Peace and Justice Post

A Dismal Legacy. Part II

by Prof. Rodrigue Tremblay

Global Research, Oct 25, 2008

“Greed is good. Greed is right. Greed Works.”Gordon Gekko, corporate raider (played by Michael Douglas) in the movie Wall St.

“President [George W.] Bush will be remembered as the most fiscally irresponsible president in our nation’s history.” Sen. Kent Conrad, Chairman of the Senate Budget Committee

[The government’s decision to buy shares in the nation’s leading banks] “is not intended to take over the free market, but to preserve it.”President George W. Bush, October 14, 2008

“Our country for the first time in my life time has abandoned the basic principle of human rights. …We’ve said that the Geneva Conventions do not apply to those people in Abu Ghraib prison and Guantanamo, and we’ve said we can torture prisoners and deprive them of an accusation of a crime to which they are accused.” Jimmy Carter, former American president

“After [this] war [against Iraq] has ended, the United States will have to rebuild much more than the country of Iraq. We will have to rebuild America’s image around the globe.”Sen. Robert Byrd, (D-W.Va), March 19, 2003

Economically, the Bush-Cheney administration is leaving behind a big financial and economic mess. In fact, this is an administration that has brought misery upon America by its misguided economic policies that have built a mountain of shaky debt and rendered dysfunctional large segments of the American banking industry and large sectors of the U.S. economy, through inappropriate deregulation to enrich greedy special interest characters, wheeler-dealers, corporate con men, professional short-sellers and other scam artists and swindlers. In so doing, it has empowered rich parasitic speculators and turned the financial sector into a giant casino, thus risking the health of the entire economy.

Indeed, and to complete the picture, the Bush-Cheney administration has emptied the public treasury, debased the U.S. currency and fueled deflation, inflation and, in the end, produced stagflation and what can turn out to be a very serious recession.

This is understandable. Over the last eight years, the Bush-Cheney administration has adopted a laissez-faire policy based on a let-them-eat-cake ideology. It has pushed for economic deregulation throughout the government, beginning with the de-fanging of the Securities and Exchange Commission. It has pursued an aggressive policy of deregulation of the large global investment banks, which were basically left to self-regulate themselves and allowed to build up the largest mountain of flimsy backed debt instruments and risky financial derivative products ever seen in history. It did the same thing for other regulatory agencies such as the Consumer Product Safety Commission, the Environmental Protection Agency, worker safety and transportation agencies.

It is thus no accident that the Bush-Cheney administration has presided over one of the worst financial collapses and credit crises in U.S. history, by packing regulatory agencies with cronies whose mission it was to let rapacious speculators and market manipulators go wild. The result has been the creation of a casino-like speculative economy that is now crashing down before our very eyes.

Under Bush-Cheney, financial markets became manipulated by unscrupulous bankers and by rapacious hedge funds, as public regulation was reduced to a minimum. Millions of Americans lost their homes through foreclosure and many more saw their working and pension incomes eroded and destroyed by inflation and plant closings. And as what could be a protracted recession proceeds, many more will lose their jobs in the coming months, while some older employees may have to postpone their retirement because of the disappearance of their pension money.

In a parody of President Abraham Lincoln, we can say this has been an administration that deserved to be dubbed “a government of the wealthy, by the wealthy and for the wealthy.” Some would not hesitate to say, also in parody, that it has been “a government of Goldman Sachs, by Goldman Sachs and for Goldman Sachs,” considering the ubiquitous political and economic role which that firm has played within the Bush-Cheney administration. President Bush’s own Chief of Staff, Mr. Joshua Bolten, comes from Goldman Sachs. And these days, everybody pretends not see the real and potential conflicts of interests of other public servants who are now on the giving public side of things, at the U.S. Treasury, and who are going to be on the receiving private side of public money, in a scant few months. It is the same thing with a lot of what the U.S. Treasury does. —Even the Governor of the Bank of Canada, Mr. Mark Carney, is a former employee of Goldman Sachs!

In a related matter, for historical purposes, it will be remembered that, in the fall of 2008, the Bush-Cheney administration sponsored a huge rescue-plus-bailout of the largest speculative Wall Street investment banks (which the Bush SEC had deregulated on March 28, 2004) and of a host of other banking and insurance institutions which had engaged in alchemy or synthetic finance and made risky investments. To that effect, it is ready to place at risk close to $2.0 trillion of public money and let the public debt explode, with few conditions attached to protect the public interest. In fact, the Bush administration stood ready to advance hundreds of billions of dollars and only requested non-voting preferred shares in the troubled banks and insurance companies that it rescued from bankruptcy. As a consequence, contrary to what the Roosevelt administration did in the 1930s, the U.S. government has no direct say about the way the troubled financial institutions are managed and run, and thus, if the bail-out were to be successful, most of the benefits would go to bank owners and their executives; but, if things continue to deteriorate, taxpayers will be the ones left holding the bag.

