Archive for the ‘imperialism’ Category

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

Ex-Gitmo detainee: memos show UK torture complicity

March 9, 2009

Jurist, March 8, 2009

Former Guantánamo Bay detainee Binyam Mohamed claimed in March 8 media reports that documents sent from MI5 to the CIA show that the British intelligence agency was involved with his alleged torture in Morocco. Mohamed claimed the documents reveal that MI5 fed the CIA questions that ended up in the hands of his Moroccan interrogators. A telegraph to the CIA dated Nov. 5, 2002, reportedly has the heading, “Request for further Detainee questioning.”

Mohamed, a native of Ethiopa who claims to have been transferred to Morocco for torture under a US program of extraordinary rendition, said he obtained the documents through the US legal process while seeking his release from Guantánamo Bay. Conservative MP David Davis called for investigations into British collusion in torture.

Last week, the UK government’s independent reviewer of terror laws called for a judicial inquiry into British complicity in US rendition and torture. British media reported last week that UN special rapporteur on torture Manfred Nowak told British ministers that MI5 may have been complicit in torture committed while detainees including Mohamed were in US custody. Mohamed was returned to the UK last week following seven years of detention, including five at Guantanamo Bay, where he was held on charges of conspiring to commit terrorism. Those charges were dismissed in October, but Mohamed remained in custody while US authorities considered filing new charges.

Tags:, , , , , ,
Posted in Human rights, imperialism, Muslims, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »

Pakistan militants shoot down drone: officials

March 8, 2009

Pakistan militants shoot down drone: officials
AFP/HO/File – A US Air Force drone carries a missile. Taliban militants have shot down a suspected drone aircraft in …

AFP,  March 7, 2009

MIRANSHAH, Pakistan (AFP) – Taliban militants on Saturday shot down a suspected drone aircraft in a Pakistani tribal area bordering Afghanistan, officials said.

Residents and a local police official said two drones were flying low over a village in the South Waziristan tribal district when one of them was hit by militant fire.

“We heard the firing by Taliban and then a drone fell down,” tribal police official Israr Khan told AFP.

Another security official said the drone crashed in a forest near a Pakistani border post.

“Apparently a drone has crashed in the nearby forest, we are searching for its wreckage,” a security official told AFP.

The US military — which has been suspected of carrying out attacks by unmanned aircraft in the region — denied it had lost a drone on Saturday.

Pakistan‘s chief military spokesman said the reports of a drone crash were being investigated.

“We have come to know that something has happened there, but we do not have any confirmation,” Major General Athar Abbas told AFP in Islamabad.

“We are further investigating and trying to find out.”

In Washington, Major Marie Boughen, a spokeswoman for US Central Command (Centcom), said: “As far as Centcom goes, all of our drones have been accounted for. So it’s not ours, if there is one that was shot down.”

Lieutenant Colonel Todd Vician, a Pentagon spokesman, said he had heard of no such reports, adding that “the Taliban make specious claims all the time.”

More than two dozen missile strikes have been carried out since August 2008, killing more than 200 people, most of them militants.

In January a US drone attack in South Waziristan killed the head of Al-Qaeda operations in Pakistan, Kenyan national Usama al-Kini, and his lieutenant, Sheikh Ahmed Salim Swedan.

Another US drone attack in November killed Rashid Rauf, the alleged Al-Qaeda mastermind of a 2006 transatlantic airplane bombing plot, as well as an Egyptian Al-Qaeda operative, security officials have said.

The strikes, which are not usually confirmed by the US military, have continued since US President Barack Obama took office on January 20. Since then, Pakistani territory has been struck at least four times by suspected US missile strikes.

One strike, on February 16, destroyed an Afghan Taliban camp and killed 26 in Pakistan’s northwest tribal area of Kurram.

In another, at least eight militants were killed on March 1, in a missile strike which destroyed a Taliban hide-out in South Waziristan.

While the Pakistani government has pledged support for the US fight against terrorist threats, the strikes have fuelled anti-American sentiments in Pakistan and particularly in the tribal belt, where Washington says Al-Qaeda and Taliban operate from sanctuaries.

Tags:, , , ,
Posted in imperialism, Pakistan, US policy | Leave a Comment »

Israel annexing East Jerusalem, says EU

March 7, 2009

• Government accused of damaging peace prospects

• Confidential report attacks ‘illegal’ house demolitions

House Demolitions in East Jerusalem

40-year-old Palestinian Mahmoud al-Abbasi stands amid the rubble of his home after it was demolished by the Jerusalem municipality in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwan. Photograph: Gali Tibbon

A confidential EU report accuses the Israeli government of using settlement expansion, house demolitions, discriminatory housing policies and the West Bank barrier as a way of “actively pursuing the illegal annexation” of East Jerusalem.

The document says Israel has accelerated its plans for East Jerusalem, and is undermining the Palestinian Authority’s credibility and weakening support for peace talks. “Israel’s actions in and around Jerusalem constitute one of the most acute challenges to Israeli-Palestinian peace-making,” says the document, EU Heads of Mission Report on East Jerusalem.

The report, obtained by the Guardian, is dated 15 December 2008. It acknowledges Israel’s legitimate security concerns in Jerusalem, but adds: “Many of its current illegal actions in and around the city have limited security justifications.”

“Israeli ‘facts on the ground’ – including new settlements, construction of the barrier, discriminatory housing policies, house demolitions, restrictive permit regime and continued closure of Palestinian institutions – increase Jewish Israeli presence in East Jerusalem, weaken the Palestinian community in the city, impede Palestinian urban development and separate East Jerusalem from the rest of the West Bank,” the report says.

The document has emerged at a time of mounting concern over Israeli policies in East Jerusalem. Two houses were demolished on Monday just before the arrival of the US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, and a further 88 are scheduled for demolition, all for lack of permits. Clinton described the demolitions as “unhelpful”, noting that they violated Israel’s obligations under the US “road map” for peace.

The EU report goes further, saying that the demolitions are “illegal under international law, serve no obvious purpose, have severe humanitarian effects, and fuel bitterness and extremism.” The EU raised its concern in a formal diplomatic representation on December 1, it says.

It notes that although Palestinians in the east represent 34% of the city’s residents, only 5%-10% of the municipal budget is spent in their areas, leaving them with poor services and infrastructure.

Israel issues fewer than 200 permits a year for Palestinian homes and leaves only 12% of East Jerusalem available for Palestinian residential use. As a result many homes are built without Israeli permits. About 400 houses have been demolished since 2004 and a further 1,000 demolition orders have yet to be carried out, it said.

City officials dismissed criticisms of its housing policy as “a disinformation campaign”. “Mayor Nir Barkat continues to promote investments in infrastructure, construction and education in East Jerusalem, while at the same time upholding the law throughout West and East Jerusalem equally without bias,” the mayor’s office said after Clinton’s visit.

