Mass Media and Mass Politics Conservative, Liberal and Marxist Perspectives

Mass Media and Mass Politics

Conservative, Liberal and Marxist Perspectives

by Prof. James Petras

Introduction

The role of the mass media (MM) in influencing mass and class behavior has been a central concern among critical writers, especially since the turn of the Twentieth century. Debates and studies on the MM have focused on its political bias, ownership and links to big business, relationships and ties to the state, relative openness and diversity, promotion of wars and corporate interests among other major issues affecting the relations of power, wealth and empire. Of particular interest to writers opposing and supporting the role of the MM is the impact of the MM in influencing mass outlook, opinions and behaviors. Essays, monographs and empirical studies have been published as to the extent of MM influence, the time frame in which it retains control, the ‘depth’ of loyalty to MM inculcated opinions, and the ‘place’ in which MM messages have the greatest influence in inducing mass opinion in conformity with ruling class interests.

An understanding of the role and power of the MM in contemporary capitalist society requires us to organize the debate according to three major schools – conservative, liberal and Marxist – before proceeding to a critical analysis and finally presenting notes towards setting alternatives to elite-controlled communications networks.

Competing Paradigms: Conservative, Liberal and Marxist

There are three paradigms on the role, power and relation of the mass media to mass opinion and action: the conservative, liberal and Marxist.
The Conservative, or ‘pluralist’ paradigm, propagated largely by US and European social scientists emphasizes the multiple voices, competing networks and outlets and diversity of opinions. The conservative – ‘pluralists’, contend that even if the ownership of the mass media is concentrated and its message biased in favor of the status quo, the mass media are simply one ‘resource’, countered by other ‘resources’ such as ‘large numbers’ of low income voters. Though conceding the unequal access to the mass media between labor and capital, pro-war regimes and anti-war opposition, they argue the opposition does have some outlets, numerous writers and publicists: Control over the mass media is ‘unequal but dispersed’. Moreover, they argue, that with the growth of the internet, there are multiple sources of information, and the mass media monopoly has been severely diluted, in effect ‘democratizing’ the ‘communication system’. The more astute pluralist ideologues cite empirical studies, which show that most individuals’ views are shaped by their family, friends and neighbors – face-to-face relations, much more so than the ‘impersonal media’. In summary, the conservative argue there is no all powerful mass media power elite, and to the extent that it exists, it is counterbalanced by alternative media, local opinion and its own tolerance of diverse and competing opinions.

The Liberal Paradigm of the Mass Media

The liberal paradigm describes the MM as the key instrument of ruling class domination in a liberal democracy. Beginning with a historical account of the concentration of ownership in the hands of a small number of corporations interlocked with business and the state, the MM is seen as an essential component in the ‘system of control’ which perpetuates the ruling class and empire-building by its control and indoctrination of mass opinion. The majority are converted into a malleable mass, induced to conformity to the interests and policies of the ruling class, thus preventing change and perpetuating the rule by the corporate elite. For the liberals the top-down control by the mass media explains the ‘paradox’ of a highly unequal, military-driven empire in the context of a free and democratic political system. The principle role of the academics is to convince other academics to unmask the media, to expose its fabrications, deceptions and hypocrisy, by emphasizing the ‘contradictions’ between ‘our’ democratic values and the lies of the powerful. The more radical version of the ‘liberal’ view of the mass media attributes the high degree of consensus between elite and masses in the United States to the omnipresence and omniscience of the mass media.

Marxist Critique

The Marxist approach to the mass media begins necessarily with a critique of the conservative and liberal perspectives. Against the conservative critique, it points out that ‘power’ is not a disembodied resource but a relationship in which the owners of wealth and power can multiply and accumulate political and economic assets. The presumption that ‘everyone’ or all groups can have some influence overlooks the fact that ownership of the means of communication is linked to other powerful economic groups, which wield power over banks, investment, trust funds, and these, in turn, influence political leaders and parties controlling legislation, candidate selection and government spending and agendas: this undermines the foundations and validity of the pluralist paradigm. On all the major events of our time, the mass media loyally echoed the political line of the capitalist state, justifying the invasion of Iraq, the demonizing of Iran and echoing the state line on Iran’s nuclear program, Israel’s blockade of Palestine and invasion of Lebanon and the bailout of Wall Street. In all the major events, a unified mass media played a leading role in propagating the message of the ruling class, among the masses, with varying degrees of success.

The liberal paradigm of ‘mass media determinism’ appears to have more credibility as its diagnosis of the structure of power and ownership of the MM corresponds to reality, as does its role in propagandizing the lies of the state on war and the economy. However, when we turn to the liberals’ image of MM control over mass opinion and attitudes, the assertions of all-powerful, all-controlling mass media successfully manipulating the public, these assumptions are questionable.

Historically, monopoly-oligopoly control of the mass media has been unsuccessful in shaping mass attitudes and action in a number of important political contexts. This is true even in the United States. For example, despite unanimous MM support for the privatization of the Federal Social Security Program, the huge public bailout of Wall Street, the continuation of the military occupation of Iraq and military escalation in Afghanistan and the current private for profit health system, the great majority of the US public is strongly opposed to the MM line. Despite the fact that the leaders and the majorities of both ruling political parties do not reflect mass opinion, a majority of Americans have consistently backed a national, universal public health care, the withdrawal of US troops and they have vehemently opposed the Congressional support for Wall Street and the big finance industry. An analysis reveals that the MM are influential in shaping mass opinion in line with ruling class and state policies on foreign policies, particularly the war policy, at the start of a war, aggression or militarist posture before the economic and human costs are brought home to US citizens in their everyday lives. The MM is relatively ineffective when it supports domestic measures, which adversely affect the everyday socio-economic life of the mass of the American people. The MM operate most successfully when they dominate the flow and access of information, as in foreign policy, where they can fabricate, distort and emotionally charge what is heard and seen by the public. In contrast, MM ruling class propaganda is severely weakened by the evidence of empirical experience, which Americans live in relation to their health, pensions, wages and employment. Marxists would argue that particular economic conditions create a class awareness, which counterbalances the power of the MM.

The weakness of the liberal view of the dominance of the mass media is found in its failure to take account of the impact of class contexts, the constraints of economic crises , the costs of war, the impact of downward mobility and the importance of basic social security in measuring or describing the operations of the mass media. Most liberal theory of the mass media is based on a selective view of contexts, issues, time and places to back their theory. For example, mass media and mass conformity ‘fits’ with the period of an expanding economy, upward social mobility, relative peace or less costly military interventions, particularly with regard to foreign policy issues. The MM’s long term backing for capitalism or the ‘free market’ dominates mass opinion up to the collapse of capitalism: With the crises and breakdown of the financial system and especially the loss by millions of people of their pensions, even some propagandists in the MM realize that position is indefensible. The liberal view of MM omnipotence and dominance of mass opinion is deeply flawed and fails to account for political-economic changes resulting from mass opinion which strongly deviates from MM propaganda.

The Marxist Perspective on the Mass Media

The Marxist perspective relativizes the influence of the MM making its power over the mass contingent on the degree to which the working and allied classes depend exclusively on the MM for information and for defining their political interests and social action. Marxists argue that the MM exercises maximum influence where there is little or no class organization or class struggle (like in the US). In contrast, where there is or was class organization, as in Venezuela or Bolivia, Chile in the 1970′s, and Central America in the 1980′s, the mass media have a far weaker impact on mass public opinion. Marxists argue that where there is a history and culture of working class, peasant, Indian or other class-based movements and class solidarity the ruling class/state propaganda promoted by the MM has only a weak effect. The masses have a preexistent framework, communication network and local opinion leaders, which filter out messages/propaganda that violate social/class/ethnic/national solidarity.

For example, in Chile during the Presidency of Salvador Allende (1970-73), the vast majority of the print and broadcast media were violently opposed to the Democratic Socialist President-yet President Allende won the election, the left increased its vote in subsequent municipal and congressional elections based on overwhelming support from the workers, poor peasants, Indians and unemployed shanty town residents.

More recently in Venezuela, the vast majority of MM has opposed President Chavez (1998-2008) in every congressional and municipal election, yet he has won massive electoral victories. In both cases, socio-economic programs (vast increases in health and education, programs, land distribution, upward mobility, progressive income programs, nationalization of basic resources), strong class based organized support and mass mobilizations creating class consciousness undermined the effectiveness of the mass media.

Throughout Latin America during the first decade of the new millennium, powerful popular movements grew in membership and organization despite the intense demonizing by all the major MM. In Brazil, the Landless Rural Workers expanded its membership and support for land occupations despite the criminalization of its activity by the MM. The same was true of the miners, workers, peasant and Indian movements in Bolivia – leading to the overthrow of MM-backed neo-liberal presidents. Similar mass uprisings overthrowing MM-backed Presidents took place in Argentina (2001) and Ecuador (2000 and 2005).

These cases illustrate the contingent and circumstantial conditions, which influence MM dominance of mass opinion. There are several common conditions in all these cases:

1. History, cultural, community and family linkages may create a ‘block’or ‘filter’ on MM propaganda, especially on socio-economic issues affecting workplace, neighborhood and living standards.

2. Class struggle creates horizontal class bonds, especially in response to state and ruling class repression, declining living standards, concentration of wealth and mass evictions and displacement. Class struggle creates positive responses to messages reinforcing the struggle and a negative rejection to messages from publicly identified media taking the side of the ruling class.

3. Class organizations provide an alternative framework for understanding events,and for defining mass interests in class terms which resonate with their everyday experience and provide information and interpretation that counters the MM. The higher the degree of class organization, the greater class solidarity and struggle the weaker the MM impact on mass opinion. The converse is also true. Whereas in the US, trade unions are run by officials drawing $300,000 dollars or more a year, who emphasize collaboration with the bosses (and publicly reject class struggle politics) and fail to organize 93% of the private workforce, the MM have an easier time influencing mass opinion.

4. The stronger the alternative class networks of opinion formation, the weaker the influence of the MM. Where social movements develop local cadre, opinion leaders and community rooted activists, the less likely the masses will take their ‘cues’ on events from the formal, distant MM. In many cases the masses selectively tune into the MM for entertainment (sports, soap operas, comedies) while rejecting their news reports and editorials. Multi-generational families living in close proximity, located in homogenous occupational neighborhoods, with strong histories of class-based construction of communities generate class solidarity and social messages which come in conflict with the ruling class messages which promote ‘private initiative’ and ‘successful micro-capitalism’ or the criminalization of collective class action. Both liberal and conservative views of the MM fail to account for the class context of media receptivity and power; the pluralists understate its capacity to dominate in times of weak class organization; the liberals overstate the power of the MM by ignoring the countervailing power of class-based organization, class struggle, culture, history and family traditions and solidarity that link individuals to their class and undermine receptivity to the ruling class message of the MM.

Does Obama Support National Police Force?

Who’s going to Finance the rising US National Debt ?

