October 2009
Vol 9, No.10
COLONIZING CULTURE By Dahr Jamail Transgress The geo-strategic expansion of the American empire is an accepted fact of contemporary history. I have been writing in these columns about the impact of the US occupation on the people of Iraq in the wake of the “hard” colonization via F-16s, tanks, 2,000-pound bombs, white phosphorous and cluster bombs. Here I offer a brief glimpse into the less obvious but far more insidious phenomenon of “soft” colonization. That scholars and political thinkers have talked at length of such processes only establishes the uncomfortable reality that history is bound to repeat itself in all its ugliness, unless the human civilization makes a concerted effort to eliminate the use of brute force from human affairs. Gandhi, the apostle of non-violent resistance said: “I do not want my house to be walled in on all sides and my windows to be stuffed. I want the cultures of all the lands to be blown about my house as freely as possible. But I refuse to be blown off my feet by any. I refuse to live in other people’s houses as an interloper, a beggar or a slave.” This is an idea rendered irrelevant in the current scenario, where the mightier
among the world’s nations have secured the mandate to invade, with impunity, any society and any state that can be exploited for resources. Unlike earlier times, modern-day invasions are invariably camouflaged by a façade of elaborate deceit that claims altruistic intent as the motive of assault. In this new scheme of things, resistance is deemed as insurgency and dissent is unpatriotic. Those that are invaded do not have the luxury to decide between being beggar and slave. Culture would be the last thing on their minds as they struggle to stay alive. Yet it is the loss of their culture that ultimately causes the disintegration of these societies to the absolute advantage of their victors. It is said that history is written by the victor. What is not said is that destroying the enemy is only half the purpose of a victor. The other half is the subjugation and drastic alteration of the selfperception of the enemy, so as to gain unquestioned control over every aspect of the subjugated state, its populace and its resources, so that having won victory it can get on with the “much bigger business of plunder,” according to Franz Fanon, philosopher, psychiatrist, author and a pre-eminent thinker of the twentieth century.
STATEMENTS OIC AT FORTY: ITS POTENTIAL, PROBLEMS AND PROSPECTS....... Organization of the Islamic Conference, popularly known as the OIC, was born on September 25, 1969 in response to an arson attack .....................P.3
A CALL TO OBAMA — FREE THE CUBAN FIVE! ...... Eight months into the Obama Presidency, one of the greatest travesties of justice in recent American judicial history has not been remedied. ................... P.4
At one level we have the Human Terrain System (HTS) I have written about previously wherein social scientists are embedded with combat units, ostensibly to help the occupiers better understand the cultures they are occupying. The veiled intent is to exploit existing schisms and fault-lines in these societies to the occupier’s own advantage through the policy of divide and conquer. As Edward Said stated in “Orientalism”: “... there is a difference between knowledge of other peoples and other times that is the result of understanding, compassion, careful study and analysis for their own sakes, and on the other hand knowledge - if that is what it is - that is part of an overall campaign of selfaffirmation, belligerency, and outright war. There is, after all, a profound difference between the will to understand for purposes of coexistence and humanistic enlargement of horizons, and the will to dominate for the purposes of control and external enlargement of horizons, and the will to dominate for the purposes of control and external dominion.” It is extremely obvious that the HTS belongs to this second category. At another unquestioned level, the Turn to next page
ARTICLES T HE G-20 A NNOUNCES THE “N EW W ORLD ORDER” By Michael Collins ....................................... page 5 BY 2050, 25M MORE CHILDREN WILL GO HUNGRY By Suzanne Goldenburg .............................. page 6 DISMANTLING THE GLOBAL NUCLEAR INFRASTRUCTURE By Mary Kaldor ........................................ page 7 OBAMA AGREES TO KEEP ISRAEL’S NUKES SECRET By Eli Lake ................................................ page 10 A 9/11 REALITY CHECK By Robert Scheer ..................................... page 11
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continued from page 1 “democratization” and “modernization” of a “barbaric” society goes on. The embedded scholars of HTS evidently find no evidence of these cultures having withstood decades of international isolation and assault, yet sustained their sovereignty by the sheer dint of their education, culture and a well-integrated diverse social fabric. So the US sets up a range of state-funded programs, ostensibly to empower the women and youth of the target society, in the ways of democracy and modern civilization. Whether or not that suspect goal is accomplished, the badgered collective consciousness of the invaded people, traumatized by loss and conflict, does begin to submit to the “norms” of behavior prescribed by the victor, even when they are in violation of actual norms of society that may have prevailed prior to invasion. Transform Fanon said: “A national culture under colonial domination is a contested culture whose destruction is sought in systematic fashion.” Describing the psychopathology of colonization he said, “Every effort is made to bring the colonized person to admit the inferiority of his culture which has been transformed into instinctive patterns of behavior, to recognize the unreality of his ‘nation’, and, in the last extreme, the confused and imperfect character of his own biological structure.” Fanon’s speech to the Congress of Black African Writers in 1959 is an uncanny description of Iraq’s tragedy today: “Colonial domination, because it is total and tends to over-simplify, very soon manages to disrupt in spectacular fashion the cultural life of a conquered people. This cultural obliteration is made possible by the negation of national reality, by new legal relations introduced by the occupying power, by the banishment of the natives and their customs to outlying districts by colonial society, by expropriation, and by the systematic enslaving of men and women ... “For culture is first the expression of a nation, the expression of its preferences, of its taboos and of its patterns. It is at every stage of the whole of society that other taboos, values and patterns are
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formed. A national culture is the sum total of all these appraisals; it is the result of internal and external extensions exerted over society as a whole and also at every level of that society. In the colonial situation, culture, which is doubly deprived of the support of the nation and of the state, falls away and dies.” At times we may witness blatant violations as in the distribution of backpacks with US flags to Iraqi children. A more repulsive example is the Skin White Serum. One of many companies engaged in selling skin-bleaching cream is Skin White Research Labs. They proudly sell Skin White Serum in “over 30 countries.” There are countless other companies involved in this market, selling similar products, like Skin White Bleaching Cream and Xtreme White. The hidden message here is that, politically, those in the culture being colonized should seek to cover their brown skin, which is in fact part of their ethnic identity, and aspire to the culture, power and influence of the dominant culture at the expense of their own. Somewhat less subtle is the corporate colonization of Iraq’s culture. An example of this is Iraqi girls carrying Barbie backpacks in the Sadr City area of Baghdad. In Iraq and Afghanistan, the dominant culture for a while now has been the US military. Since it has all the firepower and the brute force, it sets the norms and the standard. This is done by repeated suggestions through propaganda, and advertisements suggesting that the local population is of lesser worth than the occupiers of their country in their appearance, their beliefs, their customs and their way of life. The material practices of society sustain its culture, which is the lifeline of identity, and affirmation that the progress of a nation depends on. Social custom, production systems, education, art and architecture are a few of the visible pillars of culture. Community and custom become the first casualties when an entire people, unequal in the face of military might, struggle to survive under perpetual fear of loss and
MAIN ARTICLES death. In a state of vacuum, the threatened society will grasp whatever is offered by the occupier as a “better” way of living. In the process it is bound to lose its own tried and tested selfsustaining modes of living. With the destruction of infrastructure, education, health and livelihood sources are destroyed. When rehabilitation and restoration come packaged in alien systems of knowledge (read-USAID), that, too, is accepted in the absence of what existed earlier. Literature, art and architecture meet with more systemic demolition. My artist friends in Baghdad have reported, “The occupation forces encouraged the rebels to loot museum and libraries. Five thousand years of history and art were irretrievably lost in hours. It is a loss for the world, not Iraq alone. Buildings can be fixed, so can electricity, but where can I find another Khalid al-Rahal to make me a new statue for Abu Fafar al-Mansoor? How will I replace the artifacts dating back to thousands of years? Iraq is altered forever.” I have heard from ordinary men and women in Iraq, “We need our art, because it connects us with what has brought us here, and reminds us of where we are headed.” Dr. Saad Eskander has been director general of whatever remains of Iraq’s National Archive and Library and he says, “This building was burned twice, and looted. We have lost sixty percent of our archival collections like maps, historical records and photographs. Twenty-five percent of our books were lost ... It has crippled our culture, and culture reaches to the bottom of peoples’ hearts, whereas politics do not.” It is not difficult to see that the extent of devastation caused by the invasion and occupation of Iraq goes beyond loss of life, livelihood and property. The historical and cultural roots of the nation have been destroyed. 27 May 2009 Dahr Jamail, an independent journalist, is the author of “The Will to Resist: Soldiers Who Refuse to Fight in Iraq and Afghanistan,” (Haymarket Books, 2009). Source: Truthout.org
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Organization of the Islamic Conference, popularly known as the OIC, was born on September 25, 1969 in response to an arson attack in al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem by a Zionist fanatic. In 40 years the institution has grown to have become “the second largest inter-governmental organization after the United Nations” with 57 member-states. It has extended its activities from the mere holding of conferences of Muslim leaders to covering business, trade and commerce, culture and civilization, economy, education, history, humanitarian activities in member and non-member countries. In a bipolar world, the institution was hardly visible in international politics, but now all major countries maintain direct liaison with the OIC: the clash of civilizations thesis has placed the institution at a very significant position in international politics. But has the institution fulfilled the desired expectations? What was the potential forty years ago? How much of this potential has been accomplished? Is there new potential? What are the difficulties in accomplishing the full potential of the association? We shall answer and analyze these questions below. The OIC declared it would promote “close cooperation and mutual assistance in the economic, scientific, cultural and spiritual fields, inspired by the immortal teachings of Islam.” But this apparent positive desire for cooperation came in response to a negative act – an arson attack on a Muslim place of worship. Does this mean that Huntington was right when he suggested that “enemies are essential” for “people seeking identity?” In this case were Muslims able to come up with the idea of close cooperation only when their one of their most revered place of worship was attacked? The answer is no. Because Muslim desire for unity is based on the Qur’anic guidance which was first achieved under the leadership of Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) in the 7th century CE. The idea survived till the 20th century through the institution of khilafah until it was abolished in 1923. In 1969 through the establishment of OIC the same desire was revived: the arson attack was just an event lending toward this goal. Therefore the establishment of the OIC must not be viewed as against anything; rather it is pro-something.
By Abdullah al-Ahsan
Although a new international organization composed of newly independent nation-states, the OIC’s potential for cooperative achievement was very high. Among its member states, were capital-rich, labor-scarce countries on the one hand, and manpower-rich, capital-scarce countries on the other. Within the OIC system there are countries such as Brunei, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and other gulf countries which are capital-rich, and there are countries such as Egypt, Indonesia, Pakistan and Turkey which have scientifically oriented and trained manpower. Their cooperative ventures could have become a model for development for the rest of the world. But that has not happened. Expectations and achievements were moderate during the early years of the OIC. Islamic Development Bank (IDB) was founded in order to promote economic development, International Islamic News Agency (IINA) was established in order to enhance information and disseminate accurate news about Islam and Muslims, Statistical, Economic, Social Research and Training Center (SESTRIC) was set up to advance economic cooperation among Muslim countries. Islamic Center for Islamic, History, Art and Culture (IRCICA) was established to encourage and promote Muslim unity. Many more organizations and institutions such as the Islamic Educational, Scientific and Organization (ISESCO) followed throughout 1970s and 1980s. During the early days of its existence, the OIC played a significant role in the area of conflict resolution. When a conflict broke out between the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and Jordan in 1970 Saudi Arabia’s King Faisal and Egypt’s President Jamal Abdul Nasir jointly led the OIC and Arab League initiative to resolve the conflict. They successfully brought the conflict to an end. In 1974 OIC was able to resolve the conflict between Pakistan and the newly independent Bangladesh. The OIC leadership also gained the confidence of common Muslims on the issue of the Ramadan War of 1973 against Israel and the successful oil embargo against supporters of Israel in 1974. The OIC adopted numerous resolutions declaring jihad in all fields against Israeli
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occupation of Palestine and to compel Israel to follow UN resolutions on the issue. However, soon the OIC began to lose its momentum to shrewd Israeli under-thetable diplomacy. OIC leaders lost public confidence when Egypt broke ranks with the OIC and Arab League to unilaterally establish diplomatic relations with Israel in 1978. The OIC expelled Egypt from the organization in response, but within years it took Egypt back into its fold, without providing any convincing explanation. As a result the OIC lost credibility in the eyes of common Muslims. Also in 1978 the OIC had adopted a resolution not to allow the stationing of foreign troops on their soil, to be used against another member state. But within years some member states broke that commitment. Since then its status has continuously deteriorated. In 1980 when the Iran-Iraq war broke out, the OIC sided with Iraq, and thus lost credibility as a broker for peace between two conflicting member-states. Also a number of OIC member-states allowed the stationing of US troops on their soil. OIC resolutions became a laughing stock. Many Muslims began to refer to it as “Oh! I see.” New opportunities appeared in 2003 when Malaysia became chairman of the organization and in 2004 with the Secretary General coming from Turkey. These were fresh openings because these two countries are the most dynamic, progressive and respected countries among OIC member-states. These two countries had the potential to be the engine for development and unification the way Piedmont and Sardinia were for Italian unification in 19th century Europe. The OIC didn’t need to merge all Muslims under one nation-state and national flag; it could initiate a program similar to the European Union. But no initiative was forthcoming to revive the credibility of the organization. The OIC failed to stand beside victims of natural disasters such as the Tsunami in Acheh, Indonesia in 2004, and the earthquake in Kashmir and Pakistan in 2005, with much needed emergency humanitarian assistance. continued next page
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continued from page 3 Yet another opening presented itself in 2008, with President Barak Obama’s extension of the olive branch towards the Muslim world. The OIC stands as the most legitimate organization to represent Muslims in this relationship. Although most Muslims believe that the Palestinian question is the main obstacle in this relationship and President Obama has made it issue number two, the Obama offer has provided the OIC with a unique opportunity to express Muslim interests and concerns on international forums. President Obama has made Afghanistan as problem number one in US-Muslim world relationship. Let it be so. For all practical reasons the Obama Administration has also bracketed Pakistan with Afghanistan. That shouldn’t be a problem either. However, when the Administration appointed Richard Holbrooke as the special envoy to handle the issue, it came under pressure from the pro-Indian lobby in Washington to delete Kashmir from Holbrooke’s terms of reference, and it was deleted. The OIC must tell the Obama Administration that if it cares for democracy in Afghanistan, it must also care for democracy in Kashmir. The issue must be decided on the basis of a universal common value – human dignity, not on the basis of ethnicity or nationality. As long as such double
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standards continue, Taliban and al-Qaeda will be able to continue to recruit fresh manpower to fight not only in Afghanistan and Pakistan, but all over the world. Although military authorities in Pakistan are claiming victory against these forces in Pakistan’s tribal areas, such victory can’t last: the history of the region clearly demonstrates this. The best way out of this quagmire created by the so-called clash of civilizations thesis is to create an atmosphere of mutual trust between Islamic and Western civilizations. Let US-Muslim world cooperation move beyond controlling the spread of polio. The OIC should come forward and shoulder greater responsibility on the question of Afghanistan. More NATO or US troops to Afghanistan can’t resolve the crisis: in fact, in order to gain the confidence of the Afghan people, NATO troops should be withdrawn from Afghanistan. However, the current situation in Afghanistan is such that international troops can’t be withdrawn immediately. Therefore NATO troops should be replaced by OIC troops. Some OIC countries, particularly Bangladesh and Malaysia, have already gained reputation for their peace-keeping role under the UN flag. The argument that currently the OIC doesn’t have such a mandate is glib, for the creation and implementation of this mandate is just a
A R T I C L E S matter of determination. OIC troops in Afghanistan will force Taliban and al-Qaeda to find the middle ground because at least on paper they claim to be fighting for an Islamic system of governance. And an Islamic system of governance demands that the Muslims in conflict make peace with justice. Let Muslim intellectuals deliberate and decide how to bring peace in the region. The conflict must be encountered intellectually on the basis of common human, civilizational and Qur’anic values such as amânah (trust), ‘adâlah (justice), shûra (consultation). Let these discussions be open and transparent so that common Americans and common Muslims know what is being discussed and whether they conform to fundamental values of Islamic and Western civilizations. In our opinion there is no other alternative to this problem. And a positive role for the OIC in Afghanistan will not only place the organization at the forefront of international politics, it will also enable the OIC to gain confidence and legitimacy among ordinary Muslims. 23 September 2009 Dr Abdullah al-Ahsan is Vice-President of the International Movement for a Just World (JUST) and also Professor of History and Civilization at the International Islamic University Malaysia.
A CALL TO OBAMA — FREE THE CUBAN FIVE! Eight months into the Obama Presidency, one of the greatest travesties of justice in recent American judicial history has not been remedied. It is a travesty that most Americans – except those living in Miami – are not even aware of. The media has deliberately chosen to ignore the tragedy of the ‘Cuban Five.’ 11 years ago, on 12 September 1998, five men of Cuban origin, two of them American citizens born to Cuban parents living in the US, were arrested in the US on charges of conspiracy to commit espionage. They were sentenced to terms ranging from 15 years to double life in a Miami court in 2001, after what was at that time the longest trial in the US. The five— Fernando Gonzalez, Gerardo Hernandez, Antonio Guerrero, Ramon Labanino, and Rene Gonzales— were not involved in any act of espionage against the US. They were not in possession of
any weapons. Neither did they kill or injure any person. The Five were monitoring Cuban exile groups in the US with a proven record of committing terrorist acts against the Cuban people and the Cuban nation. They were gathering information about the terrorist missions that these groups were planning and had informed the US authorities about what they (the Cuban Five) were doing. And yet they were arrested and jailed after an unfair and unjust trial. To understand why the Cuban Five did what they did, one has to remember that tiny Cuba has been the target of every US Administration since 1959. US security and intelligence agencies, working hand in glove with US proxies, agents and Cuban exiles operating from Miami, have been directly or indirectly responsible for a military invasion of the island state; the destruction of one of its civilian planes and the murder of all its passengers; bomb
attacks; and countless assassination attempts upon its former President, Fidel Castro. Since 1961, the US Administration has also imposed crippling economic sanctions upon Cuba that have stunted the development of the nation. There is no doubt at all that these are acts of terrorism perpetrated against a nation whose only ‘sin’ is its desire to chart its own future and to determine its own destiny. President Obama recognises the right of a nation to determine its own destiny, to protect its independence and its sovereignty. The US seeks to eliminate terrorism. It should not incarcerate individuals who were trying to expose terrorist activities aimed at subverting their nation’s sovereignty and integrity. If Obama is serious and sincere about making changes to US policy on Cuba continued next page
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continued from page 4 he should free the Cuban Five immediately. It will be a clear signal to Havana that the US is prepared to bring to an end five decades of outrageous bellicosity against Cuba. The release of
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the Cuban Five could well be the beginning of the normalisation of ties between the US and Cuba. Normalising ties with Cuba should be one of Obama’s main foreign policy goals. 15 September 2009
A R T I C L E S Dr. Chandra Muzaffar, President, International Movement for a Just World (JUST).
ARTICLES THE G-20 ANNOUNCES THE “NEW WORLD ORDER” By Michael Collins
The world’s most exclusive public club, the G-20, met last week in Pittsburgh for “the opportunity to take stock of the progress made and discuss further actions to assure a sound recovery from the global economic and financial crisis.” The G-20 consists of finance ministers and senior banking officials from the world’s 20 largest economies. Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner were there for the United States. But the real action comes from the gathering’s function as an informal summit for attending heads of state.
The “sonic cannon” was deployed and emitted these exact words: “Pittsburgh Chief Police: This is an unlawful assembly. I order all those assembled to immediately disburse. You must leave the immediate vicinity. If you remain in this immediate vicinity, you will be in violation of the Pennsylvania crimes code, no matter what your purpose is.”
The Pittsburgh Summit focused on changing the regulations governing the world’s financial institutions and processes. In addition to rewriting the rule book, the “new world order” announced that the G-20 is now the “premier coordinating body on economic issues” which will benefit the wealthiest interests in each member country.
The power salon has been functioning since 1975 when a smaller, even more exclusive group met at the request of the then President of France, Valéry Giscard d’Estaing. The G-8 leaders convened to manage the economic and social impact of rapidly rising oil prices. One year later, prices dipped briefly then nearly tripled after the Iranian Revolution.
But it was more than just about making the banks behave. In cooperation with U.S. and foreign law enforcement agencies, Pittsburgh police and unidentified law enforcement agents unveiled some new programs for citizens. These had nothing to do with much needed jobs and health care, barely mentioned at the meeting. Rather, the G20 premiered the “sonic cannon,” a device designed to cause serious pain from ultra shrill sonic waves beamed at those exercising their rights of freedom of speech and assembly.
Over the years, the world’s financial leaders met periodically, building the franchise, until the Pittsburgh Summit at which the new magic number of 20 nations was announced, the G-20.
Law enforcement used the more traditional techniques like the citizen “grab and snatch.” This maneuver has four rapid stages: unidentified law enforcement officials show up in an unmarked car; grab a random citizen; shove him into a car against his will; and drive off, all without a word of explanation.
The ongoing economic struggle of billions of people didn’t deter key G-20 figure Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke from announcing that the worldwide recession is “very likely over.” Of course, there’s a qualifier. It will be a jobless recovery which raises the question, just exactly who will be recovering?
There were no criticisms of police actions from the G-20 leaders, many of whom preside over nominally democratic states. That’s probably because there were no questions from the press.
At an April G-20 meeting in London the focus was on “Stability, Growth, Jobs.” A look at the four working groups from that meeting shows two focused on international finance and two on international financial organizations, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.
The Epitome of Failure An objective judgment on the promises of the London G-20 meeting, growth and jobs, shows a complete failure by the group. The world’s economy continues to slide into oblivion with no remaining bright spots except for Wall Street bankers and others who caused the crisis. The largest U.S. and European financial groups have cash and credit guarantees of a potential $23.7 trillion (annotation) to preserve their market positions and executive perks. These guarantees were enabled by the actions of some of the very same leaders attending the Pittsburgh conference. It’s a tight circle. One sixth of the world population suffers from hunger largely due to unemployment, high food prices, and the high cost of borrowing due to the current financial crisis. Unemployment is increasing around the world complicated by a largely unmentioned structural jobs shortage. A report from the International Labor Organization shows that unemployment has grown to 190 million worldwide with an estimated 50 million more to join them in 2009. Rates of “working poverty” are expected to hit 1.3 billion people worldwide. Even if the job market improves, the struggle to buy basic necessities will continue to pose a challenge for the vast majority of citizens. In the United States, for example, there has been no real increase in per capita income for the past nine years and few net new non government jobs. The people who brought the world to this state of decline and struggle are still in charge. They’re fixing the very problems they created. What’s their solution? Change the way banks are regulated. continued next page
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continued from page 5 Sowing the Wind The U.S. can no longer finance the military presence overseas without major debt. Foreign wars are simply not affordable. The banking system is in critical condition, unable to recover except on a superficial level. The neglect of domestic concerns in the United States and the ongoing drain of wealth from the middle, working and lower class have virtually eliminated taxation and the treasury as a viable source of real funds. Undeterred, the United States government has begun yet another war it cannot afford in Afghanistan before even beginning to end the occupation of Iraq. At the same time, the government has issued trillions of dollars in cash and credit for a banking sector with many banks technically broke. The rest of the world continues to struggle despite optimistic talk at the summit. Japan remains in a recession after nearly two decades and has just begun a faltering recovery. In Germany, there are fears of deflation. China may have exhausted credit and protectionist fixes in an attempt to avoid a major slump. Spain’s unemployment figure will reach 20% soon. More to the point of globalization, there are 1.3 billion “working poor” (p. 39) earning $2.00 (two dollars) a day concentrated in South, East, and
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Southeast Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. Does the G-20 recovery plan include these subsistence workers? When is it their turn to “recover?” What’s the response by the world’s leaders? Regulatory reform of banking and finance will save us. If we only have better banking rules, they argue, we will somehow be able to generate enough dollars to keep the key enterprises going – financial and military dominance – while something may come along to help with concerns like jobs, health, and increased income. Here’s what they’re really saying: it’s time to fix a new set of rules that allow the game to continue in some form that will protect accumulated wealth and maintain those in power. While the leaders and their finance ministers workout the latest scheme to produce a balance sheet that won’t generate laughter and derision, they must ponder the finite