Iraqis. It was accompanied by ominous official leaks and statements — from Washington and Baghdad — about how Iranian intervention in Iraq was aimed at disrupting our mission to gain victory, an aim which is (by definition) noble. What then followed was a solemn debate about whether serial numbers on advanced roadside bombs (IEDs) were really traceable to Iran; and, if so, to that country’s Revolutionary Guards or to some even higher authority.

This “debate” is a typical illustration of a primary principle of sophisticated propaganda. In crude and brutal societies, the Party Line is publicly proclaimed and must be obeyed — or else. What you actually believe is your own business and of far less concern. In societies where the state has lost the capacity to control by force, the Party Line is simply presupposed; then, vigorous debate is encouraged within the limits imposed by unstated doctrinal orthodoxy. The cruder of the two systems leads, naturally enough, to disbelief; the sophisticated variant gives an impression of openness and freedom, and so far more effectively serves to instill the Party Line. It becomes beyond question, beyond thought itself, like the air we breathe.

The debate over Iranian interference in Iraq proceeds without ridicule on the assumption that the United States owns the world. We did not, for example, engage in a similar debate in the 1980s about whether the U.S. was interfering in Soviet-occupied Afghanistan, and I doubt that Pravda, probably recognizing the absurdity of the situation, sank to outrage about that fact (which American officials and our media, in any case, made no effort to conceal). Perhaps the official Nazi press also featured solemn debates about whether the Allies were interfering in sovereign Vichy France, though if so, sane people would then have collapsed in ridicule.

In this case, however, even ridicule — notably absent — would not suffice, because the charges against Iran are part of a drumbeat of pronouncements meant to mobilize support for escalation in Iraq and for an attack on Iran, the “source of the problem.” The world is aghast at the possibility. Even in neighboring Sunni states, no friends of Iran, majorities, when asked, favor a nuclear-armed Iran over any military action against that country. From what limited information we have, it appears that significant parts of the U.S. military and intelligence communities are opposed to such an attack, along with almost the entire world, even more so than when the Bush administration and Tony Blair’s Britain invaded Iraq, defying enormous popular opposition worldwide.

“The Iran Effect”

The results of an attack on Iran could be horrendous. After all, according to a recent study of “the Iraq effect” by terrorism specialists Peter Bergen and Paul Cruickshank, using government and Rand Corporation data, the Iraq invasion has already led to a seven-fold increase in terror. The “Iran effect” would probably be far more severe and long-lasting. British military historian Corelli Barnett speaks for many when he warns that “an attack on Iran would effectively launch World War III.”

What are the plans of the increasingly desperate clique that narrowly holds political power in the U.S.? We cannot know. Such state planning is, of course, kept secret in the interests of “security.” Review of the declassified record reveals that there is considerable merit in that claim — though only if we understand “security” to mean the security of the Bush administration against their domestic enemy, the population in whose name they act.

Even if the White House clique is not planning war, naval deployments, support for secessionist movements and acts of terror within Iran, and other provocations could easily lead to an accidental war. Congressional resolutions would not provide much of a barrier. They invariably permit “national security” exemptions, opening holes wide enough for the several aircraft-carrier battle groups soon to be in the Persian Gulf to pass through — as long as an unscrupulous leadership issues proclamations of doom (as Condoleezza Rice did with those “mushroom clouds” over American cities back in 2002). And the concocting of the sorts of incidents that “justify” such attacks is a familiar practice. Even the worst monsters feel the need for such justification and adopt the device: Hitler’s defense of innocent Germany from the “wild terror” of the Poles in 1939, after they had rejected his wise and generous proposals for peace, is but one example.

The most effective barrier to a White House decision to launch a war is the kind of organized popular opposition that frightened the political-military leadership enough in 1968 that they were reluctant to send more troops to Vietnam — fearing, we learned from the Pentagon Papers, that they might need them for civil-disorder control.

Doubtless Iran’s government merits harsh condemnation, including for its recent actions that have inflamed the crisis. It is, however, useful to ask how we would act if Iran had invaded and occupied Canada and Mexico and was arresting U.S. government representatives there on the grounds that they were resisting the Iranian occupation (called “liberation,” of course). Imagine as well that Iran was deploying massive naval forces in the Caribbean and issuing credible threats to launch a wave of attacks against a vast range of sites — nuclear and otherwise — in the United States, if the U.S. government did not immediately terminate all its nuclear energy programs (and, naturally, dismantle all its nuclear weapons). Suppose that all of this happened after Iran had overthrown the government of the U.S. and installed a vicious tyrant (as the US did to Iran in 1953), then later supported a Russian invasion of the U.S. that killed millions of people (just as the U.S. supported Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Iran in 1980, killing hundreds of thousands of Iranians, a figure comparable to millions of Americans). Would we watch quietly?