However, the EU says the fourth Geneva convention prevents an occupying power extending its jurisdiction to occupied territory. Israel occupied the east of the city in the 1967 six day war and later annexed it. The Palestinians claim East Jerusalem as the capital of their future state.

The EU says settlement are being built in the east of the city at a “rapid pace”. Since the Annapolis peace talks began in late 2007, nearly 5,500 new settlement housing units have been submitted for public review, with 3,000 so far approved, the report says. There are now about 470,000 settlers in the occupied territories, including 190,000 in East Jerusalem.

The EU is particularly concerned about settlements inside the Old City, where there were plans to build a Jewish settlement of 35 housing units in the Muslim quarter, as well as expansion plans for Silwan, just outside the Old City walls.

The goal, it says, is to “create territorial contiguity” between East Jerusalem settlements and the Old City and to “sever” East Jerusalem and its settlement blocks from the West Bank.

There are plans for 3,500 housing units, an industrial park, two police stations and other infrastructure in a controversial area known as E1, between East Jerusalem and the West Bank settlement of Ma’ale Adumim, home to 31,000 settlers. Israeli measures in E1 were “one of the most significant challenges to the Israeli-Palestinian peace process”, the report says.

Mark Regev, spokesman for the Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert, said conditions for Palestinians living in East Jerusalem were better than in the West Bank. “East Jerusalem residents are under Israeli law and they were offered full Israeli citizenship after that law was passed in 1967,” he said. “We are committed to the continued development of the city for the benefit of all its population.”

Tags:, , , , , ,
Posted in imperialism, Palestine, Zionist Israel | Leave a Comment »

Hell Hath No Fury Like an Imperialist Scorned

March 7, 2009

By William Blum | Information Clearing House, March 5, 2009

Hugo Chávez’s greatest sin is that he has shown disrespect for the American Empire. Or as they would say in America’s inner cities — He’s dissed the Man. Such behavior of course cannot go unpunished lest it give other national leaders the wrong idea. Over the years, the United States has gotten along just fine with brutal dictators, mass murderers, torturers, and leaders who did nothing to relieve the poverty of their population — Augusto Pinochet, Pol Pot, the Greek Junta, Ferdinand Marcos, Suharto, Duvalier, Mobutu, the Brazil Junta, Somoza, Saddam Hussein, South African apartheid leaders, Portuguese fascists, etc., etc., terrible guys all, all seriously supported by Washington at one time or another; for none made it a regular habit, if ever, to diss the Man.

The latest evidence, we are told, that Hugo Chávez is a dictator and a threat to life as we know it is that he pushed for and got a constitutional amendment to remove term limits from the presidency. The American media and the opposition in Venezuela often make it sound as if Chávez is going to be guaranteed office for life, whereas he of course will have to be elected each time. Neither are we reminded that it’s not unusual for a nation to not have a term limit for its highest office. France, Germany, and the United Kingdom, if not all of Europe and much of the rest of the world, do not have such a limit. The United States did not have a term limit on the office of the president during the nation’s first 162 years, until the ratification of the 22nd Amendment in 1951. Were all American presidents prior to that time dictators?

In 2005, when Colombian President Alvaro Uribe succeeded in getting term limits lifted, the US mainstream media took scant notice. President Bush subsequently honored Uribe with the American Presidential Medal of Freedom. But in the period leading up to the February 15 referendum in Venezuela, the American media were competing with each other over who could paint Chávez and the Venezuelan constitutional process in the most critical and ominous terms. Typical was an op-ed in the Washington Post the day before the vote, which was headlined: “Closing in on Hugo Chávez”. Its opening sentence read: “The beginning of the end is setting in for Hugo Chávez.”12

For several years now, the campaign to malign Chávez has at times included issues of Israel and anti-Semitism. An isolated vandalism of a Caracas synagogue on January 30th of this year fed into this campaign. Synagogues are of course vandalized occasionally in the United States and many European countries, but no one ascribes this to a government policy driven by anti-semitism. With Chávez they do. In the American media, the lead up to the Venezuelan vote was never far removed from the alleged “Jewish” issue.

“Despite the government’s efforts to put the [synagogue] controversy to rest,” the New York Times wrote a few days before the referendum vote, “a sense of dread still lingers among Venezuela’s 12,000 to 14,000 Jews.”13

A day earlier, a Washington Post editorial was entitled: “Mr. Chávez vs. the Jews – With George W. Bush gone, Venezuela’s strongman has found new enemies.”14 Shortly before, a Post headline had informed us: “Jews in S. America Increasingly Uneasy – Government and Media Seen Fostering Anti-Semitism in Venezuela, Elsewhere”15

So commonplace has the Chávez-Jewish association become that a leading US progressive organization, Council on Hemispheric Affairs (COHA) in Washington, DC, recently distributed an article that reads more like the handiwork of a conservative group than a progressive one. I was prompted to write to them as follows:

Dear People,

I’m very sorry to say that I found your Venezuelan commentary by Larry Birns and David Rosenblum Felson to be remarkably lacking. The authors seem unable, or unwilling, to distinguish between being against Israeli policies from anti-semitism. It’s kind of late in the day for them to not have comprehended the difference. They are forced to fall back on a State Department statement to make their case. Is that not enough said?

They condemn Chávez likening Israel’s occupation of Gaza to the Holocaust. But what if it’s an apt comparison? They don’t delve into this question at all.

They also condemn the use of the word “Zionism”, saying that “in 9 times out of 10 involving the use of this word in fact smacks of anti-Semitism.” Really? Can they give a precise explanation of how one distinguishes between an anti-Semitic use of the word and a non-anti-semitic use of it? That would be interesting.

The authors write that Venezuela’s “anti-Israeli initiative … revealingly transcends the intensity of almost every Arabic nation or normal adversary of Israel.” Really. Since when are the totally gutless, dictator Arab nations the standard bearer for progressives? The ideal we should emulate. Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan are almost never seriously and harshly critical of Israeli policies toward the Palestinians. Therefore, Venezuela shouldn’t be?

The authors state: “In a Christmas Eve address to the nation, Chávez charged that, ‘Some minorities, descendants of the same ones who crucified Christ … took all the world’s wealth for themselves’. Here, Chávez was not talking so much about Robin Hood, but rather unquestionably dipping into the lore of anti-Semitism.” Well, here’s the full quote: “The world has enough for all, but it turns out that some minorities, descendants of the same ones who crucified Christ, descendants of the same ones who threw Bolivar out of here and also crucified him in their own way at Santa Marta there in Colombia …” Hmm, were the Jews so active in South America?

