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 21 Jul 2006 @ 19:26
World Socialist Web Site
The real aims of the US-backed Israeli war against Lebanon
Statement of the Editorial Board
21 July 2006
As the onslaught against Lebanon enters its tenth day, Israeli troops are poised for a full-scale invasion that has been prepared by murderous aerial bombardment, and the far-reaching imperialist aims of the war have become all too clear.
With the full political, financial and military backing of the United States, the Zionist regime is attempting to transform Lebanon into an Israeli protectorate. This military operation is a continuation and escalation of the imperialist geo-political restructuring of the Middle East and Central Asia that began with the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, and whose goal is the establishment of US domination of the entire region.
The immediate aim of this war—the elimination of Hezbollah as a military and political force within Lebanon—is directed against all mass resistance to Israeli and American domination of the country. The Bush administration and its allies in Jerusalem see this as an essential step toward: 1) the removal of the Syrian Baathist regime, and 2) the launching of a full-scale war against Iran.
While the Israeli government and the Bush administration endlessly repeat propaganda claims that the attack on Lebanon is an act of “self defense” prompted by the seizure of two soldiers, this assertion enjoys no credibility among knowledgeable observers.
As the Financial Times of London wrote in its lead editorial of July 17, “Israel’s massive bombardment of Lebanon by land, sea and air in response to Hezbollah’s cross-border raid last week is now about a great deal more than recovering two Israeli soldiers seized by Islamist guerrillas—and it probably always was.”
Similar assessments have been published in the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal, as well as numerous newspapers internationally. They simply state what is by now obvious: the Israeli attack on Lebanon is the realization of a long-planned act of aggression.
Recent events have placed in clearer perspective the significance of the February, 2005 assassination of the Lebanese multi-billionaire and former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.
Hariri was killed by a massive explosion that destroyed his motorcade in Beirut four months after he resigned his post as prime minister in protest against the decision of Emile Lahoud, an ally of Syria, to extend his term as president of Lebanon. The United States and France, the country’s former colonial ruler, immediately blamed Hariri’s death on Damascus. Their anti-Syrian allies within Lebanon, predominantly based on the more affluent social layers, seized upon Hariri’s killing to launch the so-called Cedar Revolution, which resulted last year in the withdrawal of Syrian troops, which had occupied Lebanon since the 1970s.
If, in fact, the Syrian regime was behind the killing, it carried it out because it had become convinced that Hariri had lent his support to a US-Israeli plan to drive Syria out of Lebanon, in preparation for an assault on the Hezbollah movement, which enjoys mass support among the impoverished Shiite population and dominates the south of Lebanon. It was well aware that this would be followed by an offensive against the Baathist regime in Damascus itself.
It is, on the other hand, eminently possible that the killing was a provocation organized by Israeli or American intelligence agencies for the purpose of creating a pretext for carrying through the same plan.
In either case, the current Israeli offensive is the implementation of precisely such an operation. The Cedar Revolution itself produced disappointing results in the eyes of the Israelis and Americans. Under the terms of a United Nations Security Council resolution co-sponsored by Washington and Paris, Syria was obliged to withdraw its troops from Lebanon. The power of its Hezbollah ally, however, remained intact.
Indeed, at the height of the anti-Syrian agitation, marked by well-publicized demonstrations in Beirut organized by Maronite Christian forces and other Lebanese parties aligned with Washington, Hezbollah organized far larger counter-demonstrations that brought hundreds of thousands into the streets of the capital. With the specter of a new civil war before it, the government that emerged from the Cedar Revolution felt obliged to make a settlement which included the admission of Hezbollah representatives into the cabinet.
In an article published July 20, the New York Times reflected the frustration within the Bush administration and American ruling circles: “Despite the hopes raised by the so-called Cedar Revolution, which ended nearly three decades of Syrian control, the government remains trapped in the sectarian straitjacket of a system that apportions political offices by religion.” (The Times has no similar objections to the “sectarian straitjacket” of Lebanon’s neighbor to the south, which not only apportions all political power to representatives of one religion, but defines itself as a “Jewish state”).
This comment points to the real purpose of the current onslaught against the Lebanese people. Its aim is a thoroughgoing political restructuring of the country, in which the fiercely pro-Palestinian and anti-Israeli sentiments of the Shiite masses are to be crushed and the power of right-wing, pro-US forces—above all, the Christian Phalange—vastly expanded.
This is an attempt to reverse the outcome of the Lebanese civil war, which raged from 1975 until 1990. The US, Israel and other imperialist powers, notably France, played a central role in inciting that long and bloody conflict and keeping it going, including the introduction of American and French military forces and an Israeli invasion in 1982 that was followed by an 18-year Israeli occupation of the south. Washington’s chief ally was the fascistic Phalange, which headed a coalition of right-wing forces arrayed against an alliance of the Palestine Liberation Organization and the Lebanese Left.
Imperialist intrigue and intervention succeeded in driving the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) from Lebanon, but the eventual settlement curtailed the power of the Phalange, on the one hand, and saw the rise of the Iranian and Syrian-backed Hezbollah on the other. This is what Washington is determined to change. Significantly, the current Israeli offensive has enabled the US to move its military forces into Lebanon for the first time since they were withdrawn in the aftermath of the bombing of the US Marine barracks in Beirut in October of 1983.
The historical background
Israel has a long history of attempting to transform Lebanon, through a combination of military pressure and political alliances with right-wing forces in that country, into a virtual protectorate.
In March 1978, in the midst of the Lebanese civil war, Israel sent military forces across the border into Lebanon, justifying its actions as a response to PLO terrorist activity. Though compelled by international pressure to withdraw after its military operations had resulted in more than 2,000 Lebanese deaths, Israel maintained control of a 12-mile strip north of the border by sponsoring a right-wing militia, dubbed the South Lebanon Army, under the proxy leadership of one Major Saad Haddad.
Four years later, in 1982, Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and his defense minister, Ariel Sharon, set into motion a far more ambitious plan to take political control of all Lebanon and expel the PLO from the country. Once again, a convenient pretext was found when an Israeli ambassador was wounded in London by a Palestinian assassin in June 1982. Though intelligence experts acknowledged that the PLO had nothing to do with this incident, the Begin government used the event as a pretext to invade Lebanon. In an operation entitled, with consummate cynicism, “Peace for Galilee,” Israeli troops swept north toward the outskirts of Beirut, which was subjected to protracted bombing.
The war forced the PLO’s expulsion from Lebanon and led to the Israeli-sanctioned slaughter of thousands of Palestinian refugees by Lebanese fascist militiamen.
The United States also became involved in the subjugation of Lebanon, with the Reagan administration stationing Marines in Beirut. But direct US participation in attacks on the poorer neighborhoods of Beirut (which were shelled by American naval vessels) created deep hostility, leading to the suicide bombing in which nearly 250 Marines were killed. The Reagan administration decided to cut its losses and withdraw from Lebanon.
The Israeli regime, however, sought to maintain control over substantial portions of south Lebanon. It was out of the popular resistance to the occupation that Hezbollah emerged as a powerful military and political force. The guerrilla war conducted by Hezbollah eventually forced Israel to withdraw its forces in 2000.
Israeli military tactics
The current war is not only about wiping out Hezbollah, but destroying any resistance within Lebanon to US and Israeli domination. This desired end goes a long way in explaining the means that are being employed. Israel is carrying out an indiscriminate bombardment of the south, the home of the poor Shiite population and the main base of support for Hezbollah. The Israeli military is deliberately targeting the entire civilian population, destroying whole villages and making the entire region uninhabitable.
The Washington Post reported Thursday that Israel has ordered all Lebanese living in the southern sector below the Litani River to evacuate the region within 24 hours.
The goal is to turn south Lebanon into a no man’s land so as to prepare the ground for the entry of either Israeli troops or a combination of Israeli and American forces, with perhaps other national contingents operating as an “international peace keeping force” with the imprimatur of the United Nations.
The Israeli offensive is above all a war against the Lebanese poor. The more affluent residential neighborhoods of Beirut and other parts of the country have been largely spared. This is in keeping with US and Israeli policy during the civil war, when they were allied with the Phalange against the Shiite masses and the Palestinian refugee population.