Some have said this is an example of corporate socialism for the rich. In fact, this has nothing to do with socialism per se, but everything to do with legal and unapologetical extortionism on a high level. For all these reasons, if the ongoing recession and financial crisis were to turn into a full-fledged economic depression, as it could possibly do, and as it did in 1873-1880 and 1929-1939, it would have to be dubbed by historians “the Bush-Cheney Grand Economic Depression” of 2008-20(?).

George W. Bush will also be remembered for having financed his whimsical and ill-conceived three-trillion-dollar war of aggression against Iraq on credit, thus worsening the U.S. financial situation in the world, perhaps irrevocably. He is leaving behind him a financial mess like no one has seen since the great depressions following 1873 and 1929.

In all fairness, it must be said that some Democrats in Congress, the so-called Bush Democrats who usually vote with Republicans on foreign policy issues, have also been supporters of the Iraq War from the beginning and have invariably voted for the hundreds of billions of dollars required to finance it.

The Bush-Cheney administration has presided over economic dislocations and greed-fed financial bubbles, and it has been an agent of poverty and of financial and economic crises. This is an administration that will be sadly remembered for its huge tax cuts for the super rich, for its huge fiscal deficits bequeathed to future generations and for its huge and costly bailouts for speculators and high flyers, and very little for families and ordinary citizens.

As a consequence, on the whole, Americans are today poorer than when this duo took power eight years ago, while the gap between the very rich and the average American has never been wider. It has been a regime that has borrowed and borrowed, debased the currency, waged unnecessary wars and doled out defense contracts in the most reckless possible way, with a minimum of oversight and accountability.

• International Mess: An Irresponsible Attempt to rekindle the Cold War

Internationally, Bush and Cheney not only started a war against Iraq, a country that had never attacked the United States, but they also did their utmost to recklessly restart the Cold War with Russia. They did that by unilaterally abrogating the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, by transforming NATO into an offensive military alliance and by installing anti-missile sites, manned by American soldiers, in former Warsaw Pact countries, such as Poland and the Czech Republic, and in former Soviet republics, right next to Russia’s borders.

The Bush-Cheney administration designed a policy of encircling Russia by arming pro-U.S. European client states. That is why they have directly provoked Russia by incorporating six former Warsaw Pact nations and three former soviet republics in the now offensive and U.S.-controlled military alliance that is NATO. They went as far as to openly support and arm aggression-prone governments in some former Soviet republics, especially in Georgia, the birthplace of Stalin. All this reflects a pro-active and aggressive military stance against Russia designed to provoke Russia and restart the Cold War, thus dangerously increasing the chances of a nuclear world war.

Let us recall that when Khrushchev’s Soviet Union tried to install missiles in Cuba in 1962, it nearly started a world war. Now, half a century later, with Bush-Cheney, the brinkmanship is on the other side. They have acted irresponsibly in provoking Russia, as if they did not mind restarting a cold war with that country. Russian exasperation was well expressed by then Russian President Vladimir Putin when, in 2007, he said that “The United States [under Bush and Cheney] has overstepped its national borders in every way, and as a result, no one feels safe. . . . such a policy stimulates an arms race.”

• Disrespect of Military Advice

George W. Bush will be remembered as the man who brought within the walls of the White House not only corruption and incompetence in nearly every field of activity—as well as a lack of moral fortitude in approving torture—but also a quasi dictatorial gangster mentality in dealing with Congress, with the military, with other governments and with political opponents in general. For instance, Bush fired more generals and admirals than any other head of state since Adolf Hitler in Germany, some seventy years ago. Among others, Bush fired or forced into early retirement Gen. Eric K. Shinseki; Gen. John Abizaid; Gen. George Casey; and Adm. William J. Fallon, then top U.S. commander in the Middle East.

• A Propaganda-prone Administration

But perhaps one of the greatest indictments of the Bush-Cheney administration is the way it has used crude covert propaganda techniques worthy of a totalitarian regime. Indeed, it has launched a sophisticated propaganda campaign to manipulate information and public opinion that has had the effect of undermining democracy and the freedom of information. For one, it has subverted the major American TV and radio networks by provided them with false independent “analysts”.

Second, it has paid journalists to push surreptitiously for government programs. Third, it has intervened within news organizations, using the power of government to have journalists and producers fired when they didn’t toe the government line. Fourth, the Bush administration has embarked upon the business of censoring movies. And that is only the tip of the iceberg, considering how pervasive the Bush-Cheney administration’s direct and indirect control of the media has been. Never has American journalism and U.S. corporate media been so corrupt and complicit, and this is because the United States has never had such a corrupt administration, i.e. the 2001-2009 Bush-Cheney administration.

• Conclusion

To conclude, it should be obvious by now to anybody who has eyes to see that the Texan politician named George W. Bush, son of former President George H. Bush, was unqualified for high office. He has amply and tragically demonstrated it. This is a politician who presided over an administration that has acted as a wrecking crew, destroying most of everything it has touched. [For more analysis on that, see my book “The New American Empire”.]