The ellipsis after the word “Christ” indicates that the authors consciously and purposely omitted the words that would have given the lie to their premise. Truly astonishing.

After Chávez won the term-limits referendum with about 55% of the vote, a State Department spokesperson stated: “For the most part this was a process that was fully consistent with democratic process.” Various individuals and websites on the left have responded to this as an encouraging sign that the Obama administration is embarking on a new Venezuelan policy. At the risk of sounding like a knee-reflex cynic, I think this attitude is at best premature, at worst rather naive. It’s easy for a State Department a level-or-so above the Bushies, i.e., semi-civilized, to make such a statement. A little more difficult would be accepting as normal and unthreatening Venezuela having good relations with countries like Cuba, Iran and Russia and not blocking Venezuela from the UN Security Council. Even more significant would be the United States ending its funding of groups in Venezuela determined to subvert and/or overthrow Chávez.

You’ve got to be carefully taught

I’ve been playing around with a new book for awhile. I don’t know if I’ll find the time to actually complete it, but if I do it’ll be called something like “Myths of U.S. foreign policy: How Americans keep getting fooled into support”. The leading myth of all, the one which entraps more Americans than any other, is the belief that the United States, in its foreign policy, means well. American leaders may make mistakes, they may blunder, they may lie, they may even on the odd occasion cause more harm than good, but they do mean well. Their intentions are honorable, if not divinely inspired. Of that most Americans are certain. And as long as a person clings to that belief, it’s rather unlikely that s/he will become seriously doubtful and critical of the official stories.

It takes a lot of repetition while an American is growing up to inculcate this message into their young consciousness, and lots more repetition later on. Think of some of the lines from the song about racism from the Broadway classic show, “South Pacific” — “You’ve got to be taught” …

You’ve got to be taught
from year to year.
It’s got to be drummed
in your dear little ear.
You’ve got to be taught
before it’s too late.
Before you are 6 or 7 or 8.
To hate all the people
your relatives hate.
You’ve got to be carefully taught.

The education of an American true-believer is ongoing, continuous. All forms of media, all the time. Here is Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the highest military officer in the United States, writing in the Washington Post recently:

“We in the U.S. military are likewise held to a high standard. Like the early Romans, we are expected to do the right thing, and when we don’t, to make it right again. We have learned, after seven years of war, that trust is the coin of the realm — that building it takes time, losing it takes mere seconds, and maintaining it may be our most important and most difficult objective. That’s why images of prisoner maltreatment at Abu Ghraib still serve as recruiting tools for al-Qaeda. And it’s why each civilian casualty for which we are even remotely responsible sets back our efforts to gain the confidence of the Afghan people months, if not years. It doesn’t matter how hard we try to avoid hurting the innocent, and we do try very hard. It doesn’t matter how proportional the force we deploy, how precisely we strike. It doesn’t even matter if the enemy hides behind civilians. What matters are the death and destruction that result and the expectation that we could have avoided it. In the end, all that matters is that, despite our best efforts, sometimes we take the very lives we are trying to protect. … Lose the people’s trust, and we lose the war. … I see this sort of trust being fostered by our troops all over the world. They are building schools, roads, wells, hospitals and power stations. They work every day to build the sort of infrastructure that enables local governments to stand on their own. But mostly, even when they are going after the enemy, they are building friendships. They are building trust. And they are doing it in superb fashion.”16

How many young servicemembers have heard such a talk from Mullen or other officers? How many of them have not been impressed, even choked up? How many Americans reading or hearing such stirring words have not had a lifetime of reinforcement reinforced once again? How many could even imagine that Admiral Mullen is spouting a bunch of crap? The great majority of Americans will swallow it. When Mullen declares: “What matters are the death and destruction that result and the expectation that we could have avoided it”, he’s implying that there was no way to avoid it. But of course it could have been easily avoided by not dropping bombs on the Afghan people.

You tell the true-believers that the truth is virtually the exact opposite of what Mullen has said and they look at you like you just got off the Number 36 bus from Mars. Bill Clinton bombed Yugoslavia for 78 days and nights in a row. His military and political policies destroyed one of the most progressive countries in Europe. And he called it “humanitarian intervention”. It’s still regarded by almost all Americans, including many, if not most, “progressives”, as just that.

Now why is that? Are all these people just ignorant? I think a better answer is that they have certain preconceptions; consciously or unconsciously, they have certain basic beliefs about the United States and its foreign policy, most prominent amongst which is the belief that the US means well. And if you don’t deal with this basic belief you’ll be talking to a stone wall.

Notes

· Washington Post, February 14, 2009, column by Edward Schumacher-Matos

· New York Times, February 13, 2009

· Washington Post, February 12, 2009

· Washington Post, February 8, 2009

· Washington Post, February 15, 2009, p. B7

William Blum is the author of:

  • Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions Since World War 2
  • Rogue State: A Guide to the World’s Only Superpower
  • West-Bloc Dissident: A Cold War Memoir
  • Freeing the World to Death: Essays on the American Empire

Portions of the books can be read, and signed copies purchased, at www.killinghope.org

Tags:, , , , ,
Posted in Commentary, imperialism, Uncategorized, USA | Leave a Comment »

The Israel Lobby’s Power Comes from The American Ruling Class

March 4, 2009
by John Spritzler | newdemocracyworld.org, March 4, 2009

Among those who, like myself, oppose Israel’s ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, there is an important debate about a fundamental question. The debate is about how to explain the fact that the American government supports Israel virtually unconditionally with more economic, military and diplomatic aid than it gives to any other country.

One commonly believed explanation is that the “Israel Lobby”–consisting of organizations like AIPAC and a host of other pro-Israel Jewish organizations in the United States–has hijacked U.S. foreign policy by using its wealth and control of the mass media to buy or intimidate Congressmen. According to this view, the American government’s pro-Israel foreign policy is harmful to the interests of the non-Jewish American corporate upper class, and were it not for the power of the Israel Lobby American foreign policy, reflecting as it does the interests of the American upper class, would not be as pro-Israel as it is today.

I call this the “The Lobby Makes Them Do It” view. I think it is just plain factually wrong. The alternative view that I hold is that the Israel Lobby’s power comes from the (mostly non-Jewish) American ruling class.