The unleashing of death and destruction against southern Lebanon is combined with a bombing campaign aimed at the Shiite southern suburbs of Beirut and against airports, ports, roads, bridges and power stations in the rest of the country. The objective is to wreck the country’s infrastructure. In order to remake Lebanon politically, it first must be gutted physically. This gives some idea of what US imperialism and its junior partner, Israel, have in store for the people of Syria, Iran and beyond.
Nor is there any reason to believe Israel’s disavowals of plans for a full-scale ground invasion. The more Israeli leaders discount such a move, the more likely it becomes. While the scale of the bombing in south Lebanon is sufficient to kill many thousands of people, it will not achieve Israel’s aims of destroying Hezbollah as a military and political force, and converting Lebanon into a Zionist protectorate.
Citing the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, NBC’s evening news program reported Thursday that several thousand Israeli troops have begun crossing the border into southern Lebanon.
The role of the United States
The United States is playing a decisive role in the war. It sanctioned the war in advance and is working in the closest collaboration with the Israeli military’s US-made and American-financed war machine to carry it out.
On the diplomatic level, the Bush administration is openly aligning its moves with the military objectives and political calculations of the Israeli government. Washington is coordinating US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s impending visit to the region with Israel to give the Israeli military all the time it wants to inflict maximum possible destruction in south Lebanon. As the New York Times reported on July 19, “American officials signaled that Ms. Rice was waiting at least a few more days before wading into the conflict, in part to give Israel more time to weaken Hezbollah forces.”
There is no precedent for the US government’s open opposition to a ceasefire. The Wall Street Journal, in a fairly frank assessment of US policy published July 19, began by recalling Washington’s diplomatic role when the last major conflict erupted between Israel and Hezbollah:
“Ten years ago, when Hezbollah and Israeli forces engaged in a multiweek bloodbath, President Clinton sent Secretary of State Warren Christopher to the region for six days of intensive shuttle diplomacy between Damascus and Jerusalem. In the end, he won a cease-fire deal that ended the fighting, at least temporarily.
“Today, the Bush administration has a starkly different approach.”
The US is fully and openly legitimizing war as an instrument of foreign policy. This is a continuation of its military aggression in Iraq, and an anticipation of future aggression against Syria, Iran, and other countries. It is bound up with the Bush doctrine of “preemptive war,” which has been embraced by the entire American political establishment and both parties of American imperialism—the Democrats as well as the Republicans.
Washington’s determined effort to allow Israel to continue the slaughter in Lebanon underscores that the current war is part of US imperialism’s drive, by any and all means, to establish American supremacy throughout the Middle East.
Whether this reckless and criminal military adventure will, in the short term, further this objective or lead Washington into an even deeper debacle in the region remains to be seen.
See Also:
American media unquestioningly defends Israeli violence
[21 July 2006]
Western diplomacy supports Israel's war of aggression
[19 July 2006]
G8 powers sanction Israeli aggression in Lebanon
[18 July 2006]
US gives Israel a blank check to wage war
[17 July 2006]
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 26 May 2006 @ 15:31
The corruption and social crisis which dominate this society are coming to a boil. If anyone had any doubt up to now as to the validity of Modern Americana, such revelations as these ought to put them to rest permanantly.
Do you share the same values in your own life as those which underlie this corruption, (greed and egotism)?
*************
From WSWS:
Constitutional crisis over FBI raid on US congressman
By Joe Kay and Barry Grey
26 May 2006
The conflict between the US Congress and the Bush administration over the FBI raid on US Representative William Jefferson’s congressional office has rapidly escalated into a constitutional crisis. The episode highlights the contempt with which the Bush administration views such fundamental issues as the separation of powers and the autonomy of the legislative branch. It also reveals the atmosphere of crisis and tension which pervades the American political system.
The May 20 raid was carried out by more than 15 FBI agents, who barred the House of Representatives general counsel and the sergeant at arms from the rooms they were searching. It was the first federal search of a sitting congressman’s office in US history.
Denunciations of the Justice Department by Republican as well as Democratic legislators reached such a pitch by Thursday that President Bush felt obliged to directly intervene. The previous day, the Republican speaker of the House, Dennis Hastert, and the Democratic minority leader, Nancy Pelosi, issued a joint statement denouncing the raid as unconstitutional and demanding that the Justice Department return all of the documents and records removed by the FBI.
Bush sought to mollify congressional critics while insisting that the raid was legal and that the Justice Department had every right to use documents and records seized in the 18-hour search to pursue an investigation of Jefferson on allegations of bribe-taking.
In a remarkable acknowledgment of the sharpness of the confrontation between the executive and legislative branches, Bush said, “Our government has not faced such a dilemma in more than two centuries.” He noted that the “bipartisan leadership of the House of Representatives believes this search violated the constitutional principle of separation of powers and the speech and debate clause of the Constitution.”
He announced that the documents seized would be sealed for 45 days, during which time investigators would be prevented from examining them, and called for negotiations between congressional leaders and the Justice Department to work out a protocol for obtaining such documents in connection with federal criminal investigations. He insisted, however, that any resolution to the dispute had to ensure “that materials relevant to the ongoing criminal investigation are made available to prosecutors...”
He then declared, “Those who violate the law—including a member of Congress—should be held to account”—an utterance of stunning hypocrisy from a president who has demonstrated contempt for both US and international law during his entire tenure. This bit of cynicism was designed to uphold the pretext for the administration’s assertion of virtually limitless executive power and its denigration of Congress: That the raid was carried out in order to root out corruption and uphold the law.
Corruption—bribe-taking, influence peddling, fraud—is indeed rampant in Washington, where corporate lobbyists routinely reward their congressional minions with money and other favors in return for voting the “right” way, and seats in the House and the Senate are purchased for vast sums, collected as campaign donations from corporate sponsors. Both parties are involved, and there is no reason to believe that New Orleans Congressman Jefferson, a Democrat, is any less corrupt than his colleagues.
But corruption has long been a feature of American politics, and no previous administration has raided the office of a sitting congressman in the name of conducting a criminal probe. The reasons for the raid on Jefferson’s office have nothing to do with fighting corruption, and everything to do with the drive by the clique around Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney to intimidate and silence critics, forestall any investigation into the administration’s own illegal actions, and move toward the establishment of a form of presidential dictatorship.
Hastert and Pelosi welcomed Bush’s announcement on Thursday and said the House counsel was ready to begin negotiations with the Justice Department over the dispute. However, other Republican congressmen predicted the matter would end up before the US Supreme Court, and House Judiciary Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner, a Republican, announced he would hold hearings next Tuesday under the heading: “Reckless Justice—Did the Saturday Night Raid of Congress Trample the Constitution?”
Jefferson, for his part, filed a motion in US District Court demanding the return of the material—two boxes of documents and a computer hard drive—confiscated during the search.
The rapidity with which the dispute has escalated reflects the intensity of the political crisis that underlies it.
Jefferson has been under investigation for months and was videotaped in a sting operation apparently accepting bribes from an FBI informant. The Justice Department raided two of his residences last August and issued subpoenas for documents, but Jefferson has challenged the subpoenas.
The provocative nature of the decision to raid his office is underscored by the fact that the House counsel was handling his legal dispute with the Justice Department over the contested documents. Thus the legal wrangle between Jefferson and the Bush administration had already become an institutional standoff between the executive and legislative branches when the administration decided to dramatically assert its supremacy by raiding the congressman’s office.
Only hours after Wednesday’s joint statement by Hastert and Pelosi, ABC World News Tonight, citing unnamed US law enforcement officials, reported that Hastert was under investigation by the FBI in connection with the influence peddling and bribery scandal surrounding convicted Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff.
Hastert immediately issued a statement branding the ABC News report as false and demanding that the network retract it. The Justice Department soon after issued its own statement declaring the ABC News report to be false and saying Hastert was not under investigation.
The following morning, however, Hastert gave an interview to WGN radio in Chicago in which he charged that the ABC News report had been deliberately leaked by someone in the Bush administration to intimidate him and retaliate for his denunciation of the FBI raid on Jefferson.