• Nov. 5th, 2008 at 12:28 PM

Election Fever is over and President Elect Barack Obama has until January to formulate a realistic game plan to address the unprecedented financial morass that he will shortly be inheriting. He will , no doubt, have to have the moral character to honestly inform his electorate of the true gravity of the situation they now face. Gone is the time for platitudes, electioneering and vacuous speeches. The time of  “Change we can believe in” is over; now it’s time for “Change we have to Go Through”

The most difficult aspect to Obama’s mission will be to inform the American Public that the Party is actually over and it’s time to pay the bill that has been steadily mounting out of control and is now a mathematically impossible amount for the country to actually ever pay back. The lifestyle enjoyed during these last years has been possible using the rest of the world to pick up the IOU’s. With the Wall St Nuclear Financial Strike delivered through credit default swaps, mortgage backed securities and derivative trading, the world is now reeling and stands over an abyss of enormous proportions. Despite the Wall St Media Machine,  Governments around the World have realised that they are already over the edge and falling headlong downwards with no sight of the bottom.

First on the list will be the $1 Trillion budget deficit. The Treasury has just announced that it has to borrow $550 Billion in the October – December quarter. Goldman Sachs estimates that another $2 Trillion will be needed to finance the current deficit, buy $500 Billion in bad assets and roll over $561 Billion in Maturing Treasuries securities. This is all before Obama spends a single penny on Healthcare, Alternative Energy research, infrastructure, Medicaid or unemployment insurance. This does not address the Trillions that have been borrowed from the Social Security Fund either. So where’s the money coming from ? The population is already taxed to the hilt and cannot afford to pay anymore. Unemployment is rising, poverty is rising, homelessness is rising. Obama has said to the banks that they can only qualify for Taxpayer money if they “Temporarily” suspend foreclosure proceedings on these same taxpayers. Why doesn’t he just give the money to the taxpayers right there, let them pay off their mortgage, keep their house and have some leeway to pay the extra taxes that Obama is going to ask them for ?  Treasury Notes ? The rest of the world has already started to back off 10 year T Bills as witnessed by the slowly rising yield and falling price of the latter. “There has been a real diminishing of demand from foreign investors over the last few months” said Tom Tucci, head Treasuries trader at RBC Capital Markets in New York. “We’ve seen them pulling back”

As the steadily worsening Real Economic data floods in to International view, foreign investors and Governments are beginning to realise that the US cannot spend it’s way back to Economic stability. Something has to give. Reality has to have it’s say eventually. The only, single way that the US can get out of it’s current predicament is through the trust of these foreign investors and Governments, and that is fading away. Brazil, Russia, China and India have formed BRIC, a group of nations that have decided to look out for their own interests where the Dollar as the Reserve Currency is not considered beneficial to anyone anymore. In Europe we have seen a turn towards the Euro as a posssible reserve currency. The Dollar has outlived it’s usefullness and the rest of the World is paying the price for it’s former fealty.

These are the facts that the new President should be talking about when he promises…”There are many who won’t agree with every decision or policy I make as president, and we know that government can’t solve every problem. But I will always be honest with you about the challenges we face.”

Revenge of the Left across the world

Whatever the exact result of the US elections tomorrow, we must assume that the whole governing machinery of Washington and the state capitols will soon be hostile to laissez-faire thinking.

more about “Revenge of the Left across the world …“, posted with vodpod

By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard

It is not just that the Democrats will win a crushing victory in both houses of Congress, perhaps reaching the 60-seat Senate threshold that lets them steam-roll legislation. It is also that the incoming class of 2008 is of a new creed. Many no longer believe – or actively reject – the free trade and free market catechisms.

As commentator Markos Moulitsas put it in Newsweek: “The big question is, will Democrats nationwide simply ‘win’ the night–or will they deliver an electoral drubbing so thorough that it signals the utter rejection of conservative ideology and kills the notion that America is a ‘center-right’ country?” he said.

No matter that statist policies were responsible for this global crisis in the first place. It was Western governments that set interest rates too low for too long, encouraging us all to abuse credit.

It was Eastern governments that held down their currencies to pursue mercantilist trade advantage, thereby accumulating vast foreign reserves that had to be recycled. Hence the bond bubble. This is the deformed creature known as Bretton Woods II. Protectionist Democrats are right to complain that the game is rigged. Free trade? Laugh on.

But at this point I have given up hoping that we will draw the right conclusions from this crisis. The universal verdict is that capitalism has run amok.

In any case the damage caused as credit retrenchment squeezes real industry is likely to be so great that Barack Obama may have to pursue unthinkable policies, just as Franklin Roosevelt had to ditch campaign orthodoxies and go truly radical after his landslide victory in 1932. Indeed, Mr Obama – if he wins – may have to start by nationalizing the US car industry.

For those who missed it, I recommend Edward Stourton’s BBC interview with Eric Hobsbawm, the doyen of Marxist history.

“This is the dramatic equivalent of the collapse of the Soviet Union: we now know that an era has ended,” said Mr Hobsbawm, still lucid at 91.

“It is certainly greatest crisis of capitalism since the 1930s. As Marx and Schumpeter foresaw, globalization not only destroys heritage, but is incredibly unstable. It operates through a series of crises.

“There’ll be a much greater role for the state, one way or another. We’ve already got the state as lender of last resort, we might well return to idea of the state as employer of last resort, which is what it was under FDR. It’ll be something which orients, and even directs the private economy,” he said.

Dismiss this as the wishful thinking of an old Marxist if you want, but I suspect his views may be closer to the truth than the complacent assumptions so prevalent in the City.

To those who still think that business can go on as normal now that EU taxpayers have had to rescue the financial system, I can only say: what will happen to London if EU exchange controls are imposed, or if leverage is restricted by draconian laws – as demanded by the German, Dutch, and Nordic Left?

Does the UK still have a blocking minority under EU voting rules to stop a blitz of directives that could shut down half the activities of the City – or the ‘Casino’ as they say in Brussels? I doubt it.

Who thinks that the three key Commission posts – single market, competition, and trade – will still be held by free marketeers when the new team comes in next year?

In Germany, Oskar Lafontaine’s Linke party now has 23pc support in Saarland on a Marxist pledge to nationalize banks and utilities. Needless to say, the Social Democrats (SPD) are shifting hard Left to protect their flank.

“The rule of the radical market ideology that began with Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan has ended with a loud bang,” said Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Germany’s foreign minister and SPD candidate for chancellor next year.

“We need a comprehensive new start, so we can reestablish our society on fresh foundations. People create value, not locusts,” he said.

France has its own Gaullist version on this, seizing on the crisis to launch the most far-reaching strategy of state intervention since the 1970s.

“Laissez-faire, c’est fini,” said President Nicolas Sarkozy. “We will intervene massively whenever a strategic enterprise needs our money.”

Such language can now be heard daily across Europe. It can only intensify as the fall-out from the EU’s €1.8bn trillion (£1.4 trillion) bank rescue becomes clearer, and as Europe’s elites discover that their own banks are the most leveraged in the world and have played their own Wagnerian part in Gotterdammerung.

European and UK banks are five times more exposed to emerging markets than US banks. They alone hold the collective time-bomb of $1.6 trillion (£990bn) in hard currency loans to Eastern Europe – now starting to detonate in Hungary, Ukraine, Romania, and even Russia.

At some point, Europe’s political class will face the awful truth that their own credit bubbles are just as bad – and perhaps worse – than the excesses of US sub-prime property. As that occurs, the shock will move by degrees from revulsion to political rage.

Professor Hobsbawm, who spent his youth watching Hitler’s rise in Berlin, has a warning for those who think this will help the Left in any recognizable form. “In the 1930s, the net political effect of the Depression was to enormously strengthen the Right,” he said.

America was the great exception, as it may prove to be again. I for one will take the enlightened “socialism” of Barack Obama any day over the Hegelian broth nearing the boil in Europe.

First Step Towards New World Order?

Bush Calls Economic Summit for November 15

Group of 20 nations invited to attend Washington meeting

French President Sarkozy, President Bush and European Commission President Barroso speak with reporters at Camp David.

By Merle D. Kellerhals Jr.
Staff Writer

Washington — The leaders of 20 nations have been invited to attend an economic summit in Washington to discuss the current financial crisis, its causes and efforts to resolve it through more effective regulation and reform, the White House says.

“In addition, we expect that the leaders will discuss the effects of the crisis on emerging economies and developing nations,” White House press secretary Dana Perino said October 22.  A growing concern among developed economies is what impact the current financial crisis will have long-term on developing nations and foreign financial assistance.

President Bush is inviting the members of the Group of 20 to a “Summit on Financial Markets and the World Economy” to be held in the Washington area November 15.  It will be the first of a series of summits to bring together world leaders who participate in the G20 finance process to discuss current economic issues.

Bush met with French President Nicolas Sarkozy and European Commission President José Manuel Barroso in the presidential retreat at Camp David, Maryland, over the weekend of October 18 to discuss the economic crisis.  Plans for the summit were developed during that meeting, Perino said.

“The summit will also provide an important opportunity for leaders to strengthen the underpinnings of capitalism by discussing how they can enhance their commitment to open, competitive economies, as well as trade and investment liberalization,” Perino said.

The G20 members are Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Turkey, the United Kingdom, the United States and the European Union.

“The G20 finance process, which includes key developed and emerging market countries, was established in 1999 after the last financial crisis with worldwide implications,” Perino said.

International Monetary Fund Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn, World Bank President Robert Zoellick, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and Financial Stability Forum Chairman Mario Draghi have been asked to attend.

Perino said a White House dinner will be held the night before the summit.

“The leaders will review progress being made to address the current financial crisis, advance a common understanding of its causes and, in order to avoid a repetition, agree on a common set of principles for reform of the regulatory and institutional regimes for the world’s financial sectors,” Perino said.

The principles developed at this first summit will be elaborated by working groups for consideration at subsequent summits.

Perino said it is uncertain if the new president-elect will be invited to attend the summit meeting.  The U.S. presidential election will be held November 4.

“We will seek the input of the president-elect,” she said. The summit comes about two months before Bush leaves office.

“The time will be just about right to have it then because a lot of the emergency measures that these countries have put forward are hopefully starting to have an impact on thawing the credit market,” Perino said.

Perino said Bush thinks it’s critical to include developing nations in the talks because they are important in the global economy on a variety of levels.

Bush’s Foreign Policy Heritage Awaits Obama

Hanan Awarekeh Readers Number : 59

05/11/2008 Newly-elected U.S. president Barack Obama faces the daunting task of sorting out American policy in the Middle East and turning around deep-seated hostility in the region after it was plunged into turmoil under the Bush administration. Crucial dates loom for America’s controversial role in Iraq, its relations with archfoe Iran and its efforts to achieve an elusive peace accord between the Zionist entity and the Palestinians. There are also fundamental long-term questions about US dependence on Middle Eastern oil and Washington’s relations with the Arab states of the Gulf. US President George W. Bush’s push to spread democracy to the Middle East has run into the sand while his so-called “war on terror” to stamp out Al-Qaeda and the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan have only sown deep anti-American sentiment in the region. “Is Obama going to save America and the world from the hostility and extremism caused by Bush’s policies?” questioned Al-Dustur newspaper in Jordan, a close US ally. “The mantra for the next administration has to be, ‘Be careful what you wish for because you just might get it,’” said James Lindsay, who was a foreign policy aide to President Bill Clinton and is now with the University of Texas, Austin. “The new president-elect is going to have a full foreign policy inbox and decisions to make with enormous consequences for American security,” added Lindsay. Foreign policy advisers say Obama, a Democrat who is the first black U.S. president, has an understanding of world affairs rooted in a childhood spent partly in Indonesia and a quest to learn about his father’s Kenyan heritage. On November 15, Bush will convene a summit in Washington to look at the global economic crisis. While Obama is unlikely to attend the meeting himself, it could give his economic team the chance to meet some of the visiting foreign officials on the sidelines of the conference. The Obama administration will also inherit the Iraq and Afghan wars and an intensifying effort to pursue al Qaeda militants on Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan. Stopping Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon – Tehran says its nuclear program is purely for civilian purposes – and holding North Korea to its promise to dismantle its nuclear weapons program are also pressing issues. Bush’s hardline approach has failed to deter Tehran from its nuclear drive. Some analysts say sanctions on Tehran have actually increased support within Iran for President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, spurring the tirades against the “Great Satan” and Israel to distract attention from domestic economic woes. “America will never stop its enmity with Iran and it appears that the US policy under the next presidency will not fundamentally change,” said the Tehran newspaper Kayan. Bush has never ruled out a military strike to stop Iran, while Obama has said he would engage in direct diplomacy at the same time pushing for tougher sanctions. Obama, like his defeated Republican rival John McCain, has vowed a reinvigorated effort toward Middle East peace and promised staunch support for Israel. Obama has pledged to end the Iraq war and bolster the U.S. troop presence in Afghanistan. But the biggest challenge will be to reduce a near 145,000-strong force in Iraq without compromising on security gains after a deeply unpopular war that has claimed tens of thousands of Iraqi lives and killed more than 4,190 US personnel. And if Washington and Baghdad fail to sign a military pact by December 31 and there is no new UN mandate, Obama will face a potentially hazardous situation with US occupation forces having no legal right to operate. The ability to tackle deteriorating security in Afghanistan and pursue militants is “linked to the ability to make progress on political reconciliation in Iraq and the ability to draw down there,” Obama foreign policy adviser Mark Lippert Lippert said. McCain agreed on the need for more forces in Afghanistan, but opposed a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq, saying U.S. occupation troops should remain there as long as they are needed. Obama’s willingness to talk directly to U.S. adversaries such as Iran and Syria was another major point of disagreement during the campaign. Obama said the Bush administration’s resistance to engaging foes has limited its diplomatic options, a position which the McCain camp called naive. Obama opposed calls to oust Russia from the elite Group of Eight club of rich nations in response to Moscow’s August war with Georgia, although he condemned the Russian invasion, triggered by Georgia’s bid to reimpose control over breakaway South Ossetia. One foreign policy priority Obama is likely to concentrate on is repairing ties with traditional allies, including many European countries that were strained under the Bush administration. With the world’s most powerful economy on the brink of recession, Obama has said one of his long-term repairs would be a renewable energy drive to break America’s addiction to oil from the Middle East and other hotspots. While this aim could hit the revenues of the oil-rich Gulf States, the US administration will need to keep the region’s sovereign funds sweet so they still see America as a good place to invest their vast petrodollar wealth.

Time for Pakistani Generals to Tell the Truth

Since there is no hope that Pakistanis will make their military accountable to the people; that political leadership in Pakistan and the masses will liberate themselves from the military occupation and exploitation; that they will get a lesson from the past; that America, India and Israel will give up undermining Pakistan’s very existence, the whole South Asian region is at the verge of witnessing prelude to the Greater War in the Middle East.

Time for General Musharraf to tell the truth
From BCCI to ISI: The saga of entrapment continues

By: ABID ULLAH JAN Published: July 14, 2006

OPERATION 9/11 was a carefully planned intelligence operation, much like the smaller Operation C-Chase to entrap the BCCI. The 9/11 hijackers were agents and double agents and probably unaware of the scope of the operation. They, along with the ISI, were instruments of a carefully planned international intelligence operation, which was designed to entrap Osama bin Laden and allow for war on Afghanistan. The evidence confirms that the ISI was used as the local arm of the CIA in South Asia. After all, the ISI owes its existence to the CIA. Now that the truth is becoming known, what lies ahead for the ISI and Pakistan will depend on when Washington feels the time is right to turn Pakistan into another Iraq and Afghanistan. The ISI’s role in 9/11 has already forced Pakistan to pay a price in the form of permanent U.S. forces in Pakistan, and the agreement of continued provision of support to the U.S. war of aggression on Afghanistan.

History shows that the U.S. government has previously attempted to use ISI crimes to press Pakistani governments into submission. The Washington Post published a report by John Ward and Kamran Khan in its September 12, 1994 edition in an attempt to implicate the Pakistan army in drug trafficking. The News published the same report in October 1994. Another attempt was made through Kamran Khan in the April 04, 1999 edition of The News. More recently, the ISI faced severe criticism at a U.S. Senate briefing on the drug trade, a crime in which the CIA has been involved since 1960.285 This hearing of the U.S. Senate was just another threat in the vast trap being laid for the Pakistani army for the next several years.

The entrapment process adopted by the U.S. agencies is very simple. They plan and commit a crime of serious magnitude. They achieve their strategic objective behind the crime. At the same time, they involve the victim in just a fraction of the overall criminal plan. The unknown/unintended cooperation in the crime is then later used to punish the victim. This is exactly how the BCCI was trapped. Irrefutable evidence, as discussed in the earlier sections of this book, demonstrates that the CIA funded the operation against the BCCI with drug money, earned through the organized selling of drugs to its own employees. According to the court transcripts of the BCCI case: “By late 1987, the agents had passed approximately $2.2 million derived from Don Chepe’s proceeds through the IDC account, and had split the 7-8 percent commission profit with Mora and Don Chepe’s representative Javier Ospina, without telling any BCCI officers about drugs.”286 Yet, it was the BCCI that paid the price.

Similarly, the U.S. lawmakers planned to punish the ISI and Pakistan for drug trafficking, yet ignored the fact that even if some military or ISI officials were involved in drug trafficking on a personal level, the amount they privately smuggled into the United States was no more than a fraction of the amount trafficked by the U.S. agencies. According to Paul Johnson, Modern Times, “By the end of the 1980s it was calculated that the illegal use of drugs in the United States now netted its controllers over $110 billion a year.”287

According to the San Diego Union-Tribune (August 13, 1996), Celerino Castelo—a former DEA agent—stated that together with three other ex-DEA agents, they were willing to testify in Congress regarding their direct knowledge of CIA involvement in international drug trafficking. Castillo estimates that approximately 75 percent of narcotics entered the United States with the acquiescence or direct participation of CIA and foreign intelligence agents.

The drug case against the ISI was used to extract more obedience from Islamabad for strategic reasons. However, the case was set aside once the military regime accepted additional conditions, which are not publicly known. However, this will not be the case when it is time to discard the ISI and remove Pakistan as a hurdle in achieving unknown future strategic objectives of the administrations in Washington or Tel Aviv.

Making a case on the basis of the ISI’s involvement in drug trafficking was sufficient only for blackmailing the opportunist dictator in Islamabad into further submission. The case on the basis of the ISI’s involvement in Operation 9/11 can now pave the way for aggression against Pakistan. When it is time to turn Pakistan into another Iraq, as General Musharraf indicated as a possibility in early 2003, the Washington administration will ignore the fact that 9/11 was well-orchestrated, well-planned, and the product of numerous agencies—including the aviation authority, the Air Force, the FBI, the Immigration Services, and a centralized secret group of planners with international intelligence connections with the CIA, the ISI, and others. Only the ISI will be held accountable for everything that transpired on 9/11. If India is used to play a lead role in neutralizing Pakistan, that would realize General Musharraf’s worst nightmare. India has already been used as a threat to scare Musharraf into compromising on Pakistan’s sovereignty, principles of international law, and the norms of human decency.

In the case of Afghanistan, the United States was not ready to listen to any proposals from the Taliban government—as if it had already decided that occupation of Afghanistan was the only solution. The numerous, almost daily Taliban appeals to the United States for patience and restraint were dismissed. In Mullah Omar’s words:

“America always repeats threats and makes various accusations and now it is threatening military attack. This is being done in circumstances in which we have offered alternatives on the Osama issue. We have said, if you have evidence against Osama, give it to the Afghan Supreme Court or the Ulema (clerics) of three Islamic countries, or have OIC (Organization of Islamic Countries) observers keep an eye on Osama. But America rejected these, one by one. If America had considered these suggestions there would not have been a chance of such a great misunderstanding. We appeal to the American government to exercise complete patience, and we want America to gather complete information and find the actual culprits. We assure the whole world that neither Osama nor anyone else can use the Afghan land against anyone else.288

Future entreaties from General Musharraf or any Pakistani head of state at the time of U.S., Indian, or Israeli aggression—or any combination of these—against Pakistan would likely also fall on deaf ears. The United States will not want to lose the opportunity it created by engineering Operation 9/11. Under the leadership of an opportunist and myopic military leadership, Pakistan has slipped far too deep into the trap.

There is only one solution to the present crisis. Only truth will save Pakistan from the eternal bullying and blackmail by Washington. Air force Chief Mushaf Ali Mir has been eliminated. General Mahmood has been removed from his job and completely silenced. Saeed Sheikh has been convicted of a crime that he never committed. Khalid Sheikh is in the custody of the CIA, which has no plans to put him on public trial. All these individuals have a lot to tell. The information they possess can expose those individuals behind Operation 9/11.

One of the last remaining people who can tell the truth, and thus save Pakistan, is General Musharraf. He can tell the world how he is being blackmailed and what information is being used to blackmail him. Will he tell the truth to save Pakistan from further abuse and the rest of the humanity from the totalitarian designs of modern day fascists? Musharraf may worry about the consequences. Yes, he will undoubtedly lose his position, and even put his life at stake, but there are those who will believe. The world already knows so much. The information he could share would unravel the mysteries still surrounding the 9/11 attacks. These ambiguities exist due to the U.S. administration’s refusal to share basic information, such as details from the black boxes of the planes that hit the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Silence on the part of General Musharraf will never save Pakistan or keep him in power forever. General Musharraf will eventually be replaced, like many in positions of power before him. Both General Musharraf and General Mahmood are presently in a position to perform a service to humanity that no other individual can—they can tell the truth about the involvement of the ISI in 9/11, about the role of Saeed Sheikh and Khalid Sheikh, and about the evidence General Musharraf was shown before the U.S. attack on Afghanistan that forced him to submit to every demand from Washington and prompted his utterance, “The Taliban days are numbered.”

Unlike the silence of Pakistan’s chief of Air Staff, Mushaf Ali Mir, the silence of General Mahmood has saved his life—so far. Of course, revealing the facts about what actually transpired between General Mahmood and his fellow CIA and Mossad contacts in the United States before and on September 11 will jeopardize his life, but by telling the truth he will save the lives of thousands who are already dying and the millions who may die in the bigger wars to come. If General Musharraf and General Mahmood choose to remain silent, they will die with the blood of all those who are dead or dying due to Operation 9/11 on their hands.

General Musharraf wants to remain president-in-uniform till 2012. America wants to keep Pakistan occupied by its armed forces for as long as possible. It seems that with these complimentary objectives, Musharraf and Washington are getting along well. The reality, however, is totally different.

The United States extracted all concessions from General Musharraf through sheer blackmail. Musharraf would never have surrendered Pakistan’s sovereignty and independence merely on a phone call from Collin Powell or George W. Bush if he were not blackmailed for the ISI’s role in Operation 9/11.

Of course, the ISI was used to frame Arabs for the 9/11 attacks. But in the process, ISI’s guilt was established as an agency supporting and financing the so-declared hijackers. There are ample reasons to believe that evidence about ISI’s involvement in Operation 9/11 was used to blackmail General Musharraf into the quickest surrender of our age.

Washington knows that the general did not concede much by choice. With elections for the next parliament due in 2007, General Musharraf is desperately building a political base in the country to get a re-election from the new parliament for the next term or to get a change in the constitution to a presidential democracy to be able to shed the uniform and also to retain the political and executive powers as president. If Musharraf succeeds in this plan, this will go in favor of Washington. But Washington sees some serious problems, which would derail Musharraf’s bid to remain the most powerful man in Pakistan. This may lead Washington to settle General Musharraf’s issue the way it dealt with General Zia. The following factors show that assassinating Musharraf might become one of the best options for the United States in the present circumstances.

General Musharraf has not outlived his utility for Washington as yet. However, it is not possible for General Musharraf to remain the army chief forever. The best way Washington believes its interest could be served is to make General Musharraf’s autocratic rule look more democratic. For that, instead of crafting new webs and making another leader to fully submit to the colonial masters of present age, Washington would like to see Musharraf become another Hosnie Mubarak in Islamabad. Washington now wants him to shed his uniform and become a civilian president in the present setup.

The dilemma before Washington, however, is that Musharraf can become a president for life by deception and intrigue. However, he can never remain the chief of armed forces for life. On the other hand, no civilian ruler can use the military in the service of the United States as effectively as General Musharraf is doing because of his position as the military chief. At the same time, the U.S. efforts to create an alternate political leadership in the country to increase pressure on Musharraf also seem to be getting nowhere.

At the home front, General Musharraf’s present political allies are more of a liability than asset for him now. The main political allies, the Pakistan Muslim League (PML Quid-e-Azam group), are most corrupt, inefficient and ineffective, with no hope of securing required seats in the next elections. There is also serious internal dissent within the PML (Q).

General Musharraf’s other ally, Mutahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), is also considered a corrupt, blackmailing, sub-nationalist-minded, mafia-styled gang, which is fully exploiting the weaknesses of the General. MQM is the most unreliable, even treacherous, political ally for him.

Musharraf propped up the religious alliance of Muthahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) and then used it for constitutional changes in his favor. Musharraf reneged on public promises to MMA to relinquish the post of Chief of Army Staff as part of the process of restoring democracy in Pakistan. Islamabad’s suspension from Commonwealth was lifted on the condition that General Musharraf would give up his military uniform by the end of 2004 as a proof of his commitment to democratic reform. Now the religious alliance is sensing his weaknesses and is gearing up its barrage against him.

There is a very strong perception within the religious parties that the MQM was behind the Karachi blast in April 2006. Scores of people, including prominent MMA leader Haji Hanif Billo, were killed when a bomb went off at a religious gathering in Karachi. Since then, the government has contemplated no action against the MQM, a factor that will agitate more public anger.

Former prime ministers Nawaz, Sharif and Benazir are now flexing their muscles to challenge him in the coming days. There are talks of joint efforts to remove Musharraf and even the MQM is signaling that it is willing to join such a campaign. If Benazir and Nawaz decided to return before the elections, even their arrest would make them political heroes, creating more embarrassment for the General.

The entire governance and economy is in a big mess. Musharraf relied on Shaukat Aziz, who has miserably failed on all counts. Inflation is wrecking the life of the common man – the vote bank in any elections. That vote bank is not impressed with Shaukat Aziz blowing smoke in their face with economic jargon. For a common man, for example, it is enough to know that the sugar crisis is still haunting the country. The prices have almost doubled in recent months to record levels. Still, there are no imports and all the national demands are being met in abundant supply from local stocks. The price hike gave windfall profits of billions of rupees to a few select sugar cartel mafias within a few months. The much-vaunted National Accountability Bureau was forced to drop the probe immediately after it started. The common man knows that corruption is at an all-time high within the state machinery. Abuse of power and authority are daily headlines. Police and the judiciary system remain most corrupt as well.

Thus, General Musharraf and Washington are now left with extremely limited, difficult and almost impossible options.

* Even if the military is still behind General Musharraf, it is highly unlikely that he may decide to confront the Americans, forget about democracy, stop taking international pressures, and take absolute power in his own hands once again as he had when he took power in October 1999. It does not seem possible that Musharraf would once more abolish the assemblies, defer the constitution, draft his own constitution, and declare a presidential system or even martial law. In the past, he formed a team of so-considered honest, selfless and efficient professionals to rectify the damages done in the past few years and tried to bring back control in the economy, security, governance, judiciary and social welfare of the country. He has clearly failed. Of course, the suffering masses are not interested in democracy or martial law. They want security, dignity, cheap food and energy, as well as economic development. It does not matter to them who delivers this. Nevertheless, it will be a huge task to fool them twice with the same mantra. On the part of General Musharraf, it would amount to saying, “I am redoing the eight-year experiment from the scratch.”
* Another option is renegotiating with the Americans. It is not a problem for him to bend backwards even more. He would send Pakistani forces to Iraq, recognize Israel, commit more troops to Miran Shah and other tribal areas, take responsibility for finishing off the anti-occupation resistance in Afghanistan and the Madrassas in Pakistan, and allow more unrestricted access to the United States into Pakistan’s security and intelligence, as well as nuke apparatus. Nevertheless, for sustaining these approaches, he has to remain the chief of armed forces. With these measures, he can immediately become the blue-eyed boy of the Americans once again and there will be no further chatter in Washington about democracy, which is only intended to push Musharraf into further submission. But Musharraf will have a revolt on hand in the home front and perhaps even a rebellion in the army.
* The third option is to contest elections with whatever support base the General has so far and keep Benazir, Nawaz and Sharif out of the electoral process to weaken their collective nuisance. Some heavy-duty management will be required to “arrange” the required results and to neutralize the MMA and PPP/Nawaz factor. The general has done this with the help of ISI before and can do the same again. Consequently, MQM will continue to exploit the situation and basically nothing will improve in the country in terms of economy and governance or law and order; likewise, the same team of suspects will reappear to exploit him even further for the next four years. Things can get mismanaged if Nawaz and Benazir decided to come back before the elections and launch a street protest calling their court cases politically motivated. The MMA would also join them and a bit of “hidden hand” support could start an unexpected but very real inferno. Even if everything goes well, General Musharraf will have to give up his position as the military chief. Losing his military position will make him lose all attractiveness to Washington, which is mainly concerned with sustaining Pakistan’s occupation with the Pakistani armed forces and using the Pakistani army in the interest of the United States.
* The fourth option is that the General reads the writing on the wall and decides to quit, handing over power to the next army chief who would promise the elections or would decide to stay in power depending upon what he wants to do. Musharraf will have to leave the country with his family and may settle in some friendly or neutral country like Turkey or a country in Europe. This option suits Washington, but General Musharraf is addicted to power to an extent that it is highly unlikely that he will hang his boots up so easily.
* The last option is assassination. General Musharraf may be assassinated either by his army men, any local resistance groups, Baluchistan Liberation army assassins, or, most probably, someone sent by the Americans to blame “religious extremists” and pave the way for another military general to take over and continue Pakistan’s occupation for another decade or so. Being in charge of Musharraf’s personal security in many ways, it is only the Americans who can successfully carry out the assassination operation against him. His departure in a violent manner will serve many of the United States’ strategic objectives.

In the near future, events would basically unfold in one of the many options discussed above. Right now, both Musharraf and Washington are confused and have not clearly decided on any of the options.

For Washington, the assassination option carries the most weight. We know from experience that leaders in the Muslim world who associated themselves with Washington unconditionally are doomed. The Shah of Iran, General Zia and Saddam Hussein are prominent examples. General Musharraf may continue to rule by force and power, but would not have any grassroots support and hence would remain on shaky ground within his own country.

Besides blackmailing to the fullest, Washington is giving General Musharraf a very tough time. Musharraf was the architect of Kargil operation against India. At that time he was dare devil, hardly caring about anyone. However, after the blackmail for ISI’s misadventures, he has been turned into Washington’s most submissive serf. Out of fear, he has surrendered so much that now he is not finding the courage to stand up to Washington or to face the nation. He has gone silent these days and is not defending U.S. actions, nor is he making supportive statements about the U.S. strategy in the Muslim world.

To be continued…

Collapse of US auto sales points to deep recession

By Jerry White
5 November 2008

Sales of new vehicles in the US plummeted in October as consumers—hit by growing unemployment, falling income and tighter credit—sharply reduced purchases of cars and trucks. Sales fell by a staggering 31.9 percent last month over the previous year in a further sign the US economy has entered a deep and protracted downturn, threatening the jobs of millions of working people.

Sales fell below a million for the second straight month to the lowest level since January 1991, according to Autodata Corp. At the current rate, automakers would only sell 10.56 million cars and trucks in 2008—down from 16 million in 2007—the lowest number since 1983, when the US economy struggled to emerge from the slump of the early 1980s.

Adjusted for increases in the US population, last month was the worst since World War II, GM sales analyst Michael DiGiovanni told reporters. “This is clearly a severe recession,” he said.

General Motors—which is seeking a government bailout to avert bankruptcy and expedite a merger with number-three US automaker Chrysler—suffered a 45 percent decline in sales. Chrysler sales fell by 35 percent and Ford’s fell by 30 percent. The sharp falloff also hit top-selling Japanese-based carmakers. Toyota saw a 23 percent decline despite offering zero percent financing; Honda’s sales dropped 28 percent.

Further production cutbacks and the layoff of another 10,000 autoworkers over the last two weeks contributed to another drop in overall output at US factories. The Institute for Supply Management reported its manufacturing-activity index fell to a 26-year low in October. In addition, the Commerce Department reported that factory orders fell 2.5 percent in September from August levels, much worse than the 0.7 percent drop analysts had predicted.

As a result of falling demand from steelmakers—a key supplier for all manufacturers—production at 17 of the nation’s 29 blast furnaces is being shut down. “We’re dealing with a situation that could develop into another Great Depression, if not handled properly,” Daniel DiMicco, chief executive of Charlotte, North Carolina-based steelmaker Nucor Corp., told the Wall Street Journal.

The Detroit News reported auto executives expect the market to get even weaker and are bracing for a protracted slowdown. Ford economist Emily Morris said, “If we believe that the third quarter was not the bottom for the economy, it’s likely that the third quarter will not have been the worst for industry sales either,” she said.

With workers facing increasing economic insecurity, consumer confidence fell in October to its lowest level since 1967, when the Conference Board, a New York research group, began keeping records. After years of accessible car loans, the drying up of credit has hit the automakers hard. GM’s financing arm, GMAC, is reportedly offering loans only to customers with top credit scores. In many areas of the US, only a third or so of all customers would qualify for loans, a GM spokesman said.

One or more of Detroit’s Big Three automakers are not expected to survive the crisis. Last week, rating agency Moody’s downgraded Chrysler and GM debt for the second time in three months, as well as the debt of Ford’s lending arm, citing “the pace and severity of erosion in the U.S. automotive sector” and suggesting the companies might have difficulty remaining solvent through 2009.

The decades-long collapse of the US auto industry is one of the sharpest examples of the decline of American capitalism. In the 1970s, US carmakers controlled more than 80 percent of the US market, with GM selling more than half the cars. By 2008, Asian- and European-based carmakers accounted for 51 percent of US sales.

Faced with falling market share and profits, the auto executives carried out an unrelenting attack on the jobs and living standards of workers, which continues to this day. GM, which employed 350,000 unionized workers in 1970, now has fewer than 70,000 blue-collar workers. Entire cities, such as Detroit, Flint and Dayton, Ohio, have been ravaged by plant closings and mass layoffs.

The anticipated merger between GM and Chrysler would result in the shutdown of dozens of factories and the elimination of 50,000 jobs at the two companies. Tens of thousands more would lose their jobs at auto parts suppliers and related companies. In the face of these attacks, the United Auto Workers union (UAW) has openly collaborated with the employers against its own members. (See “GM-Chrysler merger: United Auto Workers union prepares another betrayal.” )

The downturn has spread throughout the economy. On Tuesday, lumber and building material supplier Louisiana-Pacific reported wider third-quarter losses, as the slumping housing market has undercut revenue. The Nashville, Tennessee-based company has closed sawmills, reduced production at other facilities and slashed hundreds of jobs.

For the fourth quarter, the company anticipates that most of its mills will be down for more time than they will operate. Chief Executive Richard Frost said, “The declining activity in the housing market, in both new construction and repair and remodeling, caused lower demand for our products at very challenging price levels. Business fell off even harder in September and remains basically paralyzed as a result of the banking and financial market crisis.”

Computer maker Dell—which is now completing plans announced last year to cut 8,900 jobs or 10 percent of its workforce—announced Tuesday that it will outline a new series of cost-cutting measures. These will include a hiring freeze and offers of voluntary severance packages, as well as one to five days’ compulsory vacation without pay, according to a Wall Street Journal report.

Israel now calling the shots on UK security?

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It’s time to register Friends of Israel as an agent of a foreign power

By Stuart Littlewood

5 November 2008

Stuart Littlewood looks at how Israel lobbyists have penetrated deep into Britain’s security establishment, and argues that it’s time that Friends of Israel groups were registered as agents of a foreign power.

The corridors of power at Westminster are swarming with Israel supporters, even though the British public has little sympathy for the rogue regime.

The Israel lobby has now achieved a dangerous numerical advantage at the heart of Britain’s security establishment thanks to the appointment of Kim Howells, formerly minister in charge of Middle East affairs and a one-time chairman of Labour Friends of Israel, to the chair of the Intelligence and Security Committee.

This committee has oversight of the Security Service (MI5), the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) and the work of the Joint Intelligence Committee and the Intelligence and Security Secretariat, which includes the Assessment Staff in the Cabinet Office. The committee also takes evidence from the Defence Intelligence Staff (DIS), part of the Ministry of Defence.

• The nine members of the committee are:
  
• Dr Kim Howells MP (Chair)
  
• Michael Ancram MP
  
• Sir Alan Beith MP
  
• Mr Ben Chapman MP
  
• Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
  
• George Howarth MP
  
• Michael Mates MP
  
• Richard Ottaway MP
• Ms Dari Taylor MP

These people have access to highly classified material. So who are they and why should we trust them? Sir Alan Beith, for example, presides over the Liberal Democrat Friends of Israel, whose aims and objectives are:

• To maximize support for the State of Israel not only within the Liberal Democrats but within Parliament itself.
• To influence the party’s Middle East policy.
• To liaise with Israeli politicians and government.
• To provide parliamentarians with briefing material for parliamentary debates, questions to ministers and public appearances.
• To rebut attacks on Israel in the media, Parliament and the party.
• To arrange and accompany Liberal Democrat Friends of Israel delegations to Israel.
• To keep in regular contact with the Embassy of Israel.

Other Friends of Israel groups have a similar agenda. Labour Friends of Israel seeks to strengthen the bond between the British and Israeli Labour parties and organizes meetings between senior figures, officials and the grassroots in both countries. Lord Foulkes is on the Labour Friends of Israel’s policy committee and employs an assistant with a Hebrew name. Dari Taylor is also a member. In Parliament she has voted against a transparent Parliament, for the Iraq war and against investigating the Iraq war.

Michael Ancram, a Conservative heavyweight, calls himself a “longstanding friend of Israel”. Conservative Friends of Israel claim around 80 per cent of the party’s MPs and MEPs and tries to justify their devotion to Israel by quoting party leader, David Cameron, who says Israel is ‘”a force for good in the world”, and Shadow Defence Secretary Liam Fox, who maintains that “in the battle for the values that we stand for, for democracy against theocracy, for democratic liberal values against repression – Israel’s enemies are our enemies…”

Should people with such leanings be allowed anywhere near British national security? Are we supposed to believe there are no links to Israeli intelligence?

In the US, under an Act approved by Robert Kennedy in 1962, the US Department of Justice was keen to register the American Zionist Council (the parent organization of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC, a sort of “big sister” to the British and European Friends of Israel groupings) as the foreign agent of Israel and publicly disclose it activities. But after Robert Kennedy’s departure from the Department of Justice the American Zionist Council and AIPAC were largely let off the hook.

However the Israeli threat to security continues, as this from the Institute for Research’s Middle Eastern policy unit in Washington D.C. shows:

August 4, 2005, Col Lawrence Franklin was indicted alongside two executives of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) for allegedly violating the 1917 Espionage Act. Franklin later pleaded guilty to passing AIPAC a classified presidential directive and secrets concerning America’s Iran policy. AIPAC then allegedly forwarded the highly sensitive information to Israeli government officials and select members of Washington’s media establishment. This covert leaking appears to be just one of many AIPAC programs designed to encourage tougher US policies toward Iran, from financial boycotts to naval blockades and possibly even military strikes. Lawrence Franklin was sentenced to 12 years in prison…

Could that sort of thing happen here in Britain? Is it already happening?

If so, it’s useless complaining. The Committee on Standards in Public Life is pledged to uphold the high-minded principles under which our democracy operates. One of those principles is “Integrity” – “holders of public office should not place themselves under any financial or other obligation to outside individuals or organizations that might seek to influence them in the performance of their official duties”.

It is said that becoming a Friend of Israel is a necessary stepping stone to high office – such is the integrity of British politics. Nearly a year ago a group of academics and others wrote to the Standards Committee complaining that “Israel’s deep penetration of our political system apparently prevents Britain from taking a principled stand on Middle East matters, including the violations of Palestinian human rights”. They invited the committee to consider the activities of the Friends of Israel as a matter for urgent investigation. The chairman refused. Three members of the committee were found to have close links with Friends of Israel – yes, they even have this “inner sanctum” of British correctness and fair play covered.

In the meantime, European Friends of Israel is holding its first policy conference in Paris, where it will present the EU presidency with a “Paris Declaration” seeking closer and stronger partnership between Israel and the European Union. Misguided EU brass-hats will be on hand to dignify the proceedings.

The declaration, according to the European Jewish Press, “recognizes the common values that bind Europe and Israel and a shared cultural heritage reinforced by interests based upon friendship and mutual respect for human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law and respect for human rights, including the rights of persons belonging to minorities”.

The gullible will always feed on garbage. But those who are acquainted with the stomach-churning truth may now be thinking it’s time Friends of Israel groups were registered as agents of a foreign power, before we too are engulfed by the relentless march of Zionist ambition, the hallmark of which is cruel contempt for human rights, freedom and the rule of law.

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Stuart Littlewood is author of the book Radio Free Palestine, which tells the plight of the Palestinians under occupation. For further information please visit www.radiofreepalestine.co.uk.

AFGHANISTAN: Air strikes kill dozens of wedding guests

JESSICA LEEDER AND ALEX STRICK VAN LINSCHOTEN

An Afghan wounded boy, who was injured in a U.S.-led coalition airstrike, lays on a bed in a hospital in Helmand, Afghanistan, on Friday, Aug. 3, 2007. November 4, 2008 at 10:39 PM EST KANDAHAR, AFGHANISTAN — Dozens of Afghan civilians are dead and dozens more are wounded after a series of air strikes aimed at Taliban fighters fell short of their target and exploded in the middle of a wedding party in a mountainous region north of Kandahar city, tribal elders and wedding guests told The Globe and Mail on Tuesday. Survivors of the attacks, which occurred in the village of Wech Baghtu in the district of Shah Wali Kowt on Monday evening, said the majority of the dead and injured were women – the bombs struck while male and female wedding guests were segregated, as is customary in Kandahar province. They said the bodies of at least 36 women have been identified, and hundreds more men and women have been injured. Local leaders have yet to establish a firm casualty count because many of the victims remain buried beneath rubble, said Abdul Hakim Khan, a tribal elder from the district. In interviews at Mirwais Hospital in Kandahar city, where at least 16 male victims and dozens of female victims were being treated Tuesday night, several villagers described the attack. While Mr. Khan corroborated much of the information witnesses gave during a separate interview, it was not possible to independently verify their account or the numbers of dead and injured they gave. Witnesses gave conflicting statements about the identity of troops who arrived at the scene after the air attacks, with some saying they saw Canadian soldiers while others said they saw U.S. troops. It was not immediately clear which international forces were responsible for the air strikes. A Canadian military source denied that Canada, which has responsibility for Kandahar province, had any involvement. “Task Force Kandahar has not been in any significant military engagement in Shah Vali Kowt in the last two days,” the source said. The sparsely populated mountainous region surrounding the village is a known Taliban stronghold. In the past the area has been a target of various anti-insurgent special operations. Mr. Khan said his village is situated at the foot of a mountain frequented by Taliban insurgents. At the time of the wedding, insurgents on the mountain had attempted to attack troops in the area with an improvised explosive device, Mr. Khan said. Fighting broke out between troops and insurgents after the Taliban began firing from the top of the mountain, which triggered the air strike, he said. Abdul Zahir, 24, the brother of the bride, said fighting broke out between Taliban and international troops near a crossroads in the village early on Monday. Wedding guests first heard shots from the mountain about 4 p.m. Air strikes followed about half an hour later and lasted about five hours, he said. While Mr. Zahir was not injured, his sister was severely hurt, as were three of his young cousins, Noor Ahmad, Hazrat Sadiq and Mohammad Rafiq, who range in age from three to five years old. During the interview, they lay sprawled out next to him on tiny hospital cots. Mr. Zahir said that in all eight members of his family were killed, including two of his brothers, Qahir and Twahir, and his grandmother. Fourteen other family members were injured. The bombing wasn’t the end of the ordeal, witnesses said. When the air strikes were over, they said, international troops arrived in three sand-coloured armoured vehicles. Villagers reported they were intimidated and prevented from leaving to seek medical treatment while the soldiers took pictures. The governor of Kandahar province will hold a press conference on the incident Wednesday morning, a spokesman said. “We are collecting information right now about this incident. It’s not complete,” the spokesman said. Alex Strick van Linschoten is a freelancer based in Kandahar

Censorship in the Western Media: What they Don’t Want You to Know

by Eric Sommer

The Western media has recently outdone itself in censoring important stories – stories which contradict the policies and interests the media seeks to uphold..  Western publics have been systematically misled in recent weeks on vital issues related to war-and-peace, human rights, the financial crisis, and more.  Only a few examples can be set out here.  But it should be enough to indicate the extent to which world reality is being filtered by the media.

East Germans want to return to Socialism

Outright suppression has hidden the news that half the people living in East Germany now want to return to socialism,  partly due to the world financial crisis.

When the Berlin wall fell in 1989 – an early harbinger of the unraveling of the Soviet Block socialism in Eastern Europe -  it was trumpeted in thousands of capitalist media stories across the U.S. and the western world.

But now that half the people in Eastern Germany want to go back, the story is blacked out. The story reached the wire service level – Reuters News Service made it available to thousands of media.  But  not one western world newspaper or magazine published the article.

Key quote from the article:  “A recent survey found 52 percent of eastern Germans believe the free market economy is “unsuitable” and 43 percent said they wanted socialism rather than capitalism,”

You can read “Global crisis sends east Germans flocking to Marx | Reuters” here:
http://www.reuters.com/article/artsNews/idUSTRE49F5MX20081016

U.S. Dollar has Plundered the World

Another financial crisis article that western media blacked out is a tough-worded critique of U.S. financial policy from the front-page of the Chinese version of People’s Daily, the official newspaper of Chinas’ Communist party.  ‘

‘U.S. has plundered world wealth with dollar…’ made it onto the Reuters wire service.  The article proposed that, as a starting point, all trade transactions between Asia and Europe should be settled in Euros, Pounds, RMB, and Yen.  But no western world writer or media published or alluded to the artilce, with one exception:  Cuba’s Fidel Castro paid tribute to it in one of his weekly news columns in Cuba.  Given that this article appeared on the front page of the official newspaper of the governing party of China, failure to relay it to western publics is a serious ommission.

You can read the story here:
http://www.reuters.com/article/GCA-CreditCrisis/idUSTRE49N1XX20081024

Venezuela will Nationalize Its Banks in Event of Crisis.

Still another suppressed financial crisis story is a public promise by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to nationalize Venezuela’s’ banks if the world financial crisis should become acute in his country.

Chavez also promised not to give away even ‘one penny’ of tax money to the banks.  He also questioned why the U.S. government could find billions for the U.S. banks and financial institutions but money was not available to help poor and working people

The story made the wire service.  But again no western newspaper or magazine published it.

Promises not to give ‘one penny to the banks’ might sound appealing in the U.S., where both McCain and Obama have backed the giveaway of one trillion U.S. dollars to U.S. banks and financial companies, despite furious resistance from half or more of Americans.

Obamas’ campaign spokesman recently characterized Chavez as ‘governing undemocratically’ and without ‘the rule of law’.   But as Obama  backed the undemocratic one trillion giveaway of U.S. tax money, it is Chavez who might seem democratic to the American people if his promise to give ‘not one penny to the banks’ were made known.

You can read the full story here.
http://www.reuters.com/article/bondsNews/idUSN0331754520081103

Hu Jia: Chinese human Rights Hero or CIA frontman?

On another front,  serious filtering of reality can be seen in the coverage of  the European Parliament’s bestowing of the annual Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought on Hu Jia, a Chinese human rights activist.

Google news portal searches show four thousand -plus articles on Hu Jia and the award in western media in the past month.

But not one story mentions a key fact:  His legal troubles began after the organization he was associated with received one million RMB ($170,000 U.S.) from the notorious CIA front organization The National Endowment for democracy.

The story was played in western media as that of an innocent activist imprisoned for his work on behalf of Chinese AIDS patients and of other ‘unjustly treated’ human rights workers.

Omission of the National Endowment connection is a serious matter. Self-described by its first leader as carrying on the work of the CIA, the National Endowment receives thirty million U.S. Per year from the U.S. Congress; and its primary work is attempting to destabilize governments, from Venezuela to Russia, which the U.S. state wishes to modify or eliminate.   Interested readers can easily verify this by clicking here: http://www.google.com/searchhl=en&newwindow=1&q=national+endowment+for+democracy+CIA

To be clear, receiving money from the National Endowment for Democracy is equivalent to receiving money from the espionage service or intelligence service of a foreign power.   From this perspective, Hu Jia appears not just as an activist but as a witting or unwitting tool of U.S. intelligence.

“As if on Command…”

Finally, going only slightly further back in time, the western media was stunningly silent when the U.S.-backed government of Georgia invaded South Ossettia.  Only after Russia responded by using military force to push the invading Georgians out of South Ossetia did the western media spring to attention, running articles emphasizing the ‘Russian attack’, with scant attention to the reality that Georgia had instituted the conflict with a military invasion clearly violating internationally recognized agreements regarding South Ossettias status as an independent entity.

Russian Premier Vladimir Putin, in an interview after the events, said:  “It was amazing” and ‘As if on command – and I think it was on command” in reference to the initial silence on the Georgian aggression, followed by the thousands of articles which made Russia appear to be responsible for the war.

Whether on command, or in deference to economic and political interests, the western media is a reality screen which hides important truths from western publics, and over time induces undue prejudices against other countries and peoples.  Readers who doubt this are invited to reflect that it was the same media which enabled the war in Iraq by helping to persuade the U.S. public that there ‘weapons of mass destruction aimed at the U.S.’ in Iraq.

Eric Sommers is a university teacher, journalist, and social theorist based in China.

U.S. has plundered world wealth with dollar: China paper

U.S. has plundered world wealth with dollar: China

paper

BEIJING (Reuters) – The United States has plundered global wealth by exploiting the dollar’s dominance, and the world urgently needs other currencies to take its place, a leading Chinese state newspaper said on Friday.

The front-page commentary in the overseas edition of the People’s Daily said that Asian and European countries should banish the U.S. dollar from their direct trade relations for a start, relying only on their own currencies.

A meeting between Asian and European leaders, starting on Friday in Beijing, presented the perfect opportunity to begin building a new international financial order, the newspaper said.

The People’s Daily is the official newspaper of China’s ruling Communist Party. The Chinese-language overseas edition is a small circulation offshoot of the main paper.

Its pronouncements do not necessarily directly voice leadership views. But the commentary, as well as recent comments, amount to a growing chorus of Chinese disdain for Washington’s economic policies and global financial dominance in the wake of the credit crisis.

“The grim reality has led people, amidst the panic, to realize that the United States has used the U.S. dollar’s hegemony to plunder the world’s wealth,” said the commentator, Shi Jianxun, a professor at Shanghai’s Tongji University.

Shi, who has before been strident in his criticism of the U.S., said other countries had lost vast amounts of wealth because of the financial crisis, while Washington’s sole concern had been protecting its own interests.

“The U.S. dollar is losing people’s confidence. The world, acting democratically and lawfully through a global financial organization, urgently needs to change the international monetary system based on U.S. global economic leadership and U.S. dollar dominance,” he wrote.

Shi suggested that all trade between Europe and Asia should be settled in euros, pounds, yen and yuan, though he did not explain how the Chinese currency could play such a role since it is not convertible on the capital account.

A two-day Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) of 27 EU member states and 16 Asian countries was set to open on Friday. Though few analysts expect much in the way of concrete agreements, Shi said it could prove momentous.

“How can Europe and Asia grasp each other’s hands and together confront the once-in-a-century global financial crisis sparked by the U.S.; how can they construct a new equitable and safe international financial order?” he said.

“The world is waiting for this Asian-European meeting to achieve big results in financial cooperation.”

(Reporting by Simon Rabinovitch; Editing by Ken Wills)

Global crisis sends east Germans flocking to Marx

Global crisis sends east Germans flocking to Marx

By Erik Kirschbaum

BERLIN (Reuters) – Two decades after the Berlin Wall fell, communism’s founding father Karl Marx is back in vogue in eastern Germany — thanks to the global financial crisis.

His 1867 critical analysis of capitalism, “Das Kapital,” has risen from the publishing graveyard to become an improbable best-seller for academic publisher Karl-Dietz-Verlag.

“Everyone thought there would never ever again be any demand for ‘Das Kapital’,” managing director Joern Schuetrumpf told Reuters after selling 1,500 copies so far this year, triple the number sold in all of 2007 and a 100-fold increase since 1990.

“Even bankers and managers are now reading ‘Das Kapital’ to try to understand what they’ve been doing to us. Marx is definitely ‘in’ right now,” Schuetrumpf said.

The revival of Marx’s treatise reflects a broader rejection of capitalism by many in eastern Germany, a communist country until 1989 and now racked by high unemployment and poverty.

A month of intense financial turmoil has toppled banks in the United States and forced a series of government bailouts in Germany and elsewhere, reinforcing anti-capitalist sentiment.

Chancellor Angela Merkel — herself an easterner — unveiled a 500 billion euro financial rescue package this week, a move decried as a reward for irresponsible bankers.

A recent survey found 52 percent of eastern Germans believe the free market economy is “unsuitable” and 43 percent said they wanted socialism rather than capitalism, findings confirmed in interviews with dozens of ordinary easterners.

“We read about the ‘horrors of capitalism’ in school. They really got that right. Karl Marx was spot on,” said Thomas Pivitt, a 46-year-old IT worker from east Berlin.

“I had a pretty good life before the Wall fell,” he added. “No one worried about money because money didn’t really matter. You had a job even if you didn’t want one. The communist idea wasn’t all that bad.”

CAPITALISM EVEN WORSE

Unemployment in the former communist east is 14 percent, double western levels, and wages are significantly lower. Millions of jobs were lost after reunification. Many eastern factories were bought by western competitors and shut down.

“I thought communism was s —- but capitalism is even worse,” said Hermann Haibel, a 76-year old retired blacksmith, who was strolling near Alexanderplatz in the heart of old East Berlin.

“The free market is brutal. The capitalist wants to squeeze out more, more, more,” he said.

Free market hopes were high in the east when Chancellor Helmut Kohl promised “flourishing landscapes.”

But while some areas on the outskirts of Berlin, in Leipzig and along the Baltic shore are thriving, much of the rest suffers from depopulation and high unemployment.

The opposition Left party, which traces its roots to Erich Honecker’s SED party, has capitalized on the frustration and become the east’s most popular party with support of 30 percent.

“I don’t think capitalism is the right system for us,” said Monika Weber, a 46-year-old city clerk.

“The distribution of wealth is unfair. We’re seeing that now. The little people like me are going to have to pay for this financial mess with higher taxes because of greedy bankers.”

Like many other east Germans, Ralf Wulff said he was delighted about the fall of the Berlin Wall and to see capitalism replace communism. But the euphoria was ephemeral.

“It took just a few weeks to realize what the free market economy was all about,” said Wulff. “It’s rampant materialism and exploitation. Human beings get lost. We didn’t have the material comforts but communism still had a lot going for it.”

But not everyone condemned capitalism. Astrid Gerber was a master tailor in East Berlin before her company was shut down.

“It was my dream job,” said Gerber, 42. She was unemployed for seven years, then opened up a newsstand but gave it up after her family disintegrated due to her 90-hour work week.

“Capitalism has its advantages but so does communism,” she said. “I can’t say one is better than the other.”

US urged to differentiate between Al Qaeda, Taliban

[DEFINITIONS: "AL QAIDA" = THE BASE OF MUJAHEDEEN SPONSORED BY CIA.   "TALIBAN" = PAKISTANI SPONSORED HOLY WARRIORS]

By Khalid Hasan

WASHINGTON: Munir Akram, until recently the Pakistani ambassador to the United Nations, has urged the incoming US president to understand the difference between the Taliban and Al Qaeda, then focus on eliminating Al Qaeda.

Akram writes in Tuesday’s Wall Street Journal, “We need a realistic approach to the Taliban. It is Al Qaeda, not the Taliban, that threatens the US homeland. Separating Al Qaeda from the Taliban will make it easier for the US, Pakistan and allied intelligence, police and military operations to disrupt the group’s operational system.”

He suggests that the US should open negotiations with the Taliban. The insurgency in south and east Afghanistan was initially confined to Taliban fighters, he points out, although most Pashtuns there and in northern Pakistan were unhappy at the US-sponsored ejection of the Pashtun Taliban regime by the Tajik-led Northern Alliance.

According to the Pakistani diplomat, the US should resist the temptation to intervene unilaterally against the so-called safe havens in Pakistan. Instead, it should help Pakistan address the militancy itself in its frontier regions. The situation there is extremely complex. US reluctance to provide Pakistan with advanced counter-insurgency equipment and technology, and to share real-time intelligence, enhances a suspicion in some Pakistani quarters that the US or some of its agencies may be complicit with the Afghans and Indians in seeking to destabilise Pakistan. Under these circumstances, unilateral US intervention in Pakistan will intensify tensions between the two countries with potentially dangerous consequences. The US should adopt a positive agenda to secure Pakistan’s effective cooperation. A centrepiece should be a $20 billion programme for Pakistan’s economic stabilisation and rapid growth and development, as well as preferential market advancement and investment flows.

Policy: Akram writes that Washington should pursue a policy of equity between Pakistan and India. A major impediment to a positive Pakistani role in the region is the growing, if unspoken, fear in Islamabad of the implications of the strategic relationship that is developing between the US and India, epitomised by the recent Indo-US nuclear deal. The US can regain considerable good will and leverage with Pakistan if it adopts a policy of equitable treatment for India and Pakistan on technology, trade and military issues.

According to the veteran Pakistani diplomat, mistakes by NATO forces and the corruption and incompetence of Kabul have combined to alienate the entire population of the region and to transform the insurgency virtually into a Pashtun war of liberation. Foreign forces have never pacified this region and US-NATO forces will not succeed in doing so, either.

The offer made last week by the Afghan-Pakistan Jirga to open talks with the Taliban, and the American willingness to consider this, are welcome signs of realism. While negotiations should be pursued from a position of strength, preconditions and exclusions will doom them before they begin. Akram proposes a commission, composed of respected Pashtun leaders, Islamic scholars and neutral personalities, to conduct unconditional talks with the Taliban and seek an immediate cessation of attacks and suicide bombings. The Taliban will expect to share power and will demand the withdrawal of foreign forces. A reasonable time frame for such withdrawal could be linked to their cooperation in restoring peace and stability and creation of a credible Afghan army, he adds.

Akram argues that aerial bombings which have led to high civilian causalities, should be “the exception, not the rule.” NATO garrisons should be deployed in credible strength in a limited number of locations for protective or punitive purposes. Eventually, a credible and genuinely national Afghan Army will enable foreign forces to undertake an orderly withdrawal from Afghanistan. The Afghan security apparatus needs to be reformed. The defence, intelligence and interior departments cannot continue to be left in the hands of the Panjsheri faction of the Northern Alliance, which has an anti-Pashtun and anti-Pakistan agenda. The officer corps of the Afghan Army should reflect Afghanistan’s ethnic composition, including the Pashtuns, if it is to be a genuine national institution. An effective war must also be launched against drugs, criminality and corruption. Peace, he stresses, will have to be built locally. Throughout history, Afghanistan’s tribes have resisted strong central control and agreed to be governed loosely from Kabul. Peace will have to be built region by region through power-sharing arrangements among the most influential people in each area, including tribal and religious leaders.

The socialist bogeyman

—Dr Manzur Ejaz

If the bailout package of the Bush administration, a last ditch effort to save American capitalism, does not succeed, then even the ruling class will start preaching European style social democracy in the US

After the financial meltdown, and the massive intervention by the Bush administration through a bailout package of over a trillion dollars, there is a lot of noise about ‘socialism’. Many call this bailout ‘socialism for the rich’. Others smell a rat over the state’s overreaching moves in private markets.

Republican presidential nominee John McCain has attacked his opponent Barack Obama for being a socialist, because Obama plans to tax the rich for a more equitable distribution of wealth. In the US, therefore, socialism is mostly used as a bogeyman to attack opponents.

But has the American brand of extreme capitalism really come to an end, and is a new economic system, like that of the socialist welfare state, in the offing?

Whatever happens, one thing is abundantly clear: if the markets are left to their own devices, the economic system collapses at one point or the other.

A similar phenomenon has been occurring over and over in the capitalist economies. The depressions of 1893 and the 1930s were an outcome of market excesses in the US. Previous economic cycles had followed a similar pattern. This is explained through the business cycle theory, which has become part of mainstream economics but originally was articulated by Karl Marx. Will the present business cycle prove to be like its predecessors or will it bring the capitalist system down, replacing it with some form of socialism?

The emergence of a socialist era requires, according to Marxist theory, the capitalist system to have exhausted its productive potential and a degenerative process to have set in. The theory also states that every society has to pass through the inevitable stages of history in the order of slavery, feudalism, capitalism, socialism and communism.

Therefore, if Marxist theory is taken to be scientific — sequence of occurrences are determined in science — no society can bypass a stage voluntarily, as was experimented in the Soviet Union, China and Vietnam. The very fact that these areas had to revert to a capitalist mode may be taken as a validation of the inevitability of the definitive stages of history.

This also means that the kind of societies that emerged in the former Soviet Union, China and Vietnam may be called anything but socialist, as they did not pass through a capitalist stage whose potential had been exhausted. At the time socialism, or whatever one calls it, was adopted in these societies, they were either feudalistic or just entering the capitalist stage.

From this angle, can we take the United States as a possible candidate that has exhausted its potential as a capitalist society and has no option but to adopt socialism? Of course, the US economic system is taken to be the pinnacle of the capitalist mode, and its present woes can lead to certain unexpected outcomes. However, the US can adopt European style capitalism and survive for many decades to come. Some welfare measures were adopted after World War II, but the US is nowhere close to the transformation of Europe from free markets to state-controlled institutions and concession of some essential economic guarantees to the citizens.

We tend to forget that European capitalism was also based on the US-type laissez faire system during the 18th and early 19th centuries. It was headed towards disaster, and that is why Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels forecasted the end of capitalism, giving way to socialism.

However, things did not work out that way, and European capitalism adopted ‘socialisation’ instead. Health and other necessary services for survival were recognised as basic rights of the individual. In this manner, the adoption of ‘socialist’ measures by many European countries saved the capitalist system from total collapse.

The US, being far right of the centre as an economic and social system, may have reached a detrimental stage with the old laissez faire system. The system where capital owners have all the rights, while the common citizen cannot claim health and other necessities to survive, may be eroding. Presently, citizens have to earn essential service or finance it themselves. It has left a fifth of the American population with no health services and many sections of society are in a desperate state without any help from the state. This may have to change to save the capitalist system from collapse.

Up until now, any government intervention, even for the benefit of the rich, and any hind of distribution of wealth like Barack Obama’s plan to tax individuals making over $250,000, is ridiculously termed socialism. Therefore, any effort to reform the American economic system, recognising the individual’s rights like in Europe, will face fierce opposition from many quarters. However, if the bailout package of the Bush administration, a last ditch effort to save American capitalism, does not succeed, then even the ruling class will start preaching European style social democracy in the US.

The writer can be reached at manzurejaz@yahoo.com

RAND denies proposing war against major power

[DISINFORMATION]

By Khalid Hasan

WASHINGTON: The RAND Corporation has denied that it ever submitted a proposal to the Pentagon advocating a war with a major foreign power in order to stimulate the US economy and prevent a recession.
Jeffrey Hiday, a spokesman for RAND Corporation, told Daily Times when reached for comment that the report carried by this newspaper on Monday, quoting “Chinese news outlets” was a “hoax, at best.” He said, “Contrary to various online accounts, RAND is not advocating war against China or any nation to advance recovery of the US economy. The notion that RAND has generated such an analysis is simply a rumour, with no foundation in fact. We do not know how those who generated the rumour arrived at their conclusion.”
RAND, Hiday added, is a nonprofit institution that helps improve policy and decisionmaking through research and analysis. “Our recent research on China, Afghanistan and Iraq is strictly nonpartisan. Our core values are quality and objectivity,” he said.

ADVICE FROM FORMER GOVERNMENT KILLER, ON THE NATURE OF THE MEN WHO WILL COME FOR YOU.

I recently viewed a television documentary about John Mohammed, the DC Sniper.  I’m convinced, listening to his former wife’s testimony and watching the home videos she provided for the documentary, of his interactions with his family, that he was also inducted into this Manchurian Candidate type program I wrote about in my last blog.  His actions and demeanor appear to be typical of veterans who participated in this covert program.  Watching his home videos was like watching videos of myself.  I would like to make one thing clear.  Your military occupational specialty (MOS) his nothing to do with why you are chosen for this program.  They look for passive agressive type personalities.  I was given a psychological assessment in boot camp along with about 65 other recruits at Parris Island.  Yes, I’m a Marine.  This written test, consisted of darkening the circles with the corresponding geometric type images displayed in the test booklet they provided everyone.  I have reasoned, maybe I may be wrong, that if you were isolated as a child due to a death of a parent, loved one, or some other tramatic event that caused you to withdraw from society at an early age, you would be perfect for the program.  My father, also a disabled veteran, kept my mother from showing me “any” affection as a child.  John Mohammed’s wife said in the documentary that he did not want her to show his sons any affection.  One of the suggestions “they” imparted with me before my honorable discharge from the “program”,  was to direct my anger and aggression at fighting social injustices.  I guess John Mohammed took that suggestion to the extreme.  So did Timothy McVeigh.   McVeigh, was probably also inducted into the program while serving in the military.  Basically, as a human weapon, he was probably approached, and activated after his discharge.  After his repulsive actions, McVeigh was programmed to drive down the interstate in a “beat-up” vehicle with no tag.  Anyone familiar with any police department will tell you that if you want a police cruiser on your tail, drive an old vehicle with no tag.  The purpose of his action was to ultimately kill the police officer who pulled him over, thereby drawing other police units to kill him in a confrontation.  Suicide by police.  Something kept him from carrying out this final action.  Maybe he had some sort of realization that what he was doing was wrong, and chose not to continue to participate. I’m sure during his trial he was probably confused and unable to speak about the programming he received.  I found, totally by accident, that the key to my survival, was the suppression of my EGO.  “Ego is the killer”.  I remembered that term from my psychological conditioning.  The hijackers of the planes that triggered 9-11 could have also been victims of a rogue element in our government who programmed them to carry out their actions.  I can tell you from experience, if you wish to survive an attack by one of these soldiers, lay prone upon the ground, arms and legs spread, and do not move a muscle.  I noticed on my missions that I was unable to “see”, or notice anyone that was immobile.

vincente

Be wary of America

by Ahmed Quraishi

So our people missed all the signs, trusted the Americans and never doubted for a second that our ally will do us in. Pakistan’s political and intelligence communities woke up late, discovering sometime late last year that our American ally has been working on bringing the war to Pakistan from the start. Knowing Pakistani strategic concerns, it installed a decidedly pro-India setup in Kabul to our west while cultivating India as a check from the east. Adm. Mike Mullen is even contemplating inviting the Indian army to Afghanistan to patrol our western border.

Ever wonder why the American drones attacking Pakistan are manned by CIA and not the US military? That’s because there is a plan. And the plan now is to carefully eliminate pro-Pakistan Pashtun tribal leaders and leave Islamabad with a civil war and maybe a Pashtun separatism while the Americans allow themselves the right to offer peace to Mullah Omar in Afghanistan. Maybe the CIA is upset at Pakistani military’s recent successes against shadowy ‘rebel mullahs’ who only fight the Pakistani state and whose supplies never end.

But our troubles appear to be only starting. Bruce Riedel, who retired from the CIA in 2006 and served from 1007 to 2002 on the National Security Council, is advising Barack Obama on Pakistan. Even some Americans are alarmed at the ideas of Mr. Obama’s pointman on Pakistan.

No matter how harsh the political polarization in Washington, everyone seems to be on board on Pakistan: denuclearizing the country, forcing the Pakistani army to forget about Indian water blocking and Kashmir and restructure the army to fight insurgents and buy only those weapons that serve this purpose.

Mr Obama is impressed with his adviser’s ideas. Over the weekend he picked another longtime Riedel theme: that resolving Kashmir is essential to fighting terrorism. But before someone in Islamabad gets excited about this, Mr Riedel – and now his boss – are basically talking about ending Pakistan’s excuse of the lingering dispute of Kashmir which stands in the way of accepting Washington’s desire to see India walk all over Pakistan, open direct trade links to Afghanistan and central Asia and play a major role in securing Afghanistan and the region in the face of Russian and Chinese influence.

To face the expected escalation in the US war ‘expansion’ plans after the presidential election, Pakistan needs to start talking. And it needs to do this now. While Washington has the benefit of a loud and noisy media to convey its interest and expectations, Islamabad continues to be shy about speaking publicly and bluntly about what it wants. Pakistan is not sufficiently defending at a high level, that of President or Prime Minister, its right to protect its interests. Influential policy advisers like Mr Riedel are effectively undermining Pakistan by portraying its policy as being obsessed with India. What both he and Pakistani officials are failing to highlight is that Pakistan has its own vision for peace in the region that includes Pakistan’s own interests. The Pakistani interest does not match that of Washington and New Delhi when it comes antagonizing Russia and China. Pakistan’s interest is also undermined by US support for warlords and officials in the Karzai government who are too close to New Delhi and hostile toward Pakistan. And above all, our threat perception toward India is proving correct with the Indian blockade of Pakistani water flowing from Indian-controlled areas of Kashmir and the evidence that Washington is quite aware of now about Indian involvement in terrorism in southwest Pakistan.

Islamabad should tell Washington publicly and openly that Pakistan’s military orientation is its own prerogative.

The writer works for Geo TV. Email: aq@ahmedquraishi.com

Commentary: They’ve squandered lives, fortunes and our sacred honor

High tide arrived with the unlikeliest occupant of the Oval Office in our history, the beady-eyed, smirking, tongue-tied, counterfeit cowboy George W. Bush, and a Congress that after 9-11 was run by runaway Republicans who were too busy enriching themselves and their friends to care what their president was doing to the country, the Constitution and even their own party.

LET US HOPE THAT SOMETHING NEW IS COMING IN WITH THE OBAMA TIDE.

Commentary: They’ve squandered lives, fortunes

and our sacred honor

By Joseph L. Galloway | McClatchy Newspapers

Here’s to the American people, the electorate, for finally coming to their senses and voting for something different, for someone different and for a chance to fix the multitude of man-made disasters that confront us.

By their votes, the Republican revolution and all it’s wrought — an economic meltdown, two endless wars, class warfare that’s enriched the very rich and beggared everyone else and a treasury bulging only with IOU’s — will be crushed.

That revolution began to take root with the criminality of Richard Nixon’s administration, with its paranoid enemies list. It gathered steam in the time of Ronald Reagan and with Newt Gingrich’s seizure of Congress.

To be sure, there have been pauses, first during Jimmy Carter’s four years and then during Bill Clinton’s eight, in the GOP’s rush to recover — with interest — the presidential power that Nixon lost to a second-rate burglary and assorted other dirty tricks.

High tide arrived with the unlikeliest occupant of the Oval Office in our history, the beady-eyed, smirking, tongue-tied, counterfeit cowboy George W. Bush, and a Congress that after 9-11 was run by runaway Republicans who were too busy enriching themselves and their friends to care what their president was doing to the country, the Constitution and even their own party.

Little wonder, then, that Sen. John McCain and Gov. Sarah Palin will go down to defeat after a campaign of sheer desperation that’s been nasty, brutish and long.

Bush and his clutch of unindicted co-conspirators will leave Washington at high noon on January 20, 2009, two months and a few wakeups from now, and good riddance to bad rubbish.

Oh, there will be more outrages as they leave. Bush and his gang are busy drafting and issuing Executive Orders and new regulations gutting the last surviving federal rules that bedevil their rich, polluting friends, and no doubt they’re just as busy drawing up presidential pardons by the bucketful for themselves and their partners in crime.

These Republicans arrived with a strange combination of contempt for government and hunger for its power, and during their time in the saddle they’ve done everything they could to destroy the government and the Constitution that our forefathers so carefully constructed to check and balance any self-anointed monarchs’ ability to do evil or accumulate dangerous and excessive power.

Where were we the people while this evil was being unleashed on us? Remember the fable of the grasshopper and the ant? We were, with the encouragement of our president, busy playing grasshopper. In the wake of the 9-11 attacks, our president urged us to go to the shopping mall. Go be grasshoppers. Consume everything, save nothing, live like there’s no tomorrow, like winter will never come.

Guess what? Winter has arrived.

In the name of national security, of homeland security, our right to privacy has been whittled away, legally and illegally. Big Brother has been listening, but only for our own good.

With the arrogance common to those who are ignorant of both history and the world, these people threw away our standing in that world, declaring that everyone must either be with us or against us. We hardly noticed as the world paid attention to what we did, not what we said, and then quietly chose the latter option.

In pursuit of our newfound civic duty as consumers, we hardly noticed that nearly everything we bought was marked “Made in China.”

Made in China and bought on credit, our credit and our country’s. Made in China and made with lead paint and poisonous plastics that threatened the lives of our children and killed our dogs, substances that escaped notice until far too late because the rabid deregulators had pulled our watchdogs’ teeth.

They demanded unfettered capitalism, and in the hands of the Wall Street robber barons that was turned into pure evil, pure greed and pure folly. Now millions of Americans are losing their homes in the mortgage meltdown, and millions more have seen their life savings, their 401ks and IRAs, their hopes of a comfortable retirement, blow away like so many leaves on a cruel Texas norther.

They played on our fears like a mighty Wurlitzer Organ, frightening us with lies into an unnecessary war in Iraq. Frightening us into re-electing George Bush, even after we knew that he was anything but presidential, anything but intelligent, anything but a worthy, effective leader.

They frightened us so badly that we voluntarily surrendered the precious rights that a million American soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines, Coast Guardsmen and others bought for us with their lives during two centuries of freedom and democracy.

They used fear to violate international law, to torture and imprison thousands of suspected enemies without charges or trials. They used fear and invoked national security to suspend the right of habeas corpus, the foundation of our freedoms.

For these and far too many other sins and transgressions to list in so short a space as this, we the people have every right, and perhaps a duty, to cast them aside, and with them their only hope of avoiding justice and judgment — John McCain, who voted with them 90 percent of the time.

We’re right to toss them all aside, and to hope and pray that it’s not too late to start repairing the damage they’ve done to a nation that once was the last, best hope of mankind.

Goodbye George W. Bush!

IN ORDER TO CONTRADICT THE NIGHTLY NEWS REPORTS THAT MILITARY MEN ONLY VOTED FOR MCCAIN, THE FOLLOWING LATRINE SNAPSHOTS REVEAL THE TRUTH ABOUT “GRUNT” OPINION.

Goodbye George W. Bush!

There are things that U.S. soldiers are allowed to talk about with the press and others they are not. One of the things they are not allowed to voice is their political opinion, especially if it goes against their commander in chief. In the privacy of latrine stalls on military bases in Iraq and Kuwait, however, it is quite a different story. I did not see any pro-Bush writings in any of the hundreds of latrines I photographed.