The leading advocate of the “The Lobby Makes Them Do It” view is James Petras. Petras asserts that the Israel Lobby prevailed over America’s Big Oil elite to get the U.S. to invade Iraq for the benefit of Israel:

“The principal governmental architects of the war, the intellectual promoters of the war, their publicly enunciated published strategies for the war were all deeply attached to the Israel lobby and worked for the Israeli state. Wolfowitz, number 2 in the Pentagon, Douglas Feith, number 3 in the Pentagon, Richard Perle, head of the Defense Board, Elliot Abrams in charge of Middle East affairs for the National Security Council, and dozens of other key operatives in the government and ideologues in the mass media were life-long fanatical activists in favor of Israel, some of whom had lost security clearances in previous administrations for handing over documents to the Israeli government…

“In fact the US-Middle East wars prejudice the oil interests in several strategic senses. The wars generate generalized hostility to oil companies with long-term relations with Arab countries. The wars result in undermining new contracts opening in Arab countries for US oil investments. US oil companies have been much friendlier to peacefully resolving conflicts than Israel and especially its Lobbyists as any reading of the specialized oil industry journals and spokespeople emphasize. “

Just on the facts, Petras is wrong. Far from opposing the Israel Lobby, Big Oil uses that lobby. As Juan Cole writes:

“Neoconservative Jews in the US like Richard Perle, Frederick Kagan and Michael Rubin at the American Enterprise Institute who vocally support the Iraq War (and have gotten rich off it) are a minority of a minority, and even are at odds with the Israeli security establishment! Moreover, the American Enterprise Institute, which crafted the Iraq War, gets funding from Exxon Mobil, and last I checked it was run by white Protestants. The vice chair of AEI is Lee Raymond, former CEO of Exxon Mobil and surely Dick Cheney’s old golf partner in the Dallas years. That is, the Kagans and the Rubins, who identify with the Revisionist Zionist movement on the Israeli Right, are useful idiots for Big Oil, not movers and shakers in their own right.”

The American corporate upper class, the American ruling class, is pro-Israel because they (or at least their sophisticated advisors, like Henry Kissinger, Condoleeza Rice, General James Jones, etc.) know that Israeli ethnic cleansing of Palestinians performs a strategically crucial service for the American ruling class. The ethnic cleansing polarizes the Middle East along non-class lines, fomenting an ethnic war pitting Jews against non-Jews. The American ruling class uses this ethnic war to strengthen its domestic control over ordinary Americans, and to strengthen the control of Middle Eastern ruling elites (kings, mullahs, dictators) over ordinary people in their respective nations. These are the most important strategic objectives of the American ruling class: social control to prevent the spread of pro-democratic, pro-working class, pro-solidarity movements from overthrowing elite rule anywhere in the world.

Regarding domestic control of the American population, the key strategy of elite social control has for many decades been to rely on Orwellian wars of social control. The particular “foreign enemy” has changed over time, from Teddy Roosevelt’s Spain to Woodrow Wilson’s “Huns” to FDR’s Fascists to Truman’s Communists to Bush’s and Obama’s Terrorists. By ensuring that the American mass media refrain from telling Americans the true reason (Israel’s ethnic cleansing) why Palestinians and Arabs and Muslims take up arms against Israel, the American ruling class ensures that Americans will believe the lie that Palestinians/Arabs/Muslims are hateful, irrational, anti-semitic terrorists who kill decent Israelis “just like us” and would likewise kill Americans if we fail to obey our upper class rulers who protect us from terrorism.

Similarly, the oil-rich Middle East ruling classes, in countries like Saudi Arabia and Iran, use their people’s anger at Israel to strengthen their power over them, as I discuss in some detail in
How Israel Helps Saudi Arabia’s Rulers Control their Working Class and How Israel Helps the Islamic Republic of Iran Control the Iranian Working Class. James Petras is naive to think that Big Oil’s interests are prejudiced by the pro-Israel U.S. foreign policy. If the Saudi royal family, for example, were really opposed to U.S. support for Israel, then it would use its vast wealth to support pro-Palestinian forces inside the United States, to counter the Israel Lobby; but it doesn’t.

By the same token, if any members of the American mostly non-Jewish ruling class, with billions of dollars to throw around (Buffet gave away $40 billion alone!), wanted to tell Americans the truth about Zionism (the movement to create and protect a Jewish state), they could do so. They could tell Americans how Zionism is all about ethnic cleansing, how Albert Einstein (whom the Israeli government asked to be the President of Israel, and declined) always opposed the Jewish state idea because it was morally wrong, and how the Zionists betrayed European Jews during World War II by opposing rescue efforts (so there would be more dead Jews to give them greater standing at the post-war negotiations over who would “get” Palestine)–they could do so; but they don’t. If they did, they could turn the American public against Zionism and against the Israel Lobby as quickly as they turn it against a politician soliciting sex in a toilet stall.

So why don’t they do it? It is not because Zionists control the mass media. Sure, pro-Zionists do control the mass media, but billionaires could create their own anti-Zionist media if they wanted to. After all, Rupert Murdoch owns a large enough media network to do the job and at the time of his divorce in 1998 his personal fortune was only 3.3 billion pounds (less than $5 billion I imagine.) The American ruling class chooses not to oppose the Israel Lobby because they have no reason to. The Israel Lobby is an instrument (“useful idiots” as Juan Cole puts it) of the American ruling class. The Lobby spreads the lies that the pro-Israel foreign policy requires, and it keeps politicians in line who might otherwise stray from the path. The Lobby is powerful because it does the bidding of the powerful.

Very different organizing strategies against Zionism are appropriate, depending on whether one agrees with “The Lobby Makes Them Do It” view of James Petras or the view I advocate. If Petras is correct, then the natural strategy to turn U.S. foreign policy around would be to side with the likes of Big Oil against the Israel Lobby. But since Big Oil and the Israel Lobby are in fact on the same team, this is a ridiculous strategy. Instead, the strategy that makes sense is to mobilize the general public against the American ruling class around not only opposition to Israeli ethnic cleansing but also opposition to the entire anti-democratic, anti-equality agenda of the ruling class. This is a revolutionary pro-working class strategy, and only it can win.

Other articles about Palestine/Israel by John Spritzler

John Spritzler is the author of The People As Enemy: The Leaders’ Hidden Agenda In World War II, and a Research Scientist at the Harvard School of Public Health.

Tags:, , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Commentary, imperialism, Palestine, USA, Zionist Israel | Leave a Comment »

The Charade of Not Talking to Hamas

March 3, 2009

by Robert Dreyfuss | The Nation, March 2, 2009

Looming over Hillary Clinton’s foray into the Middle East are two extremist movements that aren’t likely to be persuaded to support Clinton’s vision of a two-state solution. The first is Hamas, which runs Gaza, and the second is the Netanyahu-Lieberman bloc in Israel, which is preparing to take over the Israeli government.

In Egypt yesterday, Clinton reaffirmed America’s pledge to give $900 million in aid to the West Bank and Gaza. One-third of that will go to Gaza, and she made it clear that all of the aid will be funneled through the Palestinian Authority, not Hamas, so it won’t end up in the “wrong hands”:

We will work with our Palestinian partners, President Abbas and Prime Minister Fayyad, to address critical humanitarian, budgetary, security, and infrastructure needs. We have worked with the Palestinian Authority to install safeguards that will ensure that our funding is only used where, and for whom, it is intended, and does not end up in the wrong hands.