“This is one of the leaks that come out to try to, you know, intimidate people,” he said. He essentially reiterated the allegation later in the day Thursday. When asked if he thought the Justice Department was retaliating against him by leaking the report, Hastert replied, “All I’m saying is, here are the dots. People can connect any dots they want to.” He added, “I thought it was an interesting sequence of events.”
ABC News has refused to retract its Wednesday night report, and Hastert has threatened to sue the network for defamation. For its part, ABC reported on its web site that the Justice Department statement was intended to deny that Hastert was a formal target or subject of the investigation, but federal officials had confirmed to the network that various members of Congress “including Hastert, are under investigation.”
Hastert’s remarks are indicative of the bitter in-fighting and the atmosphere of fear, intrigue and crisis that pervade official Washington.
The tensions between Hastert and the White House reflect divisions, in particular, within the Republican Party. With Bush’s poll numbers continuing to fall as popular opposition to the Iraq war and the economic situation mounts, Republican leaders in Congress are increasingly concerned that their party may lose control of one or both houses in this November’s midterm election, and forfeit the White House in 2008.
This is certainly one reason why the same Republicans, such as Hastert, who have supported all of Bush’s anti-democratic measures—from the Patriot Act, to the Homeland Security Department, to massive domestic spying programs—have reacted so sharply to a precedent they fear could be used against them should the Democrats gain control.
Long-time columnist and Republican insider Robert Novak published a column May 18 on Hastert’s relations with the White House that gives some sense of the poisoned state of relations within the Republican Party and the political establishment as a whole. Novak reported that Hastert “engaged in a high decibel rant” in a meeting with Vice President Cheney after he learned that his former House colleague and friend Porter Goss was being forced out as CIA director.
Cheney was so alarmed he immediately scheduled a meeting between Hastert, himself and Bush in the president’s living quarters.
“But Hastert’s discontent goes beyond the CIA,” Novak noted. “The GOP mood on Capitol Hill, particularly the House, is poisonous. With pessimism rising over a contemplated loss of their majority in the 2006 elections, Republican lawmakers blame their parlous condition on Bush’s performance.” Novak went on to say that there was “basically non-communication between Bush and his fellow Republicans in Congress.”
Hastert’s assumption that the ABC News report was an act of intimidation and retaliation by the Bush administration—even were it to prove unfounded—says a great deal about the state of American politics. The titular head of the House of Representatives takes as a given that the top figures in the executive branch, and the leaders of his own party, would not hesitate to employ blackmail, character assassination and the threat of criminal prosecution to silence him and anyone else who stood in their way.
It is an open secret in Washington, discussed in private but concealed from the American people, that the US is heading in the direction of a police state, and that those who wield both corporate and political power have no democratic scruples.
See Also:
FBI stages unprecedented raid on congressman's office
[24 May 2006] More >
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 18 May 2005 @ 15:38
It would really interest me to know how many people would still say that "everything is as it should be", "we don't know the divine plan, therefore all is ok", "there is no truth, only my truth and your truth" etc. if they lived in Iraq. What does it take for people to say...hmmm maybe things are NOT as they should be and maybe, just maybe there is something I can do to change the course of humankind.
Just because the human species is caught up in world karma and inertia from events of the past in NO WAY implies that we are not responsible for the way things are going. It in NO WAY implies that this is the way it is supposed to be and it IN WAY implies that this is Supreme will.
It only implies that we are NOT doing our "job" as Consciousness in bodies, Fragments of God and Stewarts of the Earth.
But that is ok...go back to your focus of ego, consumerism, materialism and tv....you don't live in a country like Iraq....at least not in this life, but that in no way implies that you are relieved of the responsibility your part/contribution contributes to all the "tragedies" in the world....(karma...a very real and just Natural Law)
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UN report finds
US war in Iraq yields a social “tragedy”
By David Walsh
18 May 2005
A new study issued by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) reveals what the Iraqi Minister of Planning Barham Salih describes as “a rather tragic situation of the quality of life in Iraq.” What this minister in the Baghdad puppet regime did not care to say, unsurprisingly, is that this disaster for the Iraqi people is attributable overwhelmingly to the unrelenting assault by US imperialism over the past 15 years and more.
The Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s, a conflagration over which Washington warmed its hands; the Gulf War of 1991; more than a decade of sanctions; and the US invasion and ongoing occupation of Iraq have resulted in the death of untold numbers in that country, laid waste its infrastructure, health and education system and generally brought about a regression in the lives of millions. Oil-rich Iraq now suffers from some of the region’s highest rates of unemployment and child malnutrition and debilitating problems with electric power, sewage systems and other public services.
Among the indices of social misery contained in the report are the following:
* Nearly a quarter of Iraq’s children suffer from chronic malnutrition.
* The probability of dying before 40 for Iraqi children born between 2000 and 2004 is approximately three times the level in neighboring countries.
* Three out of four Iraqi families report an unstable supply of electricity.
* 40 percent of families in urban areas live in neighborhoods where sewage can be seen in the streets.
* More than 722,000 Iraqi families have no access to either safe or stable drinking water.
* The jobless rate for young men with secondary or higher education stands at 37 percent.
The study, entitled Iraq Living Conditions Survey 2004 (ILCS), was organized by the UN development agency in collaboration with the Iraqi Ministry of Planning and Development Cooperation and conducted by a Norwegian-trained team from the Central Organisation for Statistics and Information Technology in Baghdad. It drew its conclusions from interviews carried out in April-August 2004 with members of 21,688 households in Iraq’s 18 provinces.
In their analysis of Iraq’s infrastructure, housing, environment, health system, conditions for women, labor market and other aspects of life, the authors of the UNDP report repeatedly resort to certain terms and phrases to describe their findings: “alarming” appears numerous times, along with “worsening,” “deterioration,” “falling behind” and “reverse development.”
In these words, as well as some of the starker figures, one can detect, within the dry (and timid) language of bourgeois social researchers, the scope of the human suffering in present-day Iraq.
The general contention of the study, pieced together from separate comments, is that Iraqi society made considerable advances in the 1970s, as “oil revenues began growing dramatically.... This period of rapid economic growth also saw significant rural-urban migration...and the growth of employment in the public sector and in state-owned enterprises, both of which indicate that households’ incomes were increasing.”
However, Iraqi Gross Domestic Product has been declining since 1980, according to the report, “due to a combination of wars, sanctions, and economic mismanagement.... [H]ouseholds may have experienced a continuing decline in income over the past 25 years, a situation that is almost unheard of among middle-income countries.” This decline is particularly remarkable in the light of Iraq’s possession of the world’s second-largest proven oil reserves (and undiscovered reserves that some analysts suggest might place it closer to Saudi Arabia as an oil producer).
This “unheard of” situation can only be explained as the product of geopolitics, in particular the determination of the US, through one means or another (including diplomatic maneuvering, a brutal war that stopped short of occupation, economic strangulation and full-scale invasion), to control the Middle Eastern nation’s natural resources. Now occupying the country, Washington is least of all concerned with the conditions of the conquered people.
What have been the results of America’s war against the Iraqi people?
In regard to Iraq’s infrastructure, the ILCS argues that the US-led sanctions, “misguided economic policies” and three wars have contributed to its deterioration. Moreover, after “the most recent war, the situation worsened due to looting, destruction of public property, and general insecurity.”
The instability of the electrical supply remains a central problem for Iraqis. In urban areas in particular, many households have experienced a reduced supply and “a dramatic worsening of its quality and stability.” In Baghdad, 92 percent of all households suffer from an unstable electrical supply.
On average, the ILCS found, 33 percent of all Iraqi households have an unstable supply of drinking water (more than weekly problems with supply) and 17 percent of all households have neither safe nor stable drinking water. A full 70 percent of all rural households find it problematic to obtain the drinking water they need; in the southern regions, the figure reaches 76 percent. Poorer households, with young household heads, low education and small children, are faring the worst, revealing that “traditionally vulnerable groups are falling behind on this indicator.”
The report notes that, compared “to other countries in the region and to the earlier data from Iraq...we find that the supply of safe and stable water supply in Iraq has deteriorated.... A reduction in urban access to safe drinking water from 95 to 60 percent is grave. Compared to other Arab countries, Iraq is far behind, and the observed deterioration of the situation is alarming.” According to Salih, the planning minister, “In 1980, 75 percent of families had access to clean water.”