It is easy to understand an observation by one of Israel’s leading military historians, Martin van Creveld. After the U.S. invaded Iraq, knowing it to be defenseless, he noted, “Had the Iranians not tried to build nuclear weapons, they would be crazy.”

Surely no sane person wants Iran (or any nation) to develop nuclear weapons. A reasonable resolution of the present crisis would permit Iran to develop nuclear energy, in accord with its rights under the Non-Proliferation Treaty, but not nuclear weapons. Is that outcome feasible? It would be, given one condition: that the U.S. and Iran were functioning democratic societies in which public opinion had a significant impact on public policy.

As it happens, this solution has overwhelming support among Iranians and Americans, who generally are in agreement on nuclear issues. The Iranian-American consensus includes the complete elimination of nuclear weapons everywhere (82% of Americans); if that cannot yet be achieved because of elite opposition, then at least a “nuclear-weapons-free zone in the Middle East that would include both Islamic countries and Israel” (71% of Americans). Seventy-five percent of Americans prefer building better relations with Iran to threats of force. In brief, if public opinion were to have a significant influence on state policy in the U.S. and Iran, resolution of the crisis might be at hand, along with much more far-reaching solutions to the global nuclear conundrum.

Promoting Democracy — at Home

These facts suggest a possible way to prevent the current crisis from exploding, perhaps even into some version of World War III. That awesome threat might be averted by pursuing a familiar proposal: democracy promotion — this time at home, where it is badly needed. Democracy promotion at home is certainly feasible and, although we cannot carry out such a project directly in Iran, we could act to improve the prospects of the courageous reformers and oppositionists who are seeking to achieve just that. Among such figures who are, or should be, well-known, would be Saeed Hajjarian, Nobel laureate Shirin Ebadi, and Akbar Ganji, as well as those who, as usual, remain nameless, among them labor activists about whom we hear very little; those who publish the Iranian Workers Bulletin may be a case in point.

We can best improve the prospects for democracy promotion in Iran by sharply reversing state policy here so that it reflects popular opinion. That would entail ceasing to make the regular threats that are a gift to Iranian hardliners. These are bitterly condemned by Iranians truly concerned with democracy promotion (unlike those “supporters” who flaunt democracy slogans in the West and are lauded as grand “idealists” despite their clear record of visceral hatred for democracy).

Democracy promotion in the United States could have far broader consequences. In Iraq, for instance, a firm timetable for withdrawal would be initiated at once, or very soon, in accord with the will of the overwhelming majority of Iraqis and a significant majority of Americans. Federal budget priorities would be virtually reversed. Where spending is rising, as in military supplemental bills to conduct the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, it would sharply decline. Where spending is steady or declining (health, education, job training, the promotion of energy conservation and renewable energy sources, veterans benefits, funding for the UN and UN peacekeeping operations, and so on), it would sharply increase. Bush’s tax cuts for people with incomes over $200,000 a year would be immediately rescinded.

The U.S. would have adopted a national health-care system long ago, rejecting the privatized system that sports twice the per-capita costs found in similar societies and some of the worst outcomes in the industrial world. It would have rejected what is widely regarded by those who pay attention as a “fiscal train wreck” in-the-making. The U.S. would have ratified the Kyoto Protocol to reduce carbon-dioxide emissions and undertaken still stronger measures to protect the environment. It would allow the UN to take the lead in international crises, including in Iraq. After all, according to opinion polls, since shortly after the 2003 invasion, a large majority of Americans have wanted the UN to take charge of political transformation, economic reconstruction, and civil order in that land.

If public opinion mattered, the U.S. would accept UN Charter restrictions on the use of force, contrary to a bipartisan consensus that this country, alone, has the right to resort to violence in response to potential threats, real or imagined, including threats to our access to markets and resources. The U.S. (along with others) would abandon the Security Council veto and accept majority opinion even when in opposition to it. The UN would be allowed to regulate arms sales; while the U.S. would cut back on such sales and urge other countries to do so, which would be a major contribution to reducing large-scale violence in the world. Terror would be dealt with through diplomatic and economic measures, not force, in accord with the judgment of most specialists on the topic but again in diametric opposition to present-day policy.

Furthermore, if public opinion influenced policy, the U.S. would have diplomatic relations with Cuba, benefiting the people of both countries (and, incidentally, U.S. agribusiness, energy corporations, and others), instead of standing virtually alone in the world in imposing an embargo (joined only by Israel, the Republic of Palau, and the Marshall Islands). Washington would join the broad international consensus on a two-state settlement of the Israel-Palestine conflict, which (with Israel) it has blocked for 30 years — with scattered and temporary exceptions — and which it still blocks in word, and more importantly in deed, despite fraudulent claims of its commitment to diplomacy. The U.S. would also equalize aid to Israel and Palestine, cutting off aid to either party that rejected the international consensus.

Evidence on these matters is reviewed in my book Failed States as well as in The Foreign Policy Disconnect by Benjamin Page (with Marshall Bouton), which also provides extensive evidence that public opinion on foreign (and probably domestic) policy issues tends to be coherent and consistent over long periods. Studies of public opinion have to be regarded with caution, but they are certainly highly suggestive.

Democracy promotion at home, while no panacea, would be a useful step towards helping our own country become a “responsible stakeholder” in the international order (to adopt the term used for adversaries), instead of being an object of fear and dislike throughout much of the world. Apart from being a value in itself, functioning democracy at home holds real promise for dealing constructively with many current problems, international and domestic, including those that literally threaten the survival of our species.

Noam Chomsky is the author of Failed States: The Abuse of Power and the Assault on Democracy (Metropolitan Books), just published in paperback, among many other works.

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SHITASTIC!

by Malik Isasis



















Shit’tas’tik, adjective, the exact opposite of fantastic, an observation typically delivered in an acerbic manner: President George W. Bush is shitastic.

Senator John McCaine, Republican, visited Baghdad earlier this week to prove that he has lost his fucking mind. Actually, McCaine was searching for his soul but his soul isn't in Iraq. It's up Bush's ass, where his lips have been for over the past four years.

“There are neighborhoods in Baghdad where you and I could walk through those neighborhoods, today,” McCaine stated to CNN’s anchor, Wolf Blitzer. With some salt and pepper, McCaine ate his words with a little crow the following day. “Well, I’m not saying they could go without protection. The President goes around America with protection. So, certainly I didn’t say that.” I suppose in an attempt to save face, McCaine wanted to go out and take a stroll down the safe, and serine streets of Baghdad just to show how safe the streets of Baghdad really are, after all we are not getting the “full picture” of the progress.

McCaine wore a protective vest but no protective head gear, instead he wore an Arizona baseball cap to emphasize the safety. Helicopter gunships hovered above, and hundreds of soldiers escorted him through Baghdad’s largest market.

"Things are better and there are encouraging signs. I've been here . . . many times over the years. Never have I been able to drive from the airport, never have I been able go out into the city as I was today," He said.

Just in February, 137 people were killed in the market.

McCaine looked like a clown, an old man whose lost touch with reality; what an absolute fool.

The Iraq Occupation is shitastic, and McCaine looks at this pile of shit that Bush has heaped on the Iraqi people and calls it 'progress.'

His delusion, is complete.

Here is the true Iraq, just 24 hours after McCaine's circus:

Baghdad - A newborn baby was one of at least 14 children and adults killed when a suicide bomber detonated a lorry laden with explosives close to a primary school in the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk yesterday.

The latest massacre of Iraqi children came as 21 Shia market workers were ambushed, bound and shot dead north of the capital. The victims came from the Baghdad market visited the previous day by John McCain, the US presidential candidate, who said that an American security plan in the capital was starting to show signs of progress.

The Kirkuk bloodshed erupted when a bomber driving a truck full of explosives hidden by sacks of flour targeted an Iraqi police station that US soldiers were visiting. The full force of the blast hit a nearby primary school.

Buthayna Mahmud, 10, was horrified to see the bodies of her classmates strewn on the ground in flames. "Everyone I saw was wearing the blue school uniform drenched with blood. Some of their dresses were torn. I only saw fire. I heard teachers and students shouting," she said. "When we rushed out of the school, we saw pupils on the ground, some of them burning."
Read more .

Neocons and the Iranian Situation

The Iranian government released the 15 captured sailors and marines. Cooler heads have prevailed. However, the neocons have unleashed their putrid punditry against Tony Blair’s decision to talk rather than war with Iran. The neocons are also upset that a disappeared high-level Iranian official was part of the exchange.

The shitastic State-run Fox News is all but calling for war with Iran. Watch what they say; they are beta-testers for Bush's propaganda. It is clear that they believe talking to others is a sign of weakness.

Their ability to bamboozle the American people died with Hurricane Katrina and their loss in November 2006 election, however, mangled and a mouth full of maggots, their political dead corpses still charge forward.

Bush Out of Line in Scolding Pelosi

by Ivan Eland, Consortium News





















President Bush has scolded House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for visiting Syria. In the President’s opinion, shared by others, the U.S. government should speak with just one voice overseas. Yet that view flies in the face of both the text and the spirit of the Constitution.

Before the rise of the post–World War II imperial presidency, the powers among the branches of the U.S. government were much more balanced—as the Constitution originally intended.

In fact, suspicious of European monarchs’ propensity to wage war with the blood and treasure of their citizens, the Constitution’s framers actually gave more powers in foreign affairs to the Congress than the President...read on.

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