She added that the United States will “vigorously pursue a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”

In all, the conference of aid donors for Gaza is planning to assemble a $3 billion package for Gaza, the equivalent of $2,000 for each of the 1.5 million Gaza residents. Since most of the cash will be funneled through the PA, it’s clear the Abbas and Fayyad will gain patronage points. But Israel still maintains its blockade of Gaza, preventing key items — such as building materials, like cement — from reaching rebuilding projects.

Egypt is mediating between Israel and Hamas in search of a workable arrangement, but a deal will be hostage to the Netanyahu regime, which has pledged to destroy Hamas.

Egypt is also taking the lead in trying to reconcile Hamas, Fatah, and other elements of the Palestinian national movement. Were they to succeed, it would confront the Obama administration with a quandary: will Obama send hundreds of millions of dollars to the Palestinians if, indeed, those with the “wrong hands” are part of the equation? The Palestinian dialogue will start in earnest in Cairo on March 10, involving Hamas, Fatah, and several smaller factions, including left-leaning ones and Islamic Jihad. They’ve created five committees aimed at “forming a national unity government, reforming the Palestine Liberation Organization, rebuilding the security apparatus, preparing for presidential and legislative elections, and the committee of reconciliation.”

Theoretically, it ought to be easy to finesse the problem, diplomatically, for the United States. So far, Washington has said it won’t talk to Hamas unless the group halts violence and accepts Israel’s right to exist. If Hamas does indeed reunite with Fatah in the PA, the United States can use that as an excuse to halt aid, or it can pretend to look the other way and continue the aid on the theory that the PA itself is engaged in two-state talks with Israel.

In fact, Israel is already talking to Hamas, through Egypt’s mediation efforts, and if the Hamas-Fatah talks succeed — with Egypt’s help — Hamas will be at the table there, too. Not talking to Hamas is quickly becoming a charade.

© 2009 The Nation

Robert Dreyfuss, a Nation contributing editor, is an investigative journalist in Alexandria, Virginia, specializing in politics and national security. He is the author of Devil’s Game: How the United States Helped Unleash Fundamentalist Islam and is a frequent contributor to Rolling Stone, The American Prospect, and Mother Jones.

Tags:, , , , , ,
Posted in imperialism, Palestine, Uncategorized, US policy, Zionist Israel | Leave a Comment »

Religion and money, the way to complete power – or not?

March 2, 2009

By Siv O’Neall | Axis of Logic, Feb 28, 2009, 12:10

Religion and money have always been the sacred pillars of American civilization, ever since the time when it was a British colony, ever since the Puritans in New England branded the philosophy of the new country as a god-fearing and materialistic new world. Thus it was and thus it still is. Today’s merciless invasions and bombings of various foreign countries is simply a continuation of the century-old U.S. expansionist strategy that has from the very beginning been the trade mark of the self-righteous and the most powerful country in the New World.

Expansionism is part of their religion

Long before Hollywood, television and Disney World surfaced on the horizon of the entertainment-hungry masses, the worship of money and the mostly innocent belief that the one and only God created the world in seven days were the solid corner stones of their society. From there came the convenient belief that the colonists and later the Unites States government had the moral right to decimate the native Americans, to wipe out their culture and to take over their healthy lands in exchange for barren desert land where their souls were stifled, even in those whose bodies survived.

The endless ‘Westering’ was later followed by cruel wars of conquest and the moral rights of the governments seemed never to be questioned by the people. After the Louisiana Purchase from France in 1803, which added vast new territories west of the Mississippi in what is now the enormous center of the country, the appetite for new lands was only whetted for further forays in the surrounding areas. The remaining areas of what is today the United States of America were added in various wars during the course of the 19th century, mainly the Mexican-American war and later the Spanish-American war. The U.S. governments grabbed huge new territories from Mexico and from the Spanish conquistadores to add to their own country as if it were their god-given right to kill and rob and plunder.

Greed, religion and patriotism

Human beings have always looked for approval from their fellowmen. We all need to feel that we belong somewhere, to some group or community. Religion and wealth both serve the purpose of making us feel accepted and, at the same time, making us escape from the barrenness and the drudgery of our everyday existence. There is hardly any escape more powerful than religion, but in the United States it is also a way of gaining a high standing in our communities

On the other hand, crass profiteering serves both as a goal in itself and as a way of getting accepted in society. It’s the sure path to power. There is hardly any country in the world where greed and religion have combined in such perfect harmony as in the United States of America.

‘Greed is good’ has become the national anthem. God rewards those who work hard and thus it is a mark of honor to be among the wealthy few who are chosen to govern the communities and the nation. It is the old Puritan way of seeing wealth as the proof that God is with you. The arms manufacturers and the corporate chieftains are the Elect who will be saved on the day of the Rapture and we, the poor sinners, are doomed to a life in hell.

If it had not been for the worship of money which underlies all other values in the United States of America, it would have been impossible for Wall Street to act with such total impunity in their shameless scheme to con the U.S. citizens out of their savings and modest wealth.

Add to this poisonous brew of intolerant, fundamentalist religion and the puritan worship of money, the unrestricted faith in the country’s superiority over all other countries, that is their unquestioning patriotism, their second religion, the die-hard belief that their country can do no wrong, and you get to where the country is today.

Deregulation and the silencing of the opposition

The superficiality of the U.S. citizens in accepting a man like George W. Bush as the President of the country seems perfectly unbelievable to most people outside the U.S. We know now how this was brought about, however, and it was not achieved from the superficial image of Bush as a man you’d like to have a beer with, the man with the friendly smirk, the popular appeal. No, it was much more carefully planned. And the sine qua non was to get a harmless president ‘elected’, that is get him parachuted into the White House so speedily that people wouldn’t have time to react.  We know how the neo-conservatives were all maneuvering to grab total power ever since the 1980s. The two essential preconditions for getting their scheme to succeed were the complete submission of the media and the buying up of the Congress via the lobbies. They succeeded in both enterprises beyond belief.

The deregulation movement got started under Ronald Reagan who instigated laws in favor of Big Business, which made it possible for this psychopathic set of neocons to scheme their way to power. This continuous trend in economic policies towards the Milton Friedmanesque [1] free market as the gospel for ‘progress’ killed off all the humanitarian laws that had been instituted by Franklin Delano Roosevelt with the New Deal after the Great Depression; now we are regressing towards tax cuts for the wealthy, deregulation of the savings and loan industry. Opening the floodgates for increased media consolidation and the war on Labor were also some of the major features pointing towards the radical take-over of the wealthy elite during the Reagan presidency. These deregulating trends were followed up faithfully by the succeeding administrations. This very much includes Bill Clinton who signed the horrendous NAFTA agreement declaring that “NAFTA means jobs, American jobs, and good-paying American jobs.” (It is also pure nonsense that Reagan should be in any way credited with bringing down the Soviet Union and ending the Cold War, but that is the subject for another essay.)

The neocon gospel

This more or less underground neocon set of power-hungry lunatics was determined to achieve complete domination over all aspects of the United States, have total command over the three branches of government and, finally, most likely install a police state where elections and a government would not be needed any more. Democracy had become an empty word and unfettered capitalism was going to rule the world. The multinationals with their financial center in the United States were going to have complete economic control over the world and they managed very well with the major Asian economies during the Asian financial crisis, beginning in 1997. This severe crisis that threatened to bring about a global systemic financial meltdown was enhanced or, as some claim, even brought about by the “fast-track capitalism” methods of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. [2]

And what about the working people and the middle class who were going to see their comfortable living conditions disappear? Don’t worry, said the neocons. They won’t know what happened until it’s too late. All the money goes to the clique that runs the corporations and the little people will be left with their religion. Drive up the hysteria and the coming of Armageddon to the boiling point and the fundamentalists will be so convinced that they are the ones who will be saved on the Day of Judgment they won’t even worry about their money and their good lives trickling away. They are the ones who will go to Heaven, they and the good men and women in the government who believe, the way they themselves do, that God is with them, the people who pray for the country, for victory in the morally right wars and for all those who are convinced that the United States will always be the unrivaled leader of the world.

An important part of the neocon gospel consisted of depriving the poor of valid education and cutting down on entitlements that could serve to create more livable conditions for the poor and the middle class. Starving the beast was their motto. By the use of relentless propaganda and making sure they are kept in profound ignorance of the greed and corruption that are the true leaders of the country, the poor people who are the principal victims of this ‘disaster capitalism’ [3] are still the blind believers in this absurd system of government. There is no way you can make them believe that democracy is dead and that nobody in Washington cares a whit for their being totally left behind. [4]

What about the rest of the world? The neocons say ‘We’ll buy them up’. We’ll get so much influence over the Middle East, India, China, Russia that nobody will have enough power to fight us. We’ll hit them so fast they won’t even have the time to put their pants on. The nukes the other countries have are firecrackers next to ours. If one country gets unruly, we’ll take out its nukes in one big blow. Their arsenals are antiquated or they have just one or two tiny bombs for show. Africa and Latin America are powerless and if they ever go against the system we have set up, we will show them who has the muscles. Muscles, spelled B-O-M-B-S.

Has anything changed?

Now, fortunately, this infantile attitude to anything the government does as being unquestionably right, has of late been watered down. The missteps and the disasters have become so numerous and so glaring that even an intellectually challenged and half-blind American might begin to see through the lies and the fear-and-theft tactics of their criminal leaders. The country has gradually been brought to the edge of disaster over the past eight years of misrule, and the financial global meltdown which is now progressing might well change the world so drastically that we can’t even guess at what is lying ahead.

However, the neocons have not given up on their free-for-all-to-see fight for global power. They are all set on destroying Barack Obama and the Democratic party and finally getting the complete power they were so close to achieving under the misrule of Bush/Cheney, the project they had insanely been working on for almost thirty years. [5] It might seem as if the Republicans wouldn’t really have to destroy the Democrats, since they are all so indebted to Big Money that they could easily melt into one party, but the neocons want more than that. They are aiming at dictatorial power without any form of intrusion from the few humanitarian-minded Democrats who are still left in the House and the Senate.

One thing is certain. The raving lunatics will be back. Nothing can stand in their way, not even self-destruction.

Notes:

[1] See Siv O’Neall: ‘The Big Con Game’, among multiple other sources on Milton Friedman, the father of the Chicago School of economics and the Free Market power-for-the-rich ideology. http://axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/article_29465.shtml

[2] Source: ‘IMF’s Role in the Asian Financial Crisis’ by Walden Bello

[3] Term used by Naomi Klein in her latest book ‘The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism’

[4] See for excellent background on Middle America: ‘Deer Hunting With Jesus’ by Joe Bageant

[5] PNAC – the Project for the New American Century See also Wikipedia

Tags:, , , , , ,
Posted in Commentary, imperialism, USA | Leave a Comment »

With Iraq plan, Obama embraces US militarism

March 2, 2009
Patrick Martin |  WSWS, 2 March 2009

In extending the full-scale US occupation of Iraq for another 18 months, and acceding to the timetable already adopted by the Bush administration for a tentative pullout by the end of 2011, President Barack Obama has done more than betray the hopes of the millions of antiwar voters who supported his candidacy in 2008.

He has fully identified the incoming Democratic Party administration with the fraudulent arguments employed by the Bush White House to justify the ongoing war in Iraq, after its initial claims about “weapons of mass destruction” and ties between Iraq and the 9/11 terrorist attacks had been proven to be lies.

Obama’s speech to thousands of Marines at Camp Lejeune was an effort to legitimize the US conquest and occupation of Iraq and present the American military as an instrument of liberation rather than imperialist war and oppression.

While candidate Obama described the Iraq war as one that “should never have been authorized and never been waged,” President Obama gave a much different reading. “You have fought against tyranny and disorder,” he told the assembled troops. “You have bled for your best friends and for unknown Iraqis. And you have borne an enormous burden for your fellow citizens, while extending a precious opportunity to the people of Iraq.”

No one would know from this effusive description that the US intervention’s main effect upon “unknown Iraqis” was to kill, maim and displace them. Some 1 million people have died since the US invasion in March 2003, including hundreds of thousands killed by US bombs, missiles and shells fired at civilian neighborhoods. Countless Iraqi civilians have been murdered at US checkpoints for the crime of not slowing down quickly enough.

As for the “precious opportunity” allegedly extended to the people of Iraq, it is the right to vote for parties and politicians sponsored by the US occupation regime to preside over a society that has been virtually destroyed.

Nearly six years after the US conquest, Iraq still does not have running water, electricity, adequate sewage and other necessities of modern life; unemployment is estimated at 50 percent of the adult population; there are some 4 million refugees in internal or external exile; and most Iraqi cities are divided into ethnic and religion-based neighborhoods separated by blast walls and checkpoints.

Obama did not acknowledge, let alone disavow, the real motive for the US military onslaught—Iraq’s vast oil wealth and strategic position at the center of the Middle East. That silence only demonstrates that the new president shares the fundamental goal of his predecessor, to strengthen the grip of American imperialism over the Middle East and Central Asia, source of the bulk of the world’s oil and gas supplies.

This fact was immediately recognized by the most fervent defenders of the Bush administration’s aggression, including Senator John McCain, Obama’s Republican opponent in the presidential election, other congressional Republicans, and the right-wing press. The Wall Street Journal, for instance editorialized in praise of Obama’s Camp Lejeune speech, calling it “Obama’s Bush Vindication.”

The Journal gushed: “Mr. Obama delivered a sober speech, offering a policy worthy of the Commander in Chief he now is.” It singled out “Mr. Obama’s implicit repudiation of his own positions as a candidate” by agreeing to keep a large US military presence in Iraq, as many as 50,000 troops, after the nominal August 2010 withdrawal date, an action that seeks to maintain “the strategic advantage” of a US puppet regime in the Persian Gulf.

As Obama explained in his speech, a major reason for the redeployment of some US forces out of Iraq is to have sufficient military power available to confront both “the challenge of refocusing on Afghanistan and Pakistan,” and “comprehensive American engagement across the region.”

Millions of Americans voted for Obama, not because they believed that the war in Iraq was a distraction from the pursuit of broader imperialist goals, but because they regarded the unprovoked invasion and conquest of a sovereign nation as a crime, and opposed the predatory character of American foreign policy as a whole.

Their voices have not the slightest impact on the formulation of policy in the Obama White House. As the events of last week demonstrate, it is the military-intelligence apparatus that calls the shots here. Obama did not make an independent decision as commander-in-chief, but rubber-stamped the course backed by one faction of the military establishment against the other.

According to press accounts that followed Obama’s speech at Camp Lejeune, the 19-month “withdrawal” plan selected by Obama was the preferred option of Defense Secretary Robert Gates and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Gates confirmed, in an interview Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press”, that the Iraq field commanders, headed by Gen. Raymond Odierno, preferred a 23-month schedule for withdrawal, while the Pentagon brass, concerned about the need for troops in Afghanistan and being stretched too thin to engage in other potential conflicts, opted for the shorter timeframe.

Obama did not replace any of the Bush administration’s principal military decision makers when he took office. Instead, he retained Gates, Admiral Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Odierno and General David Petraeus, head of the US Central Command and architect of the “surge” in Iraq.

His embrace of militarism was demonstrated in the very fact that Obama chose to give the speech at a Marine base to an audience of uniformed troops, not in a civilian setting or through a televised White House address. The effect was to suggest that in the America of 2009, decisions on war and peace are of concern primarily to the military, with the American people relegated to the role of bystanders.

The whole process demonstrates the erosion of American democracy. The American people cannot, through voting in election after election, effect any change in the foreign and military policy of the government. The war in Iraq goes on, and the war in Afghanistan is being escalated, regardless of popular sentiments.

Tags:, , , , , , ,
Posted in imperialism, Uncategorized, US policy | Leave a Comment »

US Influence in Iraq Far From Over

March 2, 2009

by Eric Margolis | Toronto Sun, March 2, 2001

Barack Obama won the votes of many Americans by promising to swiftly end the Iraq War and bring U.S. troops home. He denounced George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq as a “violation of international law.”

So will U.S. troops leave Iraq? Will those responsible for this trumped-up war face justice?

No, on both counts.

President Obama says U.S. combat troops will leave Iraq by August 2010. However, the U.S. military occupation will not end. What we are seeing is a public relations shell game.

The U.S. has 142,000 soldiers and nearly 100,000 mercenaries occupying Iraq. Obama’s plan calls for withdrawing the larger portion of the U.S. garrison but leaving 50,000-60,000 troops in Iraq.

To get around his promise to withdraw all “combat” troops, the president and his advisers are rebranding the stay-behind garrison as “training troops, protection for American interests, and counterterrorism forces.”

At a time when the U.S. is bankrupt and faces a $1.75 trillion deficit, the Pentagon’s gargantuan $664 billion budget (50% of total global military spending) will grow in 2009 and 2010 by another $200 billion to pay for the occupation of Iraq and Obama’s expanded war in Afghanistan. Throw in another $40 billion to $50 billion for the CIA and other intelligence agencies.

Obama insists the U.S. will withdraw from Iraq. But his words are belied by the Pentagon, which continues to expand bases in Iraq, including Balad and Al-Asad, with 4,400-metre runways for heavy bombers and transports.

AIR BRIDGE

They are key links in the U.S. Air Force’s new air bridge that extends from Germany to Bulgaria and Romania, Iraq and the Gulf, then onward to Afghanistan and Central Asia.

Besides Baghdad’s heavily fortified Green Zone and U.S. embassy (the world’s largest), the Pentagon reportedly wants to retain 58 permanent bases in Iraq (by comparison, there are 36 in South Korea), total control of its air space and immunity from Iraqi law for all U.S. troops.

The U.S. also will retain major bases in neighbouring Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman and Diego Garcia. U.S. oil companies are moving in to exploit Iraq’s vast energy reserves, the Mideast’s second largest after Saudi Arabia.

U.S. troop levels will remain high during Iraq’s December elections to ensure “security,” according to the Pentagon. In other words, ensuring the U.S.-selected regime “wins” the vote. Iraqi parties, notably Baath, opposing the U.S. occupation, are banned from running. Many Iraqis believe the U.S. will never leave their nation.

In short, contrary to all Obama’s high-blown rhetoric about pulling out of Iraq, Washington clearly intends it will remain a U.S. military, political and economic protectorate. Washington is following exactly the same control model the British Empire used to rule Iraq, and exploit its oil: Install a figurehead ruler, keep him in power using a “native” army (read today’s Iraqis army and police). RAF units based in Iraq (read U.S. air bases) bomb any rebellious areas. Smaller British ground units based in non-urban areas are on call to put down attempted coups against the king. The U.S. plan for Iraq is identical.

Obama made clear that officials responsible for the Iraq war, torture, kidnapping or assassination will not be prosecuted. The theft of over $50 billion in U.S. “reconstruction” funds sent to Iraq is being hushed up.

By contrast, Britons are demanding release of cabinet documents leading to war that are likely to expose Tony Blair’s lies and illegalities.

BYGONES

There is no corresponding call for justice in the United States. Obama tells the public, let bygones be bygones. Unless, of course, it’s Osama bin Laden.

Between 600,000 and one million Iraqis died as a result of President George W. Bush’s aggression, which cost nearly $1 trillion and some 4,500 U.S. dead. Four million Iraqis remain refugees. The U.S. holds over 20,000 Iraqi political prisoners.

Mr. President, this is not a bygone. It’s a historic crime that demands justice. Keep your word about withdrawing from Iraq. Enough with the Bush doubletalk.

© 2009 Toronto Sun

Eric Margolis is a columnist for The Toronto Sun. A veteran of many conflicts in the Middle East, Margolis recently was featured in a special appearance on Britain’s Sky News TV as “the man who got it right” in his predictions about the dangerous risks and entanglements the US would face in Iraq. His latest book is American Raj: Liberation or Domination?: Resolving the Conflict Between the West and the Muslim World

Tags:, , , , , , , ,
Posted in imperialism, Iraq, US policy | Leave a Comment »

Obama announces plan to continue US military occupation of Iraq

February 28, 2009
By Joseph Kishore | WSWS,  28 February 2009

President Obama formally announced his administration’s plans for the continued US military occupation of Iraq on Friday, in remarks delivered at the Camp Lejeune marine base in North Carolina. Far from bringing the war to an end, the plans will maintain present troop levels for one year and ensure a substantial military presence for at least three years, through the end of 2011.

As leaked to the press earlier this week, Obama’s plan calls for the withdrawal of all “combat troops” by August 31, 2010, 19 months after his inauguration. This means that the US military presence will continue at present levels through the Iraqi elections scheduled in the fall, ensuring that the occupying forces can maintain a watchful eye over the “democratic” process.

Beginning next year, troops are scheduled to be gradually transferred out of Iraq, leaving a “residual force” of up to 50,000 soldiers after August 2010. Although referred to by the administration as “non-combat troops,” this is a verbal sleight-of-hand, as they will continue to be involved in combat activities. Obama said that these soldiers will be involved in “training, equipping, and advising Iraqi Security Forces as long as they remain non-sectarian; conducting targeted counter-terrorism missions; and protecting our ongoing civilian and military efforts within Iraq.”

Obama also said that all US soldiers would be out of Iraq by the end of 2011, as required by the Status of Forces Agreement reached by the Bush administration and the Iraqi government in 2008. In a press conference call on Friday, Defense Secretary Robert Gates indicated that this deadline is largely a diplomatic fiction that could be altered. “My own view would be that we should be prepared to have some very modest-sized presence for training and helping them with their new equipment and providing, perhaps, intelligence support and so on,” past 2011, he said. “The Iraqis have not said anything about that at this point, so it remains to be seen whether they will take the initiative.”

The central aim in drawing down US forces in Iraq is to free up military resources for a surge in Central and South Asia, a priority of the Obama administration. “America can no longer afford to see Iraq in isolation from other priorities,” Obama said. “We face the challenge of refocusing on Afghanistan and Pakistan; of relieving the burden on our military; and of rebuilding our struggling economy.”

Last week, Obama announced that he was deploying an additional 17,000 troops to Afghanistan, including 8,000 marines from Camp Lejeune, and the new government has already significantly escalated air attacks on Pakistani soil. Some 15,000 more soldiers will be sent to Afghanistan in the coming months. In his remarks on Friday, Obama said he was also planning a significant increase in the size of the military to facilitate future actions.

Even as he announced the drawdown of “combat” troops over the next 18 months—three months longer than he pledged during his election campaign—Obama made clear his deference to the military. “We will proceed carefully, and I will consult closely with my military commanders on the ground and with the Iraqi government,” he said, making clear that changes to the schedule are quite possible. “There will surely be difficult periods and tactical adjustments. But our enemies should be left with no doubt: this plan gives our military the forces and the flexibility they need to support our Iraqi partners, and to succeed.”

The Obama administration plan conforms to the demands of the military brass, including General Raymond Odierno, the commanding general in Iraq, and General David Petraeus, head of central command and the architect of the Iraq “surge” implemented in 2007. Both Odierno and Petraeus, along with Defense Secretary Gates and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Michael Mullen, are holdovers from the Bush administration, ensuring essential continuity with the policy of the previous government.

While some Democrats voiced mild concerns that the 50,000-strong residual force was too high a figure, the plan also won the quick support of major figures in the Republican Party, including former presidential candidate John McCain, who said on Friday that the plan was “reasonable.” He commented, “Given the gains in Iraq and the requirements to send additional troops to Afghanistan, together with the significant number of troops that will remain in Iraq and the president’s willingness to reassess based on conditions on the ground, I am cautiously optimistic that the plan as laid out by the president can lead to success.” House Republican leader John Boehner also endorsed the plan.

The Wall Street Journal quoted Gordon Johndroe, the last national security spokesman for Bush, saying that Obama’s plan was not in conflict with that of his former boss. “The specific timing is only slightly different but consistent with the goal of helping Iraq become self-sufficient in providing its own security,” he said. “This is possibly because of the success of the surge.”

According to media reports, Obama telephoned Bush immediately before beginning his speech at Camp Lejeune, though there was no indication as to what the two discussed.

The main concern of the military was to ensure that any partial drawdown was delayed until after the Iraqi elections, and Obama’s plan was adapted to meet these concerns. In his remarks on Friday, Gates said that it was critical to “get through this year and all of the elections that will take place” and “have a period of adjustment after those national elections to make sure people are accepting the results.”

Obama’s speech was replete with obsequious praise for the military, an implicit endorsement of the “surge” policy of the Bush administration, and an acceptance of the lies employed to justify the invasion and occupation of Iraq.

The US military had fought “against tyranny and disorder,” he claimed. “You have borne an enormous burden for your fellow citizens, while extending a precious opportunity to the people of Iraq.” The military had “served with honor, and succeeded beyond any expectation.”

Hammering home his acceptance of the lies used to justify the 2003 invasion, Obama declared to his military audience, “And so I want to be very clear: We sent our troops to Iraq to do away with Saddam Hussein’s regime—and you got the job done. We kept our troops in Iraq to help establish a sovereign government—and you got the job done. And we will leave the Iraqi people with a hard-earned opportunity to live a better life—that is your achievement; that is the prospect that you have made possible.”

In a particularly loathsome passage directed at the Iraqi people, Obama declared, “We Americans have offered our most precious resource—our young men and women—to work with you to rebuild what was destroyed by despotism; to root out our common enemies; and to seek peace and prosperity for our children and grandchildren, and for yours.”

In fact, the principal force of destruction in Iraq has been the American military itself. More than a million people have died as a result of the war and occupation, and millions more turned into refugees. The economy of the country has been shattered by two wars and a decade-long sanctions regime.

All the lies used to justify this crime—lies facilitated by the Democrats and explicitly endorsed by Obama—were intended to cover for a policy aimed at securing the geo-strategic interests of American imperialism, above all the control of Iraq’s oil resources. More than 4,500 US and coalition soldiers have been killed in the process.

Millions of people in the United States voted for Obama because they wanted change in government policy, in particular an end to the war in Iraq. These voters have been disenfranchised, as Obama continues the Iraq occupation and extends military aggression in Afghanistan and Pakistan. In line with his economic program, his military policies are dictated by the interests of the corporate and financial elite.

Tags:, , , , ,
Posted in imperialism, Iraq, US policy, War Criminals | Leave a Comment »

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »