THE REAL POLITIK: ISSUE 68, VOUME 98
THE WEAK + THE REICH-OUSNESS
by Malik Isasis




















In 2006 after 12 years in the political wilderness, the Democratic Party swept into the Congress, gaining control of both houses of Congress, but President Bush still slapped them around like a pimp. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi immediately took impeaching Bush and Cheney for war crimes, off the table. So, what did the Democrats get in return? Well, like a circus elephant the Democrats knelt down so that George Bush could climb atop, once on their backs, he slapped them on their asses and dug his heel into their necks to guide them wherever he wanted them to go.

Like a trained circus elephant, the Democratic Party doesn’t realize that it is more powerful than the trainer, but because their spirits are broken, and they won’t make a move without needing the constant acceptance of the Republican Party, they are politically limp. The Democratic Party hasn’t shown any courage in a generation, which brings me to President Barack Obama, who brings back the triangulation that President Clinton was notorious for.

President Obama’s fear of prosecuting Bush Officials is a reassurance that the Democratic Party, the weak and the Republican Party, the fascists is designed to be a shit sandwich, one in which the corporate masters continue to churn us into thankless automatons.

The Democratically ‘lead’ congress is still being lead by the nose by the Republican Party because the Democratic Party is unable to comprehend that they were voted into power to counter the despotism that infected the Republicans during their absolute reign for twelve years. The Democrats have internalized the Republican Party’s propaganda of them, which is being weak on issues of national security; and poor stewards of the economy and that Democratic Party is culturally immoral. One thing is for sure, the Democrats consistently prove at least one of the Republican talking points correct: The Democratic Party is a weak alternative to the Republican imperial aggression.

The Democrats have been so consumed by the fear of being called unpatriotic that they are willing helpers of shoveling the bodies of the dead and future dead soldiers into the Gears of War to win the approval of the Republicans, but instead of receiving approval for their obedience, the Democrats receive instead more emotional abuse. It is a sick cycle. The more the Democrats bend the more the Republicans psychically abuse them. It is humiliating to watch.

Pathology of power

Republicans have no interests in “the culture of life” their sloganeering is geared toward winning elections and maintaining power. They cater to the false sense of moral superiority of the sheeple who they’ve convinced to vote against their own interests.

They are political weevils that have bored their way into the political infrastructure and have laid waste to common sense, compassion and public service. Instead the federal government serves as the jump off for their larvae to develop into full fledge corporate lobbyists and keep health care, unions out of the reach of the American people.

As the Republicans find themselves in the political dumpster they are fingering through Bush’s—or rather, Cheney’s bag of tricks. They’re in the lab working tirelessly to create the next Frankenstein monster. Meanwhile, the corporate media goose steps along with the Republicans as they shamelessly try to revitalize a new leader to lead the American Reich. Even with the treacherous corporate news, it will be difficult to reanimate the Republican corpse. After Hurricane Katrina, America saw the Republicans for who they really are…frauds. It’s like they create crises, in order to pretend to be doing something about them. The Bush Administration’s and the neocons’ one-act play has run its course and they look oxymoronic, with more emphases placed on moron as they recite tired and hacked slogans to produce fear of Socialism.

They’ve tapped the well of fear too often, leaving Americans fear-fatigued and skeptical of the false prophets of Capitalism and their Gears of War and Destruction. The level of fear that was created by Bush and Co. after September 11, 2001 and through two wars and now two occupations was not sustainable, but the Republicans are still in the trenches with forked sticks looking for any signs of fresh fear to be tapped.

President Obama has proved true to the legacy of Democratic cowardice. Even with the shrinking Republican Party, the Democrats can’t find the courage to do the right thing. This sickness of the Democrats is the fertilizer for cynicism.

The full cost of September 11, 2001, will probably be most remembered by future historians for the mass delusion perpetrated on the U.S. citizenry by a small cult of neocons; and how the protective firewall, the Democratic Party, failed due to the inner-sickness of constantly needing Republican approval.

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THE REAL POLITIK EDITION: ISSUE 68, VOLUME 98
On Torture, the Pressure Builds
by Ray McGovern, Consortium News















photo by Stefan Zaklin


Well, well. The New York Times has finally put a story together on the key role that two controversial psychologists played in devising the Bush administration's torture policies. Guess we should be thankful for small favors.

Apparently, a NYTimes “exposé” requires a 21-month gestation period; just by way of pointing out that the substance of the Times “exposé” appeared in an article the July 2007 issue of Vanity Fair.

Katherine Eban, a Brooklyn-based journalist who writes about public health, authored that article and titled it “Rorschach and Awe.” It was the result of a careful effort to understand the role of psychologists in the torture of detainees in Guantanamo.

She identified the two psychologists as James Elmer Mitchell and Bruce Jessen, who she reported were inexperienced in interrogations and "had no proof of their tactics' effectiveness" but nevertheless sold the Bush administration on a plan to subject captives to "psychic demolition," essentially severing them from their personalities and scaring them "almost to death."

In Wednesday's New York Times, reporters Scott Shane and Mark Mazzetti plow much the same ground. But please do not misunderstand. They deserve praise for finally pushing their own article past the Times’ censors, but let’s not pretend the startling revelations are new.

The Times ought to allow the likes of Shane and Mazzetti to publish these stories when they are fresh. Alternatively, the “newspaper of record” might at least report the findings of the likes of Eban, rather than ignoring them for nearly two years.

It’s pretty much all out there now, isn’t it? Not only the Times’ better-late-than-never “exposé,” but also:

--The (leaked) text of the report of the International Committee of the Red Cross on the torture of “high-value” detainees;

--The too-slick-by-half “legal opinions” under Department of Justice letterhead;

--The findings of the 18-month investigation by the Senate Armed Services Committee highlighting that it was President George W. Bush’s dismissal of Geneva (in his executive order of Feb. 7, 2002) that “opened the door” to abuse of detainees.

The North/Gonzales Shredder

One issue of some urgency has been overlooked in the media, but probably not by those complicit in torture by the CIA and other parts of the government. That issue is the need to protect evidence from being shredded.

I have seen no sign that Director of National Intelligence Director Dennis Blair, or CIA Director Leon Panetta, have proscribed the destruction of documents/tapes/etc. relating to torture, while decisions on if and how to proceed are being worked out.

Many will remember how Oliver North (when the crimes of Iran-Contra were uncovered) and Alberto Gonzales (when White House involvement in the Valerie Plame affair was suggested) made such good use of the days of hiatus between the announced decision to investigate and the belated decision to safeguard all evidence from destruction.

One would think that Attorney General Eric Holder, or President Barack Obama himself, would have long since issued such an order. Indeed, the absence of such an order would suggest they would just as soon avoid as many of the painful truths about torture as they can.

The issue would seem particularly urgent in the wake of Obama’s gratuitous get-out-of-jail free card issued to CIA personnel complicit in torture. They might well draw the (erroneous) conclusion that they have been, in effect, pardoned by the President and thus are within the law in destroying relevant evidence — to the degree that being within the law matters any more.

And what about the President’s decision not to prosecute those in CIA who engaged in torture? What is going on here?

Obama’s defensive tone on the recent release of the four torture documents issued by the Mafia-style lawyers of the Justice Department doesn’t square with what should be the attitude of a specialist in constitutional law. Oddly, the President and his people seem to think they must justify the release.

In the face of Rush Limbaugh/Dick Cheney-type charges that the revelations endanger national security, they argue that most of the information was already in the public domain (in the recently leaked report of the International Committee of the Red Cross, for example).

Hey, Mr. constitutional-law professor and now President, how about the fact that the Freedom of Information Act requires your administration to release such information? How about acknowledging that you are just obeying the law — or is that quaint, obsolete, or somehow passé these days?

Misplaced Loyalty or Fear?

It is highly unusual for the President to feel it necessary to visit CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia. Vivid in my memory is the visit by President George W. Bush on Sept. 26, 2001, just two weeks after the intelligence/defense/policy failures permitted the attacks of September 11.

For some time it remained something of a puzzle, why the President felt it prudent to appear at CIA with his arm around then-CIA Director George Tenet, endorsing his leadership without reservation and bragging about having the best intelligence service in the world. In retrospect, it was a Faustian bargain.

Former CIA Director and Medal of Freedom winner, George Tenet, can be forgiven for being somewhat apprehensive these days — especially in the wake of the article by Shane and Mazzetti. But let's leave aside for now the obviously heinous – like running George W. Bush's global Gestapo complete with secret prisons and torture chambers, a criminal enterprise that Tenet shoe-horned into the operations directorate of the CIA.

Let's pick a case of simpler, more familiar white-collar crimes – Scooter Libby-style perjury and obstruction of justice. Those who remember Watergate and other crimes will be aware that the cover-up constitutes an additional – and often more provable – crime, especially when it involves perjury and obstruction of justice.

Until now, Bush has managed to escape blame for his outrageous inactivity before 9/11 because his subordinates – first and foremost, Tenet – have covered up for him. Faustian bargain? Call it mutual blackmail, if you prefer the vernacular.

Tenet gave the President enough warning to warrant, to compel some sort of action on his part. But Tenet's lackadaisical management of the CIA and intelligence community was at least as important a factor in the success of the 9/11 attacks.

Tenet should have been fired after 9/11. But President Bush needed Tenet, or at least Tenet's silence, as much as Tenet needed Bush, or at least Bush's forgiveness.

What developed might be described as a case of mutual blackmail disguised as bonhomie. Bush was keenly aware that Tenet had the wherewithal to let the world know how many warnings he had given the President – reducing Bush to a criminally negligent, blundering fool.

Were that to happen, Bush would have to kiss goodbye the role of cheerleader/war president – and so much else. Thus, Tenet had become critical to Bush's political survival. And Tenet? All he needed was not to be blamed – not to be fired.

The bargain: I, George Bush, will keep you on and even praise your performance; you, George Tenet, will keep your mouth shut about all the warnings you gave me during the spring and summer of 2001. Tenet, it seems clear, agreed.

On Sept. 26, 2001, the President motored out to CIA headquarters, puts his arm around Tenet and told the cameras, "We've got the best intelligence we can possibly have thanks to the men and women of the CIA."

In his sworn testimony of April 14, 2004, before the 9/11 Commission, Tenet outdid himself trying to honor his bargain with Bush. The commissioners were interested in what the president had been told during the critical month of August 2001.

Answering a question from Commissioner Timothy Roemer, Tenet referred to the President's long vacation (July 29-Aug. 30, 2001) in Crawford and insisted that he did not see the President at all in August.

"You never talked with him?" Roemer asked.

"No," Tenet replied, explaining that for much of August he, too, was "on leave."

That same evening, a CIA spokesman called reporters to say that Tenet had misspoken, and that he had briefed Bush on Aug. 17 and 31, 2001. The spokesman played down the Aug. 17 briefing as uneventful and indicated that the second briefing took place after Bush had returned to Washington.

Funny how Tenet could have forgotten his first visit to Crawford, whereas in his memoir, At the Center of the Storm, Tenet waxed eloquent about the "president graciously driving me around the spread in his pickup and me trying to make small talk about the flora and the fauna."

But the visit was not limited to small talk. In his book, Tenet writes: "A few weeks after the August 6 PDB was delivered, I followed it to Crawford to make sure the president stayed current on events."

The Aug. 6, 2001, President's Daily Brief contained the article "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in the US." According to Ron Suskind's The One-Percent Doctrine, the President reacted by telling the CIA briefer, "All right, you've covered your ass now."

Clearly, Tenet needed to follow up on that. Was Tenet again in Crawford just one week later? According to a White House press release, President Bush on Aug. 25 told visitors to Crawford, "George Tenet and I" drove up the canyon "yesterday."

If, as Tenet says in his memoir, it was the Aug. 6, 2001, PDB that prompted his visit on Aug. 17, what might have brought him back on Aug. 24? That was the day after Tenet had been briefed on Zacarias Moussaoui training to fly a 747 and other suspicion-arousing information.

The evidence is very strong that Tenet told Bush chapter and verse. The extraordinary lengths to which Tenet has gone to disguise that has the former CIA director skating very close to perjury – if not over the line.

A note on Moussaoui: despite strong encouragement from FBI special agent/lawyer Coleen Rowley at the time, the government never interviewed Moussaoui for information on a possible “second wave” of 9/11-type attacks.

Moussaoui knew Richard Reid, the shoe-bomber who almost downed an airliner on its way from London to the U.S., and might have provided forewarning, were he to been asked in the three months between 9/11 and Reid’s attempt in December 2001.

It gets worse: it does not seem that Reid was effectively interviewed either. This greatly diminishes the credibility of arguments that torture was felt to be necessary because of overweening fear of follow-up attacks.

The administration claims it was pulling out all the stops – while, in reality, it failed to take rudimentary steps to acquire information from suspected terrorists already in our custody.

Obama’s Faustian Bargain?

In a recent article on torture, I asked what might be holding the administration back on moving forward with investigation and holding accountable those proven guilty, in order to end this shameful chapter in American history once and for all.

A reader offered an answer: What’s holding them back? I’ll tell you, she said. His name is John D. Rockefeller, IV. He and other Democratic (as well as Republican) lawmakers knew of the torture and did nothing, she added.

The writer gave her name as Kathleen Rockefeller; she described herself as a cousin with courage.

The disclosures in the Shane/Mazzetti article today, and plenty of other evidence suggest that Ms. Rockefeller in not far off the mark. Powerful forces are working on our President.

Maybe, just maybe, he insisted on releasing those torture memos with the thought that the rest of us would be appropriately outraged — so outraged that we would put inexorable pressure on him to hold everyone, repeat everyone, accountable.

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THE PROPAGANDA EDITION: ISSUE 67, VOLUME 97
IDOITOCRACY
by Malik Isasis






















Back in April of 1994 there was a genocide in Rwanda, Africa. The genocide was the result of a number complex issues such as civil war and strife and neocolonialism by the Europeans. Tutsis and Hutus, genetically the same were divided politically by Europeans (German and Belgian specifically), with the Tutsi the minority tribe being appointed a more superior racial type than Hutus, a numerical majority, thus began the seeds that would blossom into a full blown genocide once the European colonists Germany, and Belgian uprooted

For 100 days, a million people were murdered, shot, raped and hacked to death with machetes. It was called the most efficient and coordinated genocide in human history, but in America there was a perverse obsession with the O.J. Simpson Murder case (for which thousands of hours were dedicated), and during the genocide, the corporate media garnered more sympathy for the silver back gorillas who were being slaughtered in the cross-fire than their human brethren. 10,000 black, African bodies floated down the Nyabarongo River hundreds miles to neighboring countries, and America watched O.J. Simpson.

The reasons the genocide was so efficient was the media: world media turning a blind-eye, and the local radio disc jockeys telling the murders where to find people hiding, broadcasting their whereabouts. The radio stations stirred the hatred and fueled the holocaust that was Rwanda, which brings me to Fox News. It is a genocide of intelligence.

Fox News, is not really news, but an arm of a neoconservative cabal designed specifically to destroy the Democratic Party and to project a parallel universe that is filled with American exceptionalism, nationalism, fascism, war and most of all a perversity of jingoism that seems no different than if you were watching a State controlled news program in North Korea. With a network of echo chambers, Fox News and their political operatives in the corporate media have convinced poor white people to rise against their own interests. The absurdity of this would be like slaves rising up against legislation to free them from human bondage.

Universal health care, unions for better pay and job security, privacy, the choice to have an abortion or, not to, etc.--all these things to a person who doesn't suffer from Stockholm Syndrome is just common sense.


We are a nation of idiots, but evolution will take care of the United States just as it had other superpowers before it.





NORTH KOREA




FOX NEWS

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THE PROPAGANDA EDITION: ISSUE 67, VOLUME 97
THE AMERICAN IDIOT
by Malik Isasis




Tax day has come and gone and so has the Republicans' road show of rightwing, separatists, secessionists, racists, and all around dumbasses who’ve mustered in the hundreds to protest Obama’s taxation, which happens to cut taxes for 95% of the working people. Paul Krugman, NYT liberal columnist and economist referred to the so-called “Tea Parties” as an Astroturf movement, fake because unlike a grassroots movement, the so-called tea parties were developed by Republican operatives and their very rich founders—top down, rather than bottom up.

Fresh out of ideas since 30 years, or a generation ago, Republicans have come to represent a party that has become exceptional at the perpetual campaign, stoking the hatred in the lowest common denominator of the population (about a 33%) through the extensive web of its echo chamber, talk radio, and Fox News, and planted political operatives in the mainstream media who proudly carry their message.

Since the Great Depression, Republicans have shown that they’re utterly incompetent in governance, which is known as the Peter Principle, being advance or promoted to a job for which they are unable to accomplish due to incompetence.

Nearly 12 weeks into their congressional and presidential loss, the Republicans have loss their fucking minds.



During no other time are white working class voters more important than every election cycle, which seems all the time for Republicans. When the election cycles passes, the Working Class Voters® are tossed into the trash like a used condom. Where were the Tea Parties when Bush was in office?

Nearly all of the people protesting taxes at these tea parties were the face of the Republican Party, white and angry.

It doesn’t matter that Republicans have wrought them more poverty through policies that have moved their manufacturing jobs overseas, broken up unions, increased their cost of living by outsourcing the United States government to private contractors…oh, and sending your children, husbands, wives, brothers and sisters off to fight corporate wars. What do you think of that Working Class Voters®? I know none of that matters so as long as you’re white, you all right…right? Right on. You’ve been convinced to vote against your own interests. Keep on being white, broke and dead.

I think Jon Stewart illustrates the cognitive dissonance best:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	M - Th 11p / 10c
Baracknophobia - Obey
thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Economic Crisis Political Humor

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THE PROPAGANDA EDITION: ISSUE 67, VOLUME 97
THE ROOT
by Malik Isasis



















The corporate media feeds images of violence in its most rawest forms without political context, or historical subtext. They report on symptoms of international strife like, blood, guts, tears, and American victimology or heroism rather than on the disease, or causes of said conflicts, like neo-colonial capitalism. It is a dumb-down, anti-intellectual formula that makes consumers of their reporting more susceptible to paranoia and irrational fears. For the corporate media is not in the business of advocacy, rather it is in the business of turning citizens into consumers, blind, uncritically-thinking consumers who will respond to such comic-book concepts as War on Terror, or Pirates as terrorists without batting an eye. Under this cognitive dissonance, citizens thought nothing unusual when President Bush told us during two occupations and a recession to go shop more.

Corporate media is a subsidiary of other conglomerates that are out to protect their assets around the world, and the news, generally reflect this goal by dividing the world up into good versus evil, with America and Western nations be the good.

With the recent spate of hijackings of oil tankers and other cargo ships off the coast of Africa by Somalis, the corporate media is portraying Somalis as the bad guys of course, and America and its allies as the victims. With the recent rescue of merchant marine Capt. Richard Phillips, the corporate media has deluged us with comic book adjectives and cable stations have brought on military analysts to circle jerk one another about the military prowess of the military.

Somali pirates are being called terrorists, and irresponsibly in some cases are being mentioned in the same breath as al Qaeda. Now comes the mentioning of military action in Somalia.

April 13 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. military is considering attacks on pirate bases on land and aid for the Somali people to help stem ship hijackings off Africa’s east coast, defense officials said.

America appears to solve all of its international problems with the military. How unimaginative. How about getting at the root of the piracy?

Check the political tone in a USA Today article from 2008 on the matter of Somali hijackings:

The U.S. and international military forces are taking more aggressive action off the African coast as bolder and more violent pirates imperil oil shipments and other trade.
The U.S. is "very concerned about the increasing number of acts of piracy and armed robbery" off the Somali coast, he says [Navy Lt. Nate Christensen]. Somalia's weak government has admitted it can't control its territorial waters, and Nigeria is fending off a rebel group.

Here’s an example of the shallow depth of which the corporate cable media covers the issue:
See ABC News’ coverage, all one minute and thirty seconds of it.

What’s the theme here? Somalis are violent thieves and America and its allies are victims. This of course is a reoccurring theme, obfuscation—more accurately a justification for American hegemony. Here’s the reality of the Somali hijackings, which has its roots in European and Asian overfishing in Somalia’s coastal waters.

The Root

Off the coast of Somalia more than a decade ago, commercial fishing vessels from China , Japan and European countries began illegally fishing in Somalia’s waters, not only that, these commercial fishing vessels overfished and also dumped waste. Since Somalia couldn’t police its own waters due to having a permanent unelected, corrupt Transitional Government (since 1991), fishermen had no federal protection to enforce international fishing laws.


Since then fish stocks have plummeted worldwide, shipping has exploded and ships have become much easier and rewarding to catch than fish. And while it's unlikely that all of today's Somali pirates got their start fishing, the gangs couldn't function without the knowledge and seamanship of those who did.

This is a problem we could see replayed out on a global scale as fishing becomes more difficult everywhere.

THE OIL FACTOR IN SOMALIA

The American government, with the international conglomerates pulling its strings like Gepetto, has purposely kept Somalia unstable. It is in this instability for which the U.S. can take advantage of the politically fractured country through arms sell, and funding of local and foreign militias.



In 1993, the Los Angeles Times wrote an investigative piece on the oil conglomerates’ interest in Somalia.

According to documents obtained by The Times, nearly two-thirds of Somalia was allocated to the American oil giants Conoco, Amoco, Chevron and Phillips in the final years before Somalia's pro-U.S. President Mohamed Siad Barre was overthrown and the nation plunged into chaos in January, 1991. Industry sources said the companies holding the rights to the most promising concessions are hoping that the Bush Administration's [daddy Bush] decision to send U.S. troops to safeguard aid shipments to Somalia will also help protect their multimillion-dollar investments there.

Officially, the Administration and the State Department insist that the U.S. military mission in Somalia is strictly humanitarian. Oil industry spokesmen dismissed as "absurd" and "nonsense" allegations by aid experts, veteran East Africa analysts and several prominent Somalis that President Bush, a former Texas oilman, was moved to act in Somalia, at least in part, by the U.S. corporate oil stake.

An investigative report from Media Lens in May 2008 revealed the motivations of the United States when it bombed Somalia under the guise of War on Terrorism, killing 12 twelve people the government said were Islamist militants.

Since 1996 the US has engaged in a continual "low-intensity" war in Somalia that has killed a million of that country's inhabitants, a death toll second only to the Congo during that time. Another million Somalis are homeless, refugees from the fighting. In the US, news of happenings in Somalia is scarce and often misleading. It's worth noting that Somalia sits upon an untapped lake of oil, and has significant uranium deposits as well, making it in the US interest to prevent any viable national government not under its control from coming to power.

Somali fishermen saw the potential in piracy, and why wouldn’t they when other countries are making hundreds of millions in overfishing in their waters. Last year alone, Somali hijackers, formerly fishermen made $75 million dollars in ransom money taking cargo ships and hostages. This year they’ve made $50 million. It’s lucrative being a pirate—it works for the U.S., China, and Europe. Somalis’ piracy is out front, while neo-colonial piracy hides in plain sight as humanitarianism, capitalism or War on Terrorism.

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LOOK TWICE
by Joseph Shahadi, VS. THE POMEGRANATE






















A few months ago, I got into a fistfight on the subway.

I was coming home from work and it was packed. There was this gawky twelve year old kid standing nearby. I’d noticed him earlier in the ride clowning around with a friend: Skinny kid, all fingers and toes, awash in the dorkiness of an actual pre-teen who does not have his own show on the Disney channel. I was tired and spacing out when the door slid open and people shifted to get off. The kid made a move for the door but I had a few stops left so I twisted out of the way to let him exit but instead of moving forward he just stood there, blinking and stammering. Just as I was asking him, “are you getting off?” someone behind me gave me a hard shove out of the way. I fell forward, the guy walked around me, and out the door…but not before I gave him a hard shove back.

Then he whirled around and sucker punched me in the face.

In retrospect, the dorky kid was probably paralyzed because he could see past me to the impatient guy who, it turns out was big. Very big. But I didn’t really have time to process any of that in the moment because when he punched me I saw red and…do you remember how Garfield the cartoon cat used to sail through the air to throw himself on to a cartoon lasagna? I did that. “Hello,” said my lizard brain, “I will be taking it from here.” Impatient guy was surprised. The people around us, who were streaming off of the subway, were surprised. Hell, I surprised myself. We stumbled out on to the subway platform as New York commuters, disinterested but ready to move away in case one of us pulled out a weapon, watched blankly.

This is the part of the story where everyone wants to know if the guy was black. Yeah, he was. No, I did not yell something racial at him. Or struggle with myself because I really wanted to yell something racial at him. Or think something racial and then feel guilty about it later. This is not that kind of story. Once I got a look at him, the first thing I registered was “Fuck. He is very big.” (I am not small by any stretch, but he was bigger than me. And he was an unhappy giant compared to the poor, nervous dork back on the train.) I hadn’t been in a fistfight since I was a kid but I used to box at my old gym so I wasn’t totally at a loss. Now that I saw them coming he couldn’t land a punch but since his reach was longer than mine, I couldn’t really get close enough to do much damage either. Basically, we were two guys in winter coats and messenger bags cursing and struggling, it wasn’t exactly Ali/ Frazier. But then his right hand shot out, closed around my throat and he began to squeeze.

I stared down the length of his arm and looked him dead in the eye.

About eight years earlier, in the weeks after 9/11, I was on the subway when a trashy white guy was yukking it up with one of his buddies on his cell phone as the train went above ground. He was doing that thing where he thinks his conversation is so amusing that he was speaking very loudly so that everyone else can enjoy it too. And the thing he was talking about so loudly was killing Arabs. I was standing a foot away from him and he had no idea that he was talking about killing me. Unlike the guy from my then-office who had to quickly explain he was Cuban to group of punks looking to beat an Arab on his way home from work a few days before, I am fair skinned, green eyed: invisible. Listening to him laugh about murdering me, I wasn’t sure what was going to happen. I had no confidence that anyone would lift a finger if half the people on this train decided to beat me to death. I was sick with anger and fear, shaking from adrenaline pumping into my body. I stared at him until he noticed me. His eyebrows shot up. He looked away and looked back. His face was beery and pink. My face was blank. “You want something?” he said. I said nothing. I just waited. “You got a problem?” I shook my head. I wanted him to see me and know who I am. I thought to myself, “Look at me, you son of a bitch. Look at me and see me.” I thought, My people invented higher mathematics. The concept of time. We invented the concept of Zero. The color purple. The letters in the alphabet that make up the words you are using to talk about exterminating us. My father ran away to fight the Nazis in World War ll and was sent home because he was just a skinny kid. He fought in Korea as a young man and when he died decades later, he was buried with an American flag in his casket.

And I. Am. Standing. Right. Here.

I could feel all of the things about me that made his eyes just slide over me in the first place—my skin, my eyes, my perfectly assimilated western bearing—fall away and for the first time he could see that I am an Arab.

He reddened and said under his breath, “Do you want to hurt me?” I shook my head. Watery eyed, he began to bluster at me about how his cousin is a fireman. “Are you a fireman?” I asked evenly. He looked down. “No, uh, I tried to take the test and uh…”

I started to laugh. It was cruel but I couldn’t help it.

“You don’t know what it means to be a hero!” he hissed. “Neither do you” I said, my eyes on his.

That is the look I feel myself giving the guy who has his hand on my throat. All the anger and frustration of the intervening years—Guantánamo, Abu Ghraib, Lebanon, Palestine, legalized torture, “random” searches, profiling, casual hatred—comes pouring out of my eyes and into his. I want him to see me too. “I am standing right here!” I think at him. His eyes get big and I can tell he is thinking, “Oh shit, this guy is crazy.” And its true, I am crazy. The world is making me crazy.

Then something happens I wasn’t counting on. His hand goes soft around my throat but just before he lets go, his eyes cut to the side. And I know in that second he is wondering if there are any cops on the platform. Suddenly he sees himself, a very big black man strangling a—for all intents and purposes—white man in broad daylight on a busy subway platform. There isn’t really any way this can go well for him. He knows this but his anger made him forget. He jerks his hand away and begins to step back. But I am not making it easy for him. I am ready to go and I tell him so. He is more and more wary and tries to get away from me. “Yeah, when you tell this story don’t forget to add the part where you walked away, bitch!” I shouted after him as he high tailed it up the subway steps.

Yeah, I know. Stupid. I’m not telling it because I am proud of myself.

I am telling it because between those two looks—when I looked at him as he was strangling me, and when he looked away to check if there were cops on the platform—there is a story about race in America. Racial invisibility is always relative and conditional, when you are discovered or reveal yourself, anything might happen. Looking the way that I do is sometimes like stumbling into a cave of sleeping bears, every interaction is a potential confrontation. The lack of instantly recognizable markers for racial or ethnic identity creates an atmosphere of potential threat. On the other hand, for people like my would-be strangler, whose skin color immediately marks him “other”, racial visibility makes him perpetually vulnerable to authority. I have no illusions that I chased him off by myself—it was the ghosts of white men with guns that sent him up the steps and away from me. It seems that we are all always moving in and out of visibility, depending on who is looking.

Like a Rorschach, the picture emerges between the black and white.

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A FILM REVIEW
SIN NOMBRE
by Malik Isasis




Sin Nombre opens on a surreal mural of densely packed trees with marigold-yellow and orange leaves. It looks real, but it is only an illusion. The mural is a wall in the bedroom of Casper (Edgar Flores), the story’s emotionally conflicted protagonist. He sits on the edge of the bed staring at the mural as if wanting to be in that place. From the moment we see Casper, he is already questioning his devotion to the violently perverse gang Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13). He is at a crossroad even before we hear him speak a word.

Is it the violence? The intimate knowledge of knowing that death will find him very early, or is it love? It is all three, but it is love that is the driving force behind his choices to neglect his duties of scouting and reporting back to the leader, Lil’ Mago (Tenoch Huerta Mejía), whose face is a MS-13 mural. His entire face is covered with an M and S. And yes, it is menacing.

American director and writer Cary Joji Fukunaga’s film Sin Nombre captures the unadulterated misery, violence and desperation in squalid barrios and shanty towns that force people to live as outlaws to eek out an existence—whether it is to join a gang or hop a train to the United States border. Poverty has a way of stripping people of dignity. It has a way of breaking down the family unit, making them susceptible to domestic violence, substance abuse, sexual exploitation, human trafficking, viral infections, and a whole gambit of social ills that rob global societies of its productive, and healthy adults. It is in this environment that the Mara Salvatrucha gang and other gangs, thrive. Picking off fatherless boys and girls, and consuming them. The Mara Salvatrucha gang is an American import, which begun in Los Angeles and spread throughout Latin America as members were deported. With 50,000 members, their reach is as long as the mob, which is methodically illustrated in the film.

Casper never seems present, he always appear to be somewhere in his head. He is likable enough despite the bloody initiation of his 12-year-old friend Smiley into the gang, and later helping Smiley with a pipe gun, blow a rival’s head off.

The film leaves Mexico and travels just across the river to Honduras where we find the doe-eyed Sayra (Paulina Gaitan), who’d been abandoned by her father as a child as he left her mother for the United States. After being deported from New Jersey, he is back and promises to take her and his brother back to the United States. Her quiet eyes smother the pain of abandonment, but she swallows her pride and accepts her father’s gesture to return with him back to New Jersey.

After crossing the river in an inflated tube, Sayra, her uncle and father find themselves in a train yard that looks more like a refugee camp with hundreds of people from across Central America, await the next train heading north. It is here that the destiny of Casper and Sayra to meet are put into motion. The hundreds of refugees in the train yard are prey for the Mara Salvatrucha, and as the people from across Central America and Mexico cross the country atop the train they are greeted in some towns by kids throwing apples and oranges to them, and in other towns, rocks at them. They elude the Mexican authorities and tolerate inclement weather.

Sin Nombre was executive produced by Mexican actors Diego Luna, and Gael García Bernal of Y Tu Mamma Tambien, who also a couple years ago produced the wonderful Drama/Mex, are proving that they have an eye for storytelling.

Sin Nombre is a love story, a tragic one that leaves you feeling like you’ve walked off a cliff. One might need some pharmaceuticals and a hug to help with the emotional recovery. It is one of the best movies of this young year.

GRADE: A+

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THE AFPAK EDITION: ISSUE 66, VOLUME 96
A QUESTION OF FAIRNESS
by Maliha Masood, The Matrix Contributing Writer


photo by Balazs Gardi


I never thought I would actually be saying what I’m about to say, but here it goes….Let’s bring back Bush. Surely I ought to be hanged for uttering such nonsense, you must be thinking. Is she on something, you might also wonder. What’s her problem; all you know it alls chorus. Well, my dears, I guess I have some explaining to do.

The reason why I’m professing endearment for George Bush has to do with Barack Obama’s new foreign policy in regards to Pakistan. To be perfectly blunt, it stinks.

First of all, I’m having a hard time dealing with Richard Holbrooke as Special Envoy for Pakistan and Afghanistan. Correct me if I’m wrong, but aren’t they two separate countries with two very different cultures and two very different histories and two very different governments? Of course I have not lost sight of the fact that Pakistan and Afghanistan are neighbors sharing one very nasty problem with Taliban militancy brewing a cauldron of violence alongside their border. In all the reactionary politics about defeating the bad guys, what no one asks is how did these guys get here in the first place? Allow me a brief indulgence with a history lesson.

Many of the baddies originated in Afghanistan as leftovers of the man power that fought America’s proxy war in that country against Soviet occupation in the early to mid 1980’s. It was the height of the Cold War and America was determined to drive out the Communists from Afghanistan. It relied heavily on Pakistan’s support as a frontline state to funnel arms and money to the Mujahideen resistance forces across the border. Pakistan’s ruler at the time, General Zia ul Haq, was more than willing to cooperate and made quite name for himself as the lead project manager of the Afghan war next door. Had America behaved more responsibly in that war’s aftermath and had Pakistan been less greedy, we would have a much different outcome. Of course the policy makers in Washington probably don’t want to be reminded that their misguided policy in Afghanistan during the Soviet occupation is the root cause of the trouble we are seeing in that region today. But let us go down memory lane just for old time’s sake.

Once the Soviets were marched back to Siberia, the Americans declared their victory and basically abandoned war ravaged Afghanistan. It was no different than a child who makes a mess and expects the grown ups to clean it up. With a resulting power vacuum, Afghanistan erupted in a bloody civil war. This is when the Taliban emerged, allegedly to restore stability and order. The word talib is Arabic for student and the early Taliban members were recruits of the Pakistani madrassahs or seminaries that supplied these fellows to Uncle Sam.

After 9/11, the American roosters multiplied and filtered into Pakistan where they get training in terrorist camps learning to hate the West and defending the honor that Muslims have lost. Their hare brained strategy is to wage attacks on their own people like the latest suicide bomber who killed worshippers during last Friday’s prayers in Jamrud, a town on the historic Khyber Pass functioning as a vital land route linking Pakistan and Afghanistan. So yes, there are connections between the two places, but yet, despite all that has happened, we cannot consider Pakistan and Afghanistan as one entity.

I really expected better from an American president who could finally pronounce Pakistan correctly. I was tickled pleased when he showed off his knowledge of the area by mentioning “FATA” short for the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan. But then he disappointed me when he called this region the most dangerous place in the world. Then he really went too far when he blamed Pakistan for 9/11. Come on, Obama, what’s wrong with you? Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine that you, being so hip and suave and intelligent would turn out to be my Brutus. Yes, sir, you have betrayed me. And I won’t forgive you so easily. Allow me to elaborate why.

The Obama administration’s newly unveiled foreign policy lumping Pakistan with Afghanistan is a clear break with the approach favored by the Bush administration. It is different in its tone with none of that cowboy-like “we'll smoke them out of their holes" mumbo jumbo, just a simple, stern message to al-Qaeda that "we will defeat you". That’s just fine by me. What’s not so fine is the added pressure on Pakistan to do more to fight the militancy in the tribal region. I doubt very much that Asif Zardari’s hokey government can do a better job than his predecessor Musharraf who alienated himself amongst Pakistanis when he allied with team Bush in the war against terror.

Now, I’m no fan of dictators, but in this case, Musharraf’s military might was a stronger deterrent against extremist forces in Pakistan. Just because they weren’t completely eliminated does not mean that he did not do enough. The Bush-Musharraf alliance relied on American and as well as Pakistani man power in rooting out the militants in the tribal beltway. The Obama folks expect Pakistan to go at it all alone. A clear indication of this is the unmanned U.S. Predator drone attacks in Pakistan that have not been discontinued in the policy agenda. Another sign is increasing resources and civilian personnel to assist with development projects in Afghanistan, but not at the same level as for Pakistan.

Obama’s message to Pakistan boils down to this: we are trying to rebuild Afghanistan after neglecting it for years. Don’t let the violence in your country spill over and undermine our success. This is pretty unfair because much of the violence in Pakistan is related to what’s going on Afghanistan. It cannot be singled out as a Pakistani problem. Obama wants to protect Afghanistan against the radical forces having a field day across the border in Pakistan, but he needs to realize that these radicals (who may not even be Pakistanis, but more likely Chechnyans or Arabs or Afghans), did not sprout on Pakistani soil overnight as well as the bigger historical picture behind their presence.


As a Pakistani, I’m deeply saddened at the state of affairs sinking the country’s reputation to an all time low. As an American, I completely understand and value the need for national security. But I cannot and will not overlook America’s role in creating the very monsters that it now wants to tame. So let us revisit the history books with a more recent example. After the 9/11 atrocities, America retaliated by bombing Afghanistan code named Operation Enduring Freedom and in a stark replay of its earlier strategy during the Soviet occupation, the American powers that be relied once again on proxy forces to do their bidding. This time it was not poor and disgruntled men trained to be warriors of Allah to drive out the infidels, but rich and powerful Afghan warlords who were instigating a climate of fear and corruption that added fuel to the Taliban insurgency and made the situation worse by planting more seeds for violence. Many of these Taliban offshoots filtered into Pakistan bringing along their gun culture and militant tactics after the U.S. had done its business in Afghanistan.

Condemning Pakistan for providing a safe haven for terrorists is only one half of the equation. The other half -- and this is the missing part of Obama’s new policy toward Pakistan -- is finding an equitable solution to a problem that the U.S. tacitly manufactured. Why should Pakistan be solely responsible for getting rid of these hooligans? Why is Afghanistan not held responsible for sending them across the border? And why aren’t U.S. ground forces that were so callously deployed in Iraq to bring down a madman playing a bigger role in bringing down an even greater threat that concerns the welfare of the entire world?

I’m not sure if the answers are all there in Obama’s new agenda. So does this mean that I really prefer Bush instead? Hell no. My argument is not about choosing sides. It’s about fairness. This young but ambitious U.S. administration needs a deeper commitment to help Pakistan in battling its evils. The relationship between the two countries has for the most part remained transactional. Many Pakistanis welcome Obama’s engaging attitude and outreach. But they find his new action plan a bit too hollow with no real change in America’s self serving interests.

It goes without saying that Barack Hussain Obama is a breath of fresh air after George W. Bush. He’s far more articulate, has way better manners and radiates cool confidence. But looking beyond his winning appearance into his actual foreign policy objectives vis a vis the beleaguered state of Pakistan and we find nothing to get excited about. If anything, there’s even less excitement now that Obama and his team of experts are pulling back the reigns that Bush had secured somewhat tighter.

Let me get this straight. I’m not an advocate for American meddlesomeness in other countries. But the fact of the matter is that Americans do like to meddle and they have meddled their way into a grand old mess as far as Pakistan is concerned. To stop meddling now or not meddling enough is simply counter productive. There is no missing the point that Obama means business. But dumping Afghanistan’s problems onto Pakistan’s shoulders is not entirely fair. We need a more level playing field where all of the guilty participants have an equal share of responsibility for resolving this conflict. Until that happens, I’m not placing my bets with Obama and his promises.


Maliha Masood is the author of the travel memoir Zaatar Days Henna Nights. Born and raised in Karachi, Pakistan, she resides in Seattle, WA. More info at www.zaatardays.com

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