Sanitary conditions too “show a steep deterioration”; Iraqi sewage systems “show a reverse development.” The study notes reports of old and destroyed sewage systems, which lead to seeping of sewage into the ground and result in the contamination of drinking water systems.
Infant and child mortality rates show the same general trend. The ILCS data indicates “a progressive worsening of the situation for children.” This has occurred “in a context of declining infant and child mortality rates in neighbouring countries.” The study estimates the rate of maternal mortality, the number of deaths of women per 100,000 childbirths, to be 193, a figure only exceeded in the region by Syria and Yemen. Again, “Iraq has not participated in the overall decline in maternal mortality achieved in the past decades in other Middle Eastern countries.”
As the ILCS notes, “Most Iraqi children have lived their whole lives under sanctions and war.” The consequences for these most vulnerable members of society have been inevitable and tragic. Malnutrition among small children in Iraq is widespread. Almost one quarter of children between six months and five years suffer from chronic malnutrition; the prevalence of acute severe malnutrition is 10 percent. Compared with previous studies, the report notes, the level of malnutrition has increased and stabilized “at a high level during the last four years.” The authors find this “surprising” given that fully 96 percent of the population receive regular food rations.
In 1990, Iraq ranked 50th on the UN Development Program’s Human Development Index; in 2003, it ranked 126th. An Iraqi citizen’s average dietary intake was 3,300 calories; thanks to UN-US sanctions, a decade later the intake had shrunk by more than 1,000 calories per person, or by nearly a third.
A major childhood killer is diarrhea. A preventable condition, most commonly by good hygiene and clean drinking water, diarrhea accounted for 2 deaths in 10 among under-five-year-old Iraqis before the 1991 US-led war; this percentage rose to 4 in 10 after the war. The fatality rate of diarrhea per 1,000 cases was reported to have climbed from 1.6 in 1990 to 19.3 in 1998, a 12-fold increase. It is widely acknowledged that the sanctions against Iraq cost hundreds of thousands of children their lives.
Ordinarily there is a correlation between piped water, considered safe, and a lower incidence of childhood diarrhea. In Iraq recently that correlation has not been evident. The authors suggest that this may be due to the irregularity of electricity in Iraq. “This has led to interruptions in the function of sewage pumps and over-flooding of the sewage system.” In other words, “safe” piped water in Iraq is often unsafe.
Confronting the miserable state of the Iraqi health care system as a whole, the ILCS authors advance an argument that is worth citing at length:
“In the 1980s, Iraq was widely considered to have one of the region’s best health care systems, with advanced, technological specialist care, and an extensive net of primary health care. However, after years of war and sanctions, this situation has changed completely. Among the current major problems are lack of health personnel, lack of medicines, non-functioning medical equipment and destroyed hospitals and health centres. The health services are also heavily affected by infrastructure problems, including degraded or disrupted electricity supply, sanitation, and communications. The situation has been characterized in this way: ‘Iraq is a second world country, accustomed to a first world health system, which now has the epidemiological profile of a third world country (Garfield, Zaidi & Lennock 1997).’ ”
Before the first US-led war in 1991, Iraq had a network of approximately 1,800 primary health centers; by 2001, that figure had declined to 929, of which a third were considered in need of rehabilitation. “In the course of the war launched in mid-March 2003, further destruction of infrastructure and health facilities were reported.” In 1999-2003, Iraq had one third the number of physicians per 100,000 inhabitants as its neighbors Jordan, Syria and Lebanon.
Decades of war have taken their toll. The ILCS research indicates that more than 200,000 Iraqis currently have chronic disabilities caused by war. The number of deaths attributable to the 2003 US war and occupation remains unknown, principally because neither Washington nor the puppet authorities in Baghdad have the slightest interest in calculating the figure. A study in The Lancet medical journal last year estimated that as many as 100,000 Iraqis had died in the conflict. The Iraqi Living Conditions 2004 report places the figure at somewhere between 18,000 and 29,000.
A revealing fact brought out in the report is that a higher percentage of children, women and elderly have been chronically disabled as a result of the ongoing war than in the previous conflicts in the 1980s and 1990s—not astonishing, given that the current fighting is taking place almost entirely in Iraqi cities and towns. “[I]n the ongoing war, it is the civilian population that are most affected. This impression is further strengthened by the fact that, in the most recent war, there is almost no difference in the number of women and men that were disabled.”
Writing on education and the position of women in Iraqi society, the ILCS authors offer comments similar to those they made in regard to health care: after considerable advances in the 1970s and 1980s, conditions have seriously worsened under the impact of sanctions and war.
“Iraq’s educational system,” they write, “used to be among the best in the region; one of the country’s most important assets remains its well-educated people. The results of education reforms in the 1970s and 1980s are evident in the high literacy rates in the adult population.” For example, in 1978 the Baathist government launched the National Comprehensive Campaign for the Eradication of Illiteracy, which aimed at eliminating illiteracy for all those between the ages of 15 and 45. There was “a special emphasis on the full participation and emancipation of women.”
The literacy rate today for those 15 to 24, however, is lower than for those 25 to 34, indicating that the younger generation is lagging behind its predecessors. This is a result of the deterioration of the educational system over the past 10 to 15 years. The literacy rate for women has stagnated, and, in certain regions, the level of female illiteracy is very high. Some 65 percent of the adult population in Iraq is literate, compared with 86 percent in Jordan and 75 percent in Syria.
School enrolment at all levels has dropped over the past decade. Iraq is “far behind” the UN Millennium Development Goal of ensuring that all boys and girls complete a full course of primary schooling and eliminating gender disparity in primary and secondary education. In rural areas, 38 percent of women between 15 and 24 have not completed elementary education.
On the overall position of women in Iraqi society, the ILCS argues that after improvement in the 1970s, there have been numerous setbacks in the past 15 years. In the late 1960s, the Baath party started an ideological campaign for women’s participation in the labor force and educational system. This “state feminism” was typical of bourgeois nationalist regimes in the aftermath of decolonization. A national illiteracy campaign for women was introduced in 1978; according to the Baathist regime, 1.5 million were reached and illiteracy was eliminated in some regions. “Yet data from the ILCS shows a high level of illiteracy among women today.” Women’s participation in the labor force and education, once again, is among the lowest in the region.
The study, in passing, makes the interesting observation that one effect of the US pressure on the Hussein regime was the latter’s decision after 1990 to seek stronger ties with religious leaders and neighboring, less secular regimes, thus reinforcing conservative and more patriarchal trends in Iraqi society.
Based on its survey results, the ILCS estimates the unemployment rate, including discouraged workers (those who have given up looking), at 18.4 percent. The jobless figure among young people—in a country where 39 percent of the population is less than 15 years old—is 33.4 percent and “reaches an astonishing 37.2 percent” among men with secondary or higher education.
The report contends that the majority of those employed before the US invasion have kept their jobs—with the important exception of those in the army—and that the majority of the unemployed are new entrants to the labor market.
All the accumulated tragedies of the past two decades have created a situation in which the average Iraqi household probably has lower real income in 2004 than in 1980. The ILCS found the median per-capita household income in 2003 to be 366,000 dinars (about $255). Some 16 percent of Iraqi households are unable to buy any one of six elementary items (new clothes, heating, etc.); 35 percent would be unable to raise 100,000 dinars in an emergency; 28 percent describe themselves as “among the poor in Iraq.” The poorest 20 percent of households receive less than 7 percent of the total income of Iraqi households; the richest 20 percent receive 44 percent—in fact, however, income inequality in Iraq is still relatively low compared to the rest of the region.
The ILCS figures reveal that wide layers of the population in what was a relatively modern society, rich in resources, have been reduced to poverty and degradation in large measure by American imperialist policy, conditions that have been worsened by the ongoing occupation. The economic and social facts refute the claims of the Bush administration and the US media about America’s “democratizing” and “nation-building” mission in Iraq. They represent an indictment of US policy pursued by both Republicans and Democrats.
Alleviating the immense suffering of the Iraqi people requires, first and foremost, the immediate withdrawal of all US forces, war crimes trials of those officials responsible for the 2003 invasion and tens of billions of dollars in reparations.
See Also:
Soaring birth deformities and child cancer rates in Iraq
[10 May 2005]
Iraq: child malnutrition almost doubles after US invasion
[26 November 2004]
Iraqi social crisis continues unabated as US slashes funding
[20 October 2004] More >
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 16 May 2005 @ 21:36
They Said It Couldn’t Happen Here
(But It IS)
(by anonymous author)
I was told at the age of five by my German refugee Grandmother, “Don’t you ever believe that it can’t happen here”. In the pre-Nazi era my family believed, like the majority of others, that because we lived in a democracy that was founded in a civilized world, that nothing like what was to come could even be imagined, let alone expected. They had all seen the warning signs of insanity and blind hatred, stirred to a war-fever pitch, but had chosen to deny them for the most part, until it was too late. The Germany of that time was a place of hopes for the future, as a nation amongst many peaceful neighbors in the world community. The first World War, the one that was supposed to, “end all wars”, was now a memory from which the world had supposedly learned its lessons. But that was not to be the case, as history proves. The attention span of the public is short, and memories are even shorter.
Today we witness the modern America with its supposed reputation for being a haven of “peace, justice and democracy” taking the foremost role as aggressor, tyrant and world bully. All this talk of “keeping world peace”, “defending freedom and democracy” through warring ways and the disintegration of our Bill of Rights and Constitution, amounts to one single endpoint…things are not as we are told on our televisions. Today we find that the world is not a very peaceful place, and this is largely, if not primarily due to the constant threats issued, and wars of aggression waged, by the United States. The entire world community is up in arms. Nervous fears of wars and grave international instability abound. World War III looms large on the immediate horizon. Open talks of nuclear attacks of one nation upon another, boasted by world leaders like the bold promises of retaliation made by any grade school bully, are the common rhetoric of international relations. The proliferation of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons is skyrocketing, as every country on Earth looks to the examples of Afghanistan and Iraq, and sees the possibility of their own demise, and are thus convinced that if they are not properly armed with such weapons, they will have no means to deter wars of aggression by imperial super-power governments. Once again the people of the world are faced with the dilemma of their own support for governments which flaunt their ability to end the human race forever. Once again the same plea by intellectuals and progressive people the world over go basically unheard, while madmen race to destroy each other for the sake of imperial ambitions of world domination, and the filling of bank accounts.
The parallels between Nazi Germany and the current United States are just too striking to ignore. Yet most people seem bent on ignoring them. This too is a parallel between 1933 and 2003. Many people ask of history and of the German people, “How could a population of people have allowed such an evil as Hitler to arise, when they saw it happening, step by step”? The answer is being re-written by history in this present day, right before our eyes. Because millions of people didn’t WANT to believe what was happening in Nazi Germany they didn’t live to see 1945. They didn’t offer any significant resistance to the Nazi party as it rose to power, preferring instead to cower helplessly at each new imposition of civil liberty erosion, arbitrary arrests, and martial law. They believed that they were citizens of a great country, one that was based on democratic principles and which would balance itself politically and socially, by not allowing extremists and fascists to take it over. But they were wrong. Those that stayed were either killed in their homes, died in concentration camps or hid in attics and basements for the duration of the war. Others simply joined the Nazis and became the oppressors, so that they in turn might not be oppressed. Neighbor turned against neighbor, children against parents, man against wife, sword against reason. Then it was called “the Jewish Problem”. Now it’s called “the War on Terror”, a conflict that is literally scheduled to last decades.
Those that did escape before the era of the concentration camps were forced to leave everything behind, assuming they were lucky enough to obtain a passport. All their possessions, titles, lands, homes and personal histories were wiped out. This was the plight of the German Jews and millions of others throughout Europe, and it is one of those moments in time which has repeated itself over and over again throughout recorded history. Yet through all these travails and trials at the hands of oppressors, how much did the people learn regarding the wrong use of power? How much did they learn from the holding of materialistic and ideologically selfish values, the very ones which have brought about most wars throughout the world? How many people have actually changed their values as reflected in an honest appraisal of society and a real change of lifestyle? Almost no one. If the present norms of American living and the actions of modern Israel are any indication, people have learned almost nothing. In the short span of 50 years, people have already forgotten the lessons history has to teach, and they fall yet again for the very same ploys of fascists and government criminals, who give excuses for war and injustice.
Even in the time of the Roman empire, Caesar was quoted as saying,
“Beware the leader who bangs the drum of war,
In order to whip the citizenry into a patriotic fervor,
for patriotism is indeed a double edged sword.
It both emboldens the blood, just as it narrows the mind.
And when the drums of war have reached a fever pitch
And the blood boils with hate
And the mind has closed, the leader will have no need of seizing
the rights of the citizenry. Rather, the citizenry, infused with fear and blinded by patriotism,
will offer up all of their rights unto the leader, and gladly so.
How do I know? For this is what I have done.
And I am Caesar.”
What had the people learned from the Nazi era? Almost nothing other than to say a great tragedy was committed, yet without any bother to explain WHY it happened to start with. Even at the age of five I could see that my family, which had remained Jewish, had not changed their values or their lifestyle in any way. In fact they held onto it even more. Their main focus was, as ever, the making of money and the holding of social status in a materialistic society, which values possessions and bank accounts far more than people or life. My family was quite wealthy in pre-Nazi Germany, with house servants, a mansion-like house, artwork, silver, jewelry, fine furniture and china, fur coats and all the modern conveniences. Rather than learning some needed life lessons about how greedy and selfish values are the very foundations for fascism and war, my family went about seeking another fortune soon after they arrived in the United States. Spiritual values were never sincerely discussed, only traditional, shallow rituals and obligatory motions. Never did they ever speak of WHY the Nazis rose to power, or how they held it despite their obvious levels of corruption, fraud and abuse. Never did they speak of what THEY did to prevent Nazi-ism from gaining and keeping its power over a large portion of the world. In essence, they did nothing at all to prevent it, and yet went on and on about what a horrible tragedy the whole affair was. They spoke of how much they lost, but rarely spoke of the reasons why so many suffered, or how many died, or what social changes were needed to keep it from happening again. To me these attitudes were and are tantamount to being uncaring about preventing or solving anything, and only engaging in more selfishness, by emphasizing what victims the poor Jews were.
It is more than noteworthy to realize that in these modern times, those most prone to agreeing with and paying for unprovoked wars of aggression, such as with Iraq, are those “good” religious people in the Jewish and Christian traditions. Just like abused children who become abusive parents, the descendants of concentration camp inmates and Roman persecution have become the proponents of mass murder, so long as they think that might benefit them in some selfish way. If this were not so, then these religious communities would have long ago expressed their extreme discomfort and outrage at the moral and spiritual atrocity being contemplated in the Middle East. And just like the Jews and Christians, American “patriots” imagine that they are in many ways better than anyone else, that they are the “chosen” people to rule the world. Like the Nazis’, many Americans think that God is clearly on their side, and that whatever they want as the, “superior race” is what the world should immediately give, or face the consequences of war and mass death. Like early 1940’s Germany, America imagines that it can both make the rules by which the world should live, and simultaneously break them whenever it is convenient.
It’s a tried and true tactic of dictators everywhere, to pose false or even self-created threats to, “justify” the slaughtering of millions, to corrupt the due process of law, to excuse torture, the arbitrary cancellation of international treaties, the daily telling of the most bald-faced lies in the media and the imprisonment of anyone who might disagree. But people refuse to learn. In time they themselves become the aggressors and the fascists, through the holding of those very same corrupt and greedy values of, “my advantage before yours” mentality. Through their fear and their narrow minded selfishness they create yet again the repetition of the tragedies of history, in the name of patriotism and national self-protection.
In Nazi Germany fascism started with the public persecution of intellectuals, thinkers, artists and those of alternative politics, with the government doing everything in its “legal” power to sweep away all resistance to its own corruption and hypocrisy. Then there was the passing of legislation which increasingly made dissent of all kinds a grave offense against the, “best interests of the people” and in the name of, “patriotism”. In this way fascism was “legalized”. After this there was the ominous build-up of both military and domestic police forces to “enforce” the “law” and discourage anyone “radical” and “unpatriotic” enough to voice any significant opposition to government policy. At the end Nazi facism engaged in the widespread round-up, imprisonment and extermination of the Jews and anyone else who opposed them. What is the relevance of this to the modern day? These are exactly the trends we see set in motion through such legislature as the Patriot Act, the Department of Homeland Security, the gutting of the national treasury for the sake of private, corporate benefit, widespread government corruption, utter contempt for real democratic process, the rigging of elections, the huge enlargement of the prison system and population, the continuous erosion of civil liberties and the due process of law. Worst of all, we find that the American public has become too brainwashed by the media, (and particularly the television which the Nazis didn’t have) to understand what is really going on, or even really care.
To quote the proposed articles of “Patriot Act 2” the following provisions are likely to be pushed through congress;
From [link],1250,BDC_2489_1738465,00.html
Whereas the First Patriot Act only gutted the First, Third, Fourth and Fifth Amendments, and seriously damaged the Seventh and the Tenth, the Second Patriot Act reorganizes the entire Federal government as well as many areas of state government, under the dictatorial control of the Justice Department, the Office of Homeland Security and the FEMA NORTHCOM military command. The Domestic Security Enhancement Act 2003, also known as the Second Patriot Act is by its very structure the definition of dictatorship. I challenge all Americans to study the new Patriot Act and to compare it to the Constitution, Bill of Rights and Declaration of Independence. Ninety percent of the act has nothing to do with terrorism and is instead a giant Federal power-grab with tentacles reaching into every facet of our society. It strips American citizens of all of their rights and grants the government and its private agents total immunity. Here is a quick thumbnail sketch of just some of the draconian measures encapsulated within this tyrannical legislation:
SECTION 501 (Expatriation of Terrorists) expands the Bush administration's "enemy combatant" definition to all American citizens who "may" have violated any provision of
Section 802 of the first Patriot Act. (Section 802 is the new definition of domestic terrorism, and the definition is "any action that endangers human life that is a violation of any Federal or State law.") Section 501 of the second Patriot Act directly connects to
Section 125 of the same act. The Justice Department boldly claims that the incredibly broad Section 802 of the First USA Patriot Act isn't broad enough and that a new, unlimited definition of terrorism is needed.
Under Section 501 a US citizen engaging in lawful activities can be grabbed off the street and thrown into a van never to be seen again. The Justice Department states that they can do this because the person "had inferred from conduct" that they were not a US citizen. Remember Section 802 of the First USA Patriot Act states that any violation of Federal or State law can result in the "enemy combatant" terrorist designation.
SECTION 201 of the second Patriot Act makes it a criminal act for any member of the government or any citizen to release any information concerning the incarceration or whereabouts of detainees. It also states that law enforcement does not even have to tell the press who they have arrested and they never have to release the names.
SECTION 301 and 306 (Terrorist Identification Database) set up a national database of "suspected terrorists" and radically expand the database to include anyone associated with suspected terrorist groups and anyone involved in crimes or having supported any group designated as "terrorist." These sections also set up a national DNA database for anyone on probation or who has been on probation for any crime, and orders State governments to collect the DNA for the Federal government.
SECTION 312 gives immunity to law enforcement engaging in spying operations against the American people and would place substantial restrictions on court injunctions against Federal violations of civil rights across the board. SECTION 101 will designate individual terrorists as foreign powers and again strip them of all rights under the "enemy combatant" designation.
SECTION 102 states clearly that any information gathering, regardless of whether or not those activities are illegal, can be considered to be clandestine intelligence activities for a foreign power. This makes news gathering illegal.
SECTION 103 allows the Federal government to use wartime martial law powers domestically and internationally without Congress declaring that a state of war exists.
SECTION 106 is bone-chilling in its straightforwardness. It states that broad general warrants by the secret FSIA court (a panel of secret judges set up in a star chamber system that convenes in an undisclosed location) granted under the first Patriot Act are not good enough. It states that government agents must be given immunity for carrying out searches with no prior court approval. This section throws out the entire Fourth Amendment against unreasonable searches and seizures.
SECTION 109 allows secret star chamber courts to issue contempt charges against any individual or corporation who refuses to incriminate themselves or others. This sections annihilate the last vestiges of the Fifth Amendment.
SECTION 110 restates that key police state clauses in the first Patriot Act were not sunsetted and removes the five year sunset clause from other subsections of the first Patriot Act. After all, the media has told us: "this is the New America. Get used to it. This is forever."
SECTION 111 expands the definition of the "enemy combatant" designation. SECTION 122 restates the government's newly announced power of "surveillance without a court order."
SECTION 123 restates that the government no longer needs warrants and that the investigations can be a giant dragnet-style sweep described in press reports about the Total Information Awareness Network. One passage reads, "thus the focus of domestic surveillance may be less precise than that directed against more conventional types of crime." *Note: Over and over again, in subsection after subsection, the second Patriot Act states that its new Soviet-type powers will be used to fight international terrorism, domestic terrorism and other types of crimes. Of course the government has already announced in Section 802 of the first USA Patriot act that any crime is considered domestic terrorism.
SECTION 126 grants the government the right to mine the entire spectrum of public and private sector information from bank records to educational and medical records. This is the enacting law to allow ECHELON and the Total Information Awareness Network to break down any and all walls of privacy. The government states that they must look at everything to "determine" if individuals or groups might have a connection to terrorist groups. As you can now see, you are guilty until proven innocent.
SECTION 127 allows the government to takeover coroners' and medical examiners' operations whenever they see fit. See how this is like Bill Clinton's special medical examiner he had in Arkansas that ruled that people had committed suicide when their arms and legs had been cut off.
SECTION 128 allows the Federal government to place gag orders on Federal and State Grand Juries and to take over the proceedings. It also disallows individuals or organizations to even try to quash a Federal subpoena. So now defending yourself will be a terrorist action.
SECTION 129 destroys any remaining whistleblower protection for Federal agents.
SECTION 202 allows corporations to keep secret their activities with toxic biological, chemical or radiological materials.
SECTION 205 allows top Federal officials to keep all their financial dealings secret, and anyone investigating them can be considered a terrorist. This should be very useful for Dick Cheney to stop anyone investigating Haliburton.
SECTION 303 sets up national DNA database of suspected terrorists. The database will also be used to "stop other unlawful activities." It will share the information with state, local and foreign agencies for the same purposes.
SECTION 311 federalizes your local police department in the area of information sharing.
SECTION 313 provides liability protection for businesses, especially big businesses that spy on their customers for Homeland Security, violating their privacy agreements. It goes on to say that these are all preventative measures - has anyone seen Minority Report? This is the access hub for the Total Information Awareness Network.
SECTION 321 authorizes foreign governments to spy on the American people and to share information with foreign governments.
SECTION 322 removes Congress from the extradition process and allows officers of the Homeland Security complex to extradite American citizens anywhere they wish. It also allows Homeland Security to secretly take individuals out of foreign countries.
SECTION 402 is titled "Providing Material Support to Terrorism." The section reads that there is no requirement to show that the individual even had the intent to aid terrorists.
SECTION 403 expands the definition of weapons of mass destruction to include any activity that affects interstate or foreign commerce.
SECTION 404 makes it a crime for a terrorist or "other criminals" to use encryption in the commission of a crime.
SECTION 408 creates "lifetime parole" (basically, slavery) for a whole host of crimes.
SECTION 410 creates no statute of limitations for anyone that engages in terrorist actions or supports terrorists. Remember: any crime is now considered terrorism under the first Patriot Act.
SECTION 411 expands crimes that are punishable by death. Again, they point to Section 802 of the first Patriot Act and state that any terrorist act or support of terrorist act can result in the death penalty.
SECTION 421 increases penalties for terrorist financing. This section states that any type of financial activity connected to terrorism will result to time in prison and $10-50,000 fines per violation. S
ECTIONS 427 sets up asset forfeiture provisions for anyone engaging in terrorist activities. There are many other sections that I did not cover in the interest of time. The American people were shocked by the despotic nature of the first Patriot Act. The second
Patriot Act dwarfs all police state legislation in modern world history. ---
*********
On top of all this, the current national debt now runs at the astronomical figure of 6.4 Trillion dollars. See this excerpt from;
[link]
demonstrating the criminal and unaccountable nature of the current American regime. A total lack of accountability on the part of state and federal law makers as to the reasons WHY the budgets are so indebted and imbalanced, is considered common place. Not only do government officials offer no logical explanation why the richest economy in the world is so in debt, they rarely offer any explanation at all. Nor do a sheep-like American public demand one…
Government Hits $6.4 Trillion Debt Limit
Thu Feb 20,11:18 AM ET
By MARTIN CRUTSINGER, AP Economics Writer
WASHINGTON - Replaying a drama from last year, the government is once again bumping against the debt limit of $6.4 trillion and the Treasury Department (news - web sites) has begun taking evasive actions to prevent an unprecedented default on the national debt.
Treasury Secretary John Snow informed leaders of Congress on Wednesday that the government would reach the borrowing limit on Thursday and he would begin pulling investments out of a $48 billion government pension fund to make room for normal public borrowing auctions.
In a reference to the looming possibility of a war with Iraq, Snow urged Congress to act without delay to raise the borrowing limit.
**********
In a contemptuous and completely routine manner, President Bush effectually stated that the protests of the people mean nothing to him, and wont change his policies of aggression in the slightest. This is not democracy, it is dictatorship.
Bush Shrugs Off Global Antiwar Protests
By Steve Holland
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Bush (news - web sites) on Tuesday shrugged off global protests against a possible U.S.-led war with Iraq and the White House said a new U.N. Security Council resolution authorizing military force could be proposed this week.
In a huge wave of demonstrations not seen since the Vietnam War, more than 6 million peace protesters took to the streets in 600 towns and cities from Cape Town to Chicago on Saturday.
Bush told reporters that "democracy is a beautiful thing and people are allowed to express their opinion" but that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) is a risk to peace.
"Evidently some in the world don't view Saddam as a risk to peace. I respectfully disagree," Bush said.
********
Additionally, the current U.S. government works to;
1) continually erode all environmental protections and international treaties for the sake of corporate profits.
2) Provide arms and weapons of mass destruction to countries around the world, as the biggest supplier of these materials the world has ever known. [This includes Iraq in the 1980’s, which the U.S. supplied such materials to during the Iran-Iraq war.]
3) Encourage cut-throat economic practices that are designed to strangle the third world with debt, and create sweat shop labor for the sake of corporate profits. To undercut the economies of developed nations, rather than seeking to cooperate with them.
4) Threaten the international community with war or economic measures in the event that they seek to act in any way that is contrary to Washington’s demands, through the use of “pre-emptive” war, nuclear weapons and trade sanctions. Recent dealings with NATO and the UN prove this point beyond a doubt.
5) Bribe foreign officials with the tax money of American citizens, so as to achieve their political and imperial aims, such as in the case of the “foreign aid package” now being offered to Turkey, in exchange for its’ compliance as an Iraq battle-front.
6) Usurp and otherwise install puppet regimes throughout Central and South America, for the sake of exploiting those country’s natural resources.
7) Silencing dissenting voices through the cancellation of funding to universities and other public institutions, who express their discontent with foreign and domestic policy. This includes the making of death threats and firing of professors, and the disbanding of student groups who are vocal about opposing imperialism. It also includes a strong measure of increasing police brutality at peacefully organized protests.
8) Pass legislation which is transparently geared to give free handouts, such as enormous tax breaks and legal loopholes to big business, even in the midst of the biggest national budget crisis in history, while simultaneously forcing states to raise their taxes as a burden to the people.
9) Impose an increasingly police-state version of martial law, in the huge bloating of “law enforcement” beaurocracies, such as the DEA, Homeland Security, the FBI, the CIA and a whole host of minor agencies, all working to keep the public under their imperial thumb. The United States already has the largest per capita prison population in the world, and there is every indication that they intend to build even more prisons, and imprison even more people.
10) Maintain a nearly air-tight control of the major media, on television, radio, magazines and newspapers.
11) Spend by far the most money for the military than any country ever known, and whose total exceeds the military budgets of the next 12 largest countries in the world COMBINED. This expense is in excess of 500 billion dollars a year, and constantly growing.
12) Create laws designed to be followed only by the great mass of the working public, who are under that threshold of economic status known as, “the ultra rich” or “wealthy elite”. Such laws do not apply to the rich, nor do they apply to the United States government. This government has made it perfectly clear that it is bound by no laws at all, or only those which are deemed momentarily convenient, for the sake of domestic or international advantage.
13) Creating programs like “TIPS” which encourage people to spy on each other, to report any “suspicious behavior”. This where the guy who reads your electric meter can look into your window and report you for having politically incorrect books on your bookshelf, or where the person sitting next to you on an airplane doesn’t like the comment you just made about the government, or that you simply “look nervous”.
*********
It takes no great leap of logic or intuition to conclude that the American government has been taken over by big-money interests, who are little more than glorified mobsters. These ring leaders of organized crime create laws that seem to justify their criminal negligence, but which any logical analysis of their activities will reveal as quite illegal. The current “budget deficit” is a perfect example. Although the average person is required to show where and how they spend their money, and to balance their books in order for taxes to be paid, no such requirement is made of the government. In fact, the U.S. government couldn’t possibly show an honest account of its books, since it’s spending practices are thoroughly illegal and fraudulent. How else can one conclude, given that we are supposedly strongest economy and richest nation in the world, but at the same time have the biggest public debt ever known, to the tune of 6.4 Trillion dollars? Where has all this money been squandered? No one can clearly say, least of all the corrupt politicians running the show.
The fact is, the United States is already broke, and that it’s money has been siphoned off in leech-like fashion by private interests, such as the major corporations of the world. The treasury of America is basically insolvent, since it owes more than it can realistically repay for decades to come. No business could hope to operate in such an inefficient and fraudulent manner, but since the government is little more than a parasite infecting the labors of the people, it carries on, and with each year that passes more debts are added to the backs of the working class. When will the last straw break the camels’ back, both here at home, and abroad in foreign policy? Who knows. But what is certain is that this current state of affairs cannot possibly last much longer, and MUST simply collapse due to sheer corruption and wrong spending values.
The fact that America is already broke is not the main issue in the minds of the international community at present, which is why foreign nations still treat the dollar as a valid form of exchange. The dollar is essentially worthless. But what goes as a surrogate for worth is the fact that the world views America’s international influence as the standard for the world economy. Why is this so? It’s because the U.S. military still holds the primary power-position in world events. Given this, the world fears what the international bully might do to THEM next, and so, is intimidated into complying with the idea that the dollar is the standard currency by which all things monetary are judged. This is the true and underlying reason behind the U.S. military build-up and the “War on Terror” that has been carried to the world. It is also the secret reason why the Department of Homeland Security has been so amplified, so as to keep the probable revolts of the American citizenry in check, as more and more needed social services are removed. Government leaders behind the scenes know that the whole economic mess is on the verge of collapse, and only military intimidation of the world can keep it from faltering completely.
Like pre-Nazi Germany, American corporate interests are on the verge of collapse, while the economy is being held up by the thread of an illusory “recovery”. Only the toils of the vast majority of wage-slave employees, are keeping the current machine sufficiently oiled to get by one more year at a time. Corporate America knows this and has invented the War on Terror as an excuse to invade and occupy one country after the next, particularly those with special resources and strategic positioning. And just like the Nazis they plan to destroy one country after the next in the most cold blooded fashion, all in the name of “national security” and “freedom”.
If you enjoy the thought of contributing to World War III, then by all means remain silent like the Jews were, prior to 1940. Or better yet, continue to be deluded by the idea that changing the system through “getting out the vote” or writing letters to Congress people is going to do any good, when the voting machines are rigged and most Senators are on the corporate payroll…
“Beware the leader who bangs the drum of war”….. More >
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 8 May 2005 @ 18:48
Happy Mothers Day??
It is Mother's Day and my "gift" to you is the truth about this obligatory Hallmark-consumer Holiday. "Mothers Day" started out as a movement for peace, a cause with great merit, but our society has turned it into an obligatory, card sending, must take mom out to "dinner" day. This falls in line with the shallow way we treat important issues and topics.
So the next time you want to say "Happy Mothers Day", instead honor the soul that is here on this planet and do something that will better the world. Honor the truth, don't ignore and don't do things just because everyone else is doing it or it feeds egos...
Are you happy about being a Mother in this age of "pre-emptive" war?
Better yet, honor the truth by upholding the value of peace, human life and in fact, the quality of life itself, by joining together to oppose this senseless war in Iraq. Just like these mothers of the Civil War, rekindle that sense of reverence for life and truth....
Love and CLARITY,
SandiMom
****************************
Joy Rae Freeman wrote:
From: "Joy Rae Freeman"
To: "Joy Rae Freeman"
Subject: Mother's Day Proclamation for Peace + May
> 15th Protest
> www.countingthecost.org
> Date: Sun, 8 May 2005 09:23:20 -0700
>
> THE ORIGIN OF MOTHER'S DAY
>
>
> Mother's Day origins were not with breakfast in bed
> or a corsage or a
> greeting card; it began as a political cry for
> peace.
>
>
> In 1870, fearing America's involvement in another
> war, Julia Ward Howe, the
> mother of six, penned a document known as "The
> Mother's Day Proclamation for
> Peace," that would bring a country to recognize a
> mother's infinite love for
> her children, her husband, her home, her country and
> for peace. Mother's
> Day began as a protest against war.
>
>
> Howe had recently walked the battlefields of the
> Civil War with her husband
> and with Abraham Lincoln. She had just written "The
> Battle Hymn of the
> Republic." But now, as the Franco Prussian War was
> beginning, she felt that
> she could not bear any more violence. She called for
> a congress of women to
> gather immediately to promote "PEACE: A Mother's Day
> for Peace." Julia Ward
> Howe held a standing room only meeting in Boston the
> day that she read that
> proclamation.
>
>
> About that same time, there was Anna Jarvis, who
> organized "A Mother's
> Friendship Day" in which mothers from both North and
> South whose sons had
> died in the Civil War came, dressed in gray or blue,
> held hands together and
> sang. Anna Jarvis's daughter - who shared her name -
> organized what is now
> considered to be the first U.S. Mother's Day on May
> 10, 1908. President
> Woodrow Wilson... [redefined] its purpose in a
> non-political way when he set
> aside the second Sunday of May as Mother's Day.
>
>
> Written in 1870, but alarmingly relevant today,
> here's the complete text of
> her --
>
> Mother's Day Proclamation for Peace
> "Arise, then, women of this day!
>
> Arise all women who have hearts! Whether your
> baptism be that of water or of
> tears! Say firmly: We will not have questions
> decided by irrelevant
> agencies, Our husbands shall not come to us reeking
> with carnage, for
> caresses and applause. Our sons shall not be taken
> from us to unlearn all
> that we have been able to teach them of charity,
> mercy and patience.
> We women of one country will be too tender of those
> of another country to
> allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs.
>
>
>
> From the bosom of the devastated earth a voice goes
> up with our own. It
> says, 'Disarm, Disarm!'
>
>
> The sword of murder is not the balance of justice!
> Blood does not wipe out
> dishonor nor violence indicate possession.
>
> As men have often forsaken the plow and the anvil at
> the summons of war, let
> women now leave all that may be left of home for a
> great and earnest day of
> counsel.
> Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and
> commemorate the dead. Let them
> then solemnly take counsel with each other as to the
> means whereby the great
> human family can live in peace, each bearing after
> their own time the sacred
> impress, not of Caesar, but of God.
>
>
> In the name of womanhood and of humanity, I
> earnestly ask that a general
> congress of women without limit of nationality may
> be appointed and held at
> some place deemed most convenient and at the
> earliest period consistent with
> its objects, to promote the alliance of the
> different nationalities, the
> amicable settlement of international questions, the
> great and general
> interests of peace."
>
> Source: [link]
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On May 15, 2005, in protest of the rising death toll
> and the
>
> on-going military occupation of Iraq, people
> around the country will
>
> wear numbers symbolizing the 100,000+ civilians
> and soldiers who
>
> have died since the beginning of the war. We hope
> that you will
>
> join us in this action that is both a protest
> against the war and a
>
> memorial to those who have died in Iraq. We have
> reserved the
>
> numbers between 1 and 1,700 for those who lost
> family members in Iraq,
>
> and we will provide these numbers free of charge
> to family members.
>
>
>
> Please contact me as soon as possible if you would
> like to wear a
>
> specific number representing your loved one who died
> in this war.
>
> SIGN-UP NOW at annie@countingthecost.org so we can
> send you your number
>
> right away.
>
>
>
> Increasingly, many Americans believe that the war
> is over. They
>
> think that relatively few civilians and soldiers
> have died. They
>
> think that U.S. interests and Iraqi interests are
> best served by the
>
> continued occupation of Iraq.
>
>
>
> The reality is that a war of occupation continues
> in Iraq. We now
>
> know that over 100,000 Iraqi citizens have been
> killed since the
>
> beginning of the war.
>
> Over 1,500 U.S. soldiers have died. Countless
> others have been
>
> wounded and maimed. And, although the pictures
> are not shown on TV,
>
> large numbers of Iraqi citizens and U.S. soldiers
> continue to die.
>
>
>
> Let's tell the truth about the war and continuing
> occupation in
>
> Iraq.
>
>
>
> On May 15, wear a number representing one of the
> Iraqi citizens,
>
> U.S. soldiers, coalition soldiers, and other
> international civilians
>
> who have been killed in Iraq. Join one of the
> local actions being
>
> planned in Philadelphia, Boston, and other
> locations. See our
>
> website for a complete list of locations where
> actions are now
>
> planned:
>
> www.countingthecost.org
> Organize an
> event of your
>
> own, such as candlelight vigil at a local war
> memorial or a
>
> demonstration in your town square.
>
>
>
> Or, simply spend the day wearing your number and
> talking to your
>
> neighbors about it.
>
>
>
> Together we can show that the cost of this war is
> too high.
>
> Together we can convey to our communities that NOW
> is the time for a
>
> rapid withdrawal of U.S.
>
> troops, the establishment of a transitional force
> not dominated by
>
> U.S. interests, and a commitment on the part of
> the U.S. to provide
>
> financial assistance for rebuilding Iraq.
>
>
>
> Ask your friends to SIGN UP NOW! at
>
> www.countingthecost.org and we will send them
> their number to wear
>
> on May 15. We will provide without charge number
> placards to the
>
> family members of those who died in Iraq. For
> others who would like
>
> to ware a number on May 15, we will ask them to
> donate $10 to cover
>
> minimal administrative costs, and to make sure
> that everyone who
>
> wants to can participate, even if they can't pay.
> The remainder of
>
> these donations will help fund humanitarian aid in
> Iraq and
>
> continued anti-war work.
>
>
>
> At www.countingthecost.org you will also find
> detailed information
>
> about the death toll in Iraq, a list of local
> actions already being
>
> planned, and ideas to help you and your group plan
> an action of your
>
> own.
>
>
>
> Don't forget to send this email on to a friend who
> can join us.
>
>
>
> CountingTheCost.org
>
> c/o Women's International League for Peace and
> Freedom
>
> 1213 Race Street
>
> Philadelphia, PA 19107
>
> 215-563-7110
>
> annie@countingthecost.org
>
>
>
> CountingtheCost.org is a volunteer initiative
> begun in Philadelphia,
>
> with assistance from the Women's International
> League for Peace and
>
> Freedom.
>
>
>
> Current Sponsors: Women's International League for
> Peace and
>
> Freedom, Veterans For Peace, Gold Star Families
> for Peace, Iraq
>
> Veterans Against War, National Lawyers Guild,
> Global Exchange, The
>
> Shalom Center, Brandywine Peace Community,
> Catholic Peace Fellowship
>
> Philadelphia Chapter, Delaware County Wage Peace
> and Justice,
>
> Mishkan Shalom, Philadelphia Regional Antiwar
> Network, A Quaker
>
> Action Group II, House of Grace Catholic Workers. More >
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