In its countless failures, the Bush-Cheney administration has been an unhealthy mixture, rarely seen in a democracy, of immorality, lawlessness and incompetence. —It won’t be missed by most people, both in the U.S. and around the world.

Rodrigue Tremblay is professor emeritus of economics at the University of Montreal and can be reached at: rodrigue.tremblay@ yahoo.com.

He is the author of the book ‘The New American Empire’.

Visit his blog site at www.thenewamericanempire.com/blog.

Author’s Website: www.thenewamericanempire.com/

Check Dr. Tremblay’s coming book “The Code for Global Ethics” at: www.TheCodeForGlobalEthics.com/

Dr Abdul Ruff Colachal

Recently, after a long wait, Indo-Pak LOC trade or “cross border trade” has opened between India and Pakistan, ostensibly to boost economic development of Kashmir and mutual tensions between India and Pakistan, but many Kashmiris do suspect of some hidden agenda of India. Although there has a sense of satisfaction among the business community in the state, Kashmiris do have apprehensions about the real motive behind this India sponsored trade exercise without any visible links to Kashmir resolution. Media reports suggest that basically it is an exercise in boosting Indo-Pakistan trade without in fact Kashmir getting anything tangible in return.

In effect the Loc trade should mean trade within Jammu Kashmir without any possible hindrance, and not just to boost trade between Kashmir’s neighbours while Kashmir remaining a transit corridor to promote the trade while not being able to redeem its lost independence and glory. But Indian intentions are gloomy and confusing to the world. Is India interested only in business or Kashmir freedom as well? Or, is USA and India are trying to use the region for advancing their oil interests?

India wants to use USA for advancing its regional interests and reduce the Chinese influence on Pakistan. A criminally silent India has not said the trade would eventually lead to Kashmir freedom and regional peace. Already badly hit by continuous torture and genocide by occupying Indian terror forces, innocent Kashmiris wonder if this is yet another ploy being employed by hegemonic India with the help of Pakistan to try yet another strategy to kill the remaining Kashmiris regularly, or they really means to boost Kashmir economy as a prelude to surrendering sovereignty back to struggling Kashmiris.

Pakistanis wish everything well for Kashmiris and they have done it by giving up their own precious lives in wars with India. India always wants to split the Pakistan-Kashmir bonds by using its anti-Muslim media both in India and Jammu Kashmir. Kashmiris are really weary of this Indian mischievous strategy to weaken Kashmir freedom movement.

It is an established fact India wants to keep Jammu Kashmir under its terror control for the obvious security purposes. Big powers like USA and Russia fight wars on alien lands so that their own lands and people are safe. While Russia keeps its former Soviet space as its outer security zone, USA considers every other country its legitimate security asset. New Delhi’s drive to keep Jammu Kashmir as its outer security zone as per its core military doctrine and hence it began heavy militarization drive in Jammu Kashmir with the help of the Hindus in the region as agents and pro-India Muslims as under –dogs on payment basis. India wants to fight wars with its neighbours Pakistan and China only in Jammu Kashmir so that “the enemy” does not reach New Delhi.

Cross-border terrorism was encouraged by India, though officially it criticizes, so as to keep the region under tension and use the opportunities to make Kashmir an extended military cantonment of India with all modern equipment. Indian military has been authorized to kill the Kashmiris demanding freedom from Indian hegemony, oppression and genocide.

Now both India and Pakistan have decided to replace the terrorism regime with trade across the borders. But in between Indo-Pakistan borders lay the Jammu Kashmir under Indian military occupation and the trade passes through Kashmir. In effect India is now using Kashmir as a tool to enhance its trade with Pakistan and vice verse.

Obviously, one does not know the hidden agenda of India in this economic project and what puzzles more is the suspicion if India is trying some more tricks to split the Kashmiris who stay in between the present trade route!

But how far the cross border trade between two neighbours on either side sandwiched by Kashmir would benefit Jammu Kashmir and in which way that trade would lead to freedom of Jammu Kashmir and its re-establishment as it existed before it was tactfully annexed by “democratic” India in 1947? Even in the LoC trade affairs talks, Kashmiri freedom leaders have not been involved at any level. But they should have been since Kashmir is the theme and subject the entire exercise. Nor UN was involved. This gives rise to suspicion among the Kashmiris about the Indian intentions.

Kashmiris have been demanding freedom form occupying India, but India is shamelessly keen to impose polls on unwilling Kashmiris and postpone the issue of independence almost indefinitely. Issue is quite clear: if India and Pakistan, especially India, wants to use the trade across the border to boost economy of Kashmir and clear ways for Kashmir re-independence, that would be a positive side and most welcome, but if it constitutes an Indian hidden exercise in retaining the control over both parts of Kashmir, then it would be bad for all the three parties, but can be disastrous for Kashmiris in particular. The problem is Pakistan is busy with killing Muslims in Pakistan in the company of USA supported by India through Afghanistan.

Since Indian leaders, including president, premier and UPA chairperson have not yet said a single word about Indian intention of surrendering sovereignty back to Kashmiris and the LoC trade is towards that direction. Indian criminal silence is in fact confusing Kashmiris who are otherwise badly hit by Indian terror forces and disappointed by the poll thrashing. Does it not indicate mal-intentions on the part of India as endorsed and supported by “new” Pakistani leadership? In fact the recent statement by Pakistan leadership about “terrorists” in Jammu Kashmir has stirred the psyche of Kashmiris fearing onslaught from terror India taking that statement as legitimacy to further kill the innocent Kashmiris, without even trying to understand what he said could also mean Indian terrorists killing Muslims in Jammu and Kashmir

Rightly so, Kashmiris over years of Indian oppression and genocide have developed zero faith in Indian actions. As Pakistan failed to use it US connections to get freedom for Kashmir, India, as per its hidden agenda, also has miserably failed to make Kashmiris go against Pakistan.

October 27 was observed a Black Day in Jammu Kashmir on both sides of the “great divide”, but in fact all the days the people of Jammu Kashmir have spent so far under Indian military occupation and genocide have also remained historical Black Days for Kashmiris who continue to fight for their sovereignty and encounter the Indian oppression bravely.

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Dr Abdul Ruff Colachal has been a university teacher, and has worked in various Indian institutions like JNU, Mysore University, Central Institute of English FL, etc. He is also a political commentator, researcher, and columnist. He has widely published in India and abroad, and has written about state terrorism.

By Lt. General (U.S. Army, Retired) Robert G. Gard, Jr., PhD, War in Context, October 26, 2008

The economy has become the priority issue for voters. But my principal reason for refusing to vote for John McCain has nothing to do with his admitted lack of knowledge of economics, although I did not realize the extent of his ignorance prior to his comments regarding the re-distribution of income. Since presidents encounter considerable constraints on their freedom to control economic programs and policies, this shortcoming is not critical.

It is, rather, the fields of foreign and national security policies, generally regarded as Senator McCain’s strengths, that in my view are his disqualifying weaknesses; and a president has considerable leeway to operate in these areas to the detriment, or benefit, of the United States.

I deeply respect John McCain’s service to our country; and I admire his bravery as a prisoner of war, described by a fellow prisoner as similar to that demonstrated by hundreds of other U.S. prisoners in North Vietnam who also obeyed the code of declining release before those captured earlier.

Unfortunately, however, Senator McCain has demonstrated clearly that he is a dedicated ideologue in the foreign/security policy area, unwilling to consider opinions or even credible evidence contrary to his preconceived notions. In addition, his temperament, marked not only by impatience but also by rude and sometimes hostile behavior, would discourage advisers from bringing to his attention views that might not be consistent with his preconceptions. A president with this combination of significant shortcomings would be a dangerous commander-in-chief, posing an unacceptable risk to the security of the nation.

Senator McCain has adopted, promoted and sustained the position of the so-called neo-conservatives and ultra-nationalists who believed that the United States should capitalize on American military superiority to spread democracy abroad. Overthrowing the Iraqi government was seen as the first step in transforming the politics of the Middle East by converting governments in the region to democracies friendly to the United States and its interests. Senator McCain reportedly has bragged in private conversations that he was the first neocon.

Since Senator McCain has made his positions on U.S. policy and military operations in Iraq a central theme in his campaign, it is useful illustratively to examine his stated views on this central national security issue.

Iraq and Related Matters

• Consistent with the Project for a New American Century’s open letter to the President, Senator McCain co-sponsored the 1998 Iraq Liberation Act that changed the policy of the U.S. government from containing Iraq to overthrowing its regime. The Act also provided funds to Iraqi exile groups seeking regime change in Iraq.
• In September 2000, the Project for the New American Century published a manifesto entitled Rebuilding America’s Defenses. It advocated expanding democracy in seven countries in a five-year period: Iraq, Iran, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia and Sudan. Randy Scheunemann, then a director of the Project, is Republican candidate McCain’s chief foreign/national security adviser.
• Immediately following the 11 September 2001 terrorist attack, well in advance of the Bush administration’s campaign to sell the American public on the invasion of Iraq, Senator McCain began a repetitive drumbeat promoting that course of action.
• On the day of the 9/11 attack, during an interview with Dan Rather of CBS, he said: “I don’t think there’s any doubt that there are other countries — Iraq, Iran, — who … involve themselves in state-sponsored terrorism.”
• The next day, 12 September 2001, he said “It isn’t just Afghanistan; we’re talking about Syria, Iraq, Iran, … and others.” He added: “There’s a network [of states sponsoring terrorism] that is going to have to be attacked.”
• Six days later, he said: “I think very obviously Iraq is the first country, but there are others – Syria, Iran, … who have continued to harbor terrorist organizations and actually assist them.”
• On 20 September 2001, the Project for a New American Century sent a letter to the President, signed by Randy Scheunemann, urging expansion of the war on terrorism beyond Al Qaeda to Iraq, Iran, Syria and other countries. It stated that failure to make a determined effort remove Saddam Hussein would be “the equivalent of decisive surrender.”
• On 3 October ’01, less than a month after 9/11, while speaking of military operations against the Taliban and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan on the Letterman Late Show, Senator McCain declared: “The second phase is Iraq.”
• Senator McCain advanced misleading and even false assertions not only on Iraqi possession of weapons of mass destruction but also Iraqi ties to international terrorists, including those who committed the 9/11 attacks. On 29 October, he stated: “The evidence is very clear” that the claim made by “Curveball,” an exile discredited by U.S. intelligence, was valid: the alleged meeting of an Iraqi intelligence agent with Mohammed Atta, the leader of the 9/11 attack.
• In December 2001, Senator McCain joined five other senators in signing an open letter to the White House stating: “In the interest of our own national security, Saddam Hussein must be removed from power.”
• Addressing the crew of a U.S. warship on 2 January 2002, he said: “Next up, Baghdad;” the following month, he warned: “A terrorist resides in Baghdad. A day of reckoning is approaching.”
• Along with Senator Joseph Lieberman, he agreed to serve as honorary co-chair of the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq, a lobbying organization formed in 2002 by the chair of the Project for a New American Century to promote the overthrow of Saddam Hussein by military force. The president of the Committee was Randy Scheunemann.
• Senator McCain actively supported Ahmad Chalabi, head of the Iraqi National Congress exile group, who had been exposed as a charlatan not only by the CIA but also the Defense Intelligence Agency.
• In voting for the use of force against Iraq, he called Saddam Hussein “a threat of the first order.” He spoke in favor of removing all members of the Baath party from the Iraqi government and the Iraqi military, decisions generally recognized as disastrous errors. Demonstrating a simplistic misunderstanding of the profound differences, he went so far as to predict that the U.S. occupation of Iraq would be remembered in much the same way as the liberation and rebuilding of Germany and Japan after World War II.
• Speaking of the invasion of Iraq in March 2003, Senator McCain said: “There is no doubt in my mind … that we will be welcomed as liberators.” This despite dire warnings to the contrary from the National Intelligence Council and reports from the CIA, the Department of State’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research and even from organizations within the Department of Defense: the National Defense University and the Army War College, both having held conferences of experts on the likely results of an invasion. He had “no doubt,” because he was unwilling to give any weight to evidence that did not support his ideological commitment. He assured Wolf Blitzer during an interview on CNN: “We’re not going to get into house-to-house fighting;” a flat assertion, without any reservation or qualification of probability, despite authoritative opinions of the likelihood of an insurgency.
• Underscoring his ideological commitment, Senator McCain said in retrospect that even had there been no claims of Iraqi possession of weapons of mass destruction or of Iraqi connection to Al Qaeda, “there’s no question” that he would have voted to authorize the use of military force against Iraq.

By Gary Fennelly | Belfast Telegraph, Oct 27, 2008

Troops fire on hundreds of protesters in Indian Kashmir, killing 1

Staff
AP News

Oct 26, 2008 05:04 EST

Government troops in Indian Kashmir opened fire Sunday on hundreds of angry protesters demanding the release of several people arrested during a recent strike, killing one and wounding at least three others, a police official said.

The Muslim protesters in Baramullah town, 35 miles north of Srinagar, the main city in India’s Jammu-Kashmir state, threw stones and clashed with police and paramilitary soldiers, who responded first with bamboo truncheons and tear gas and then with live ammunition, said Abdul Gani Mir, the area’s deputy inspector general.

The protesters chanted pro-freedom slogans as they clashed with the troops, Mir said.

Police will investigate the death and injuries, he said.

On Friday, a general strike was organized by the Jammu-Kashmir Coordination Committee, a coalition of Muslim separatists and local business leaders, during which local residents said at least 10 people were arrested by police.

Mir said police arrested only four people.

Anti-India sentiment runs deep in Kashmir, where most people favor independence from mainly Hindu India or a merger with predominantly Muslim Pakistan.

At least 45 people have died in unrest since August, most of them killed when Indian soldiers opened fire on Muslim demonstrators.

Kashmir is divided between India and Pakistan, which both claim the region and have fought two wars over it.

Militant separatist groups have been fighting since 1989 to end Indian rule. The uprising and subsequent Indian crackdown have killed about 68,000 people, most of them civilians.

Source: AP News

Antiwar.com,  October 26, 2008

Pakistani Prime Minister Yousef Raza Gilani publicly condemned the “intolerable” series of unilateral US drone strikes launched in North and South Waziristan in the past two months at a press conference today. He said the strike were an attack on Pakistan’s national sovereignty and were weakening the nation’s anti-terror efforts. He added that he had raised the issue at the latest Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) Summit and they supported the Pakistani position.

The most recent strike came earlier today, when a US drone attacked a village in South Waziristan Agency, killing at least 20 people. The strike reportedly hit two houses in an area of South Waziristan known to be a stronghold of Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud.

This is the second reported US drone strike in the past few days, and the 12th in the past 10 weeks, with a strike on Thursday morning on a North Waziristan Agency religious school killing 10. The previous attack was publicly condemned by several Pakistani Senators as an attack on the sovereignty of Pakistan’s parliament, which had recently passed a 14-point resolution criticizing the strikes and urging Pakistan to “de-link” its security policy from the US war on terror.

Related Stories

• 20 Killed in US Drone Attack in South Waziristan
• Pakistani Senators Condemn US Drone Strike
• “Sweeping” Pakistan Resolution Either Repudiates or Reinforces Terror Policy
• US Training Program For Pakistani Forces Begins, But Distrust Remains

compiled by Jason Ditz [email the author]

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By Badri Raina | ZNet, Oct 24, 2008

Badri Raina’s ZSpace Page

I

What lovely times those must have been when a rose was a rose by any name?

Many must have thought so, although I doubt that the man who wrote that line actually thought so, or why else would he have also asked “O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo”?

Same with the rose. Ask the orchid lover, or the one who loves the cactus best.

In post-Freudian times, we know of the case of a young man who actually died from allergy to the rose.

Best be wary of the truths we are told; such as, for example that the stock market equals the fate of India. Exactly 3% Indians dabble in its fortunes and, now, salutary misfortunes. Or, the banking system: 70% or more Indians do not bank!

II

So what is “terrorism”?

Engaging in indiscriminate violence? You must be joking. That would make the American chief executive by far the prime terrorist of past, present, and—safe assumption—future times.

Killing innocent human beings? Same conclusion. Name me one event or all events taken together that killed more innocents than “little boy” in Hiroshima. And, not to forget Nagasaki.

Killing without cause, or in the name of some spurious cause? Like the invasion of Iraq in the pursuit of the non-existent WMD?

Killing in the name of religion? Don’t say it, unless you mean to refer to pretty much all of western history upto about the beginning of the 19C. And later as well in places like Ireland.

That which the puissant call “terrorism”? More to the point.

Think that crashes among currency notes on the stock market are designated “carnage” and “bloodbath”; and the millions who die from malnutrition, preventable infection and such-like—millions, that is, of human beings, not currency notes—mere inevitable victims to the “inexorable laws” of economics and Nature.

III

Thus, what were “terrorists” till yesterday in relation to the Godhra train burning in Gujarat, 2002, have today been kindly denotified as ordinary enough criminals who acted out of “sudden provocation.” If indeed they did.

This, thanks to the findings of a Review Panel on the subject of the 120 or so accused (muslims) who have been rotting in jail for six long years without trial or bail as per provisions of the since- repealed POTA (Prevention of Terrorism Act).

Findings now upheld by the highest court in the land which has pronounced that these denizens of the Indian Guantanamo cannot after all be tried under the said draconian Act since they are not “terrorists” in the first place.

All that should bring good and bad tidings, severally, to two honourable retired Justices of the Supreme Court.

Good tidings to Justice U.C.Bannerjee who headed a committee set up by the Railway Ministry, and pronounced pretty much as the Review Panel now has; and bad tidings to one Justice Nanavati who has been heading another Commission and has only some weeks ago furnished an Interim Report (an illegal procedure, since as per law governing Commissions of Enquiry, only complete findings can be submitted) concluding that the train burning was an act of “conspiracy”.

Since the Interim Report was all- too- obviously tailored to enhancing Modi’s political standing and prospects, Justice Nanavati went further forward to proffer just the conclusion to the still non-existent Part of the Report that will concern the Gujarat pogrom that followed the train burning, namely, that neither Modi nor any of his hench agencies bore any culpability in the matter. Hallelujah, we say; three cheers for brazen gumption and bold untruth.

This is the same Justice of whom it was heard in a sting operation recording of a conversation with a Modi satrap “he is our own man.” Provenly so.

But something after all does work in the state of Denmark, although despite the judgement now delivered by the Supreme Court, we may not put it past the Modi dispensation to go in appeal. It may thus still be a while before those that yet survive the Sabarmati jail are granted bail. But who said India is perfect, and then Gujarat.

And yet, what a tribute to the exertions of the tireless tribe that will not take fascism lying down. The vicious triumph, as has often been said, only because the well-meaning opt out.

IV

So, what is “terror”?

Just those clandestine bombs going off, killing anything from one to a hundred people?

Make a computation and you will find that the total victims of bomb-terror in recent decades in India is but a miniscule percentage of those butchered, burnt, and banished in the pogroms conducted in acts of mob-terror—and all invariably with the state watching in silent connivance.

Not to speak of the fact that mob-terror derives its howling, animal energies from ideologues who sit high among both the polity and government, and directs its depredations against chosen targets among the populace. And the further fact that it does not hide its face because it thinks it is working its murderous business in the interests of the nation, and because it knows that any number of worthies will promptly flood the tv channels to pronounce that same “patriotic” sentiment. And that the channels will find this distinction between “terrorism” and “patriotism” as compelling as the worthies aforesaid.

Even as the blood gushes and hacked limbs lie aground, the face of this terror exults in triumph and apes the famous blood-curdling victory call of Tarzan.

Sitting in their up-market homes, the successful Indian heaves grunts of satisfaction that some people there are who are thus boldly forth to cut down “evil”, and that the state has the sense to stand aside. Indeed, that, thank god, somebody will do what the state is too pusillanimous to do. How else is India, the new super-power, to be saved?

V

After all, throughout history, what is remembered is what the puissant dish out to us.

Everybody knows how many Stalin sent to the Gulag; how many remember that some 8 million Russian soldiers and 20 million civilians gave their lives to defeat Hitler and Nazism? Or, that had Hitler not opened the Eastern Front, Nazism may well have triumphed.

Interestingly, where German historians will tell you so, the Anglo-Saxons ones will not.

And, think about it, how many actually believe that Hiroshima was the single most unforgiveable, “evil” if you like, thing that modern men have done to other modern men?

Not to speak of the umpteen and countless wars unleashed upon all regions of the world by Imperialism in the pursuit of material ascendance?

Or, how many remember that the Taliban were “freedom fighters” when they were put up against the Russians and became “terrorists” when they turned the gun the other way?

Thus, India’s mob-terrorists may well come to be remembered and recorded as the heroes who saved India from “terrorism.” Very few may venture the truth that the two remain inseparable complementarities.

VI

For now, nonetheless, the happy development in relation to the Godhra accused brings hope to those who insist that a rose is never a rose just by any sort of name. And that, whatever the frustrations and the systemic collusions, there is good work to be done on behalf of democracy, justice, the rule of law, and equity. Even plain human decency.

______________________________________________________________

badri.raina@gmail.com

William . Cook | uruknet.info,  October 26, 2008 “Now the opposite of Beatitude is misery … to be afflicted unwillingly with painful sufferings.” (St. Gregory of Nyssa, 380 AD) “Hope” was scheduled to sail to Gaza on Thursday, September 25th, but could not because negotiations to buy a boat fell through repeatedly “due to outside pressure.” Regardless, whatever day “Hope” sails, and it will sail, is a day every Christian and every humane person, regardless of religion, should mark on his or her calendar as the words of Jesus from the Sermon on the Mount live in our day as true believers in the Beatitudes give meaning and life to “Blessed are the merciful for they shall see God and Blessed are the peacemakers for they are the children of God.” Five physicians from 4 countries, Human Rights lawyers and monitors, a member of the Israeli Knesset, the General Secretary of the Palestinian National Initiative, a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council, and a recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, a veritable Ship of Mercy, will confront the Goliath of Mercilessness that has besieged 1.5 million people in Gaza for almost two years now making their lives not a state of beatitude, but rather a state of misery – “afflicted unwillingly with painful sufferings.” How reprehensible that the nations of the world sit mute in General Assembly at the United Nations, made silent by the coercive veto of the United States prodded by the Satanic voice of Israel; how pathetic the obsequious behavior of our Congress that protects its wallet rather than respond to the starved and humiliated Palestinians suffering behind steel walls and locked gates; how repulsive to witness silk suited ministers of the cloth raise their collective voices in prophetic proclamations condemning those already condemned to misery for disagreeing with their interpretation of the beatitudes as words of war not peace, of arrogance not humility, of mercilessness not justice, of hate not love; how sad to live these past sixty years and watch the dissembling of Judaism as it abandons its thousands of years of moral, ethical and religious substance to the drive of Zionist fanatics bound by a “secular nationalistic concept completely devoid of ethics and morals” (Rabbi Aharon Cohen of Neturei Karta, 2006). The voyage of “Hope” to Gaza, like that of the “Free Gaza” and “Liberty” in August, symbolizes for the people of the world, as it does for the people of Gaza that people care even if their governments do not. Governments can be and more often than not are bought and sold, victims of abusive power from within and without; but the conscience of a people churns inside recognizing, indeed feeling passionately what others suffer, what they themselves would not tolerate should it be inflicted on them, and they know in their hearts, ay in their very souls, that all people have a right to life with dignity and no nation has a right to manufacture a pretense that denies “life with dignity.” Those who inflict such pain claiming they are the victims lie, and in their actions destroy not just sources of energy that make possible tolerable living conditions, jobs, businesses and homes, but the substance of meaning, the purpose of existing, the state of beatitude where nothing is absent that a good desire may want, in the words of St. Gregory, who knew what real Christian civilized people had as rights in 380 AD. Happily he didn’t live in this barbaric age of uncivilized humanity that can encircle its enemy with barbed wire and steel and electric surveillance and bulldozers and F-16 fighter jets and missile carrying helicopters and thousands of highly trained obedient troops made conscienceless by Pavlovian modification. How advanced we’ve become in removing empathy from the heart that the desires of our rulers be met. “The stranglehold on Gaza’s borders has made … the work of the UN and the other humanitarian agencies … virtually impossible. Only a trickle of medicine, food, fuel and other goods is being allowed in … making people highly dependent on food and aid and it has brought the health system and basic services, such as water and sanitation near to collapse” (Medecins du Monde UK). These are the conditions that Israel inflicts on the hapless people of Gaza. How can a nation be reduced to such barbaric behavior? How can a nation listed as the 16th wealthiest nation on the planet inflict such heinous acts on a neighbor? How can the United States support such cruelty? “40% of Gaza residents have been deprived of clean water. Children are living in the cold and dark. Gaza pumps 40 million litres of untreated sewage into the sea each day, because of a lack of electricity to run the treatment plant, and lack of pipes to replace old ones … where 80% are unemployed and 20% work for the UN and NGO’s, therefore 100% of Gazans rely on the benevolence of the outside world” (Mairead Maguire, Nobel Peace Prize winner). Where are those who would comfort the afflicted, where are those who hunger and thirst for justice, where are the merciful, the peacemakers? They are not in Israel’s government or in the Congress of the United States or in the mega-churches of the Christian Zionists; these are the perpetrators of evil who seek to destroy people they do not know nor care to know. These are people driven by ideologies of hate constructed on pillars of racism, superiority and mythologies interpreted by fools. How can such conditions exist in a country controlled in every way by the “advanced” state of Israel? Why is it that the Palestinian people are allowed to suffer such physical, emotional, and psychological torture, such absolute humiliation, at the hands of the occupiers while the world looks on oblivious to those who inflict such torment on their victims? How ironic that the victims of Nazi cruelty, the Jews of Israel, those who were brought to the land of Palestine out of sympathy for their suffering, should become in their turn the militaristic state that creates victims to further their own political ends. This horrific irony cuts two ways like a knife blade severing the heart, it destroys the victim even as it makes a murderer of the assailant, for the Jew is no longer the victim but the perpetrator of known evil. That act unveils the myth of the beleaguered Jew that wanders the face of the earth in constant torment and suffering, a constant victim of those who would impose their will on him. It strips naked the lie that fosters the innocence of the Jews that created the state in 1947-48, as Dr. Ilan Pappe attests in his penetrating book on The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, when in fact they, the Jews, orchestrated a systematic erasure of the indigenous people even as they cried to the outside world that they were the victims. It is that lie, the massacre at Deir Yassin and all the subsequent massacres that killed thousands and forced 700,000 into exile that cannot be admitted, anymore than the slow, calculated massacre taking place in Gaza can be admitted that is destroying Judaism turning it into a cold, secular, fanatical religion devoid of ethics and morals, driven by greed and power as the good Rabbi Cohen states. The voyage of the “Hope” may be more than a voyage of the merciful to a bleeding land that receives no mercy; it may be a voyage of virtue that teaches, in the words of St. Augustine, “Hope is the greatest of all virtues, even greater than love. For love only teaches what should be, while Hope teaches us what will be.” Should Augustine’s sage remark become prophetic, a day will come in Israel when it will confront its past, indeed, as Professor Pappe so cogently states, “… unless Israel acknowledges the cardinal role it has played, and continues to play, in the dispossession of the Palestinian nation, and accepts the consequences this recognition of the ethnic cleansing implies, all attempts to solve the Israel-Palestine conflict are bound to fail.” Beneath that statement festers an infectious disease that sucks out the marrow of Judaic morals cleansing it of its life sustaining force as it has cleansed the natives of Palestine from the land that gave them life. “… the Jewish religious propensity to seek atonement has been replaced by the arrogant disregard for world public opinion and the self-righteousness with which Israel routinely fends off criticism” (Pappe). How psychologically terrifying to know that the power that provides for the “Jewish State” is the power that destroys the Jewish soul. How spiritually appalling to sense the dissembling of the Jewish moral and ethical cohesiveness that spans the centuries in favor of a nation determined by exclusivity and apartheid separateness. How physically disturbing to contemplate the reality of day to day existence where the Jews walk through opulence indifferent to the suffering, deprivation, and destitution of their neighbors. When will the state of Israel demand of itself what it demanded of those that caused the holocaust in Europe? When will it recognize and acknowledge that in their teaching as in the teaching of the Beatitudes, mercy and justice, reconciliation and retribution pave the road to peace, not checkpoints and barriers and walls and unjust laws that protect the oppressor at the expense of the oppressed? When will the governments of the world rise against the injustice done to the Palestinians and join the ordinary people of their nations as they set sail on the voyage of Hope to Gaza?

www.uruknet.info?p=48259

Link: www.atlanticfreepress.com/content/view/5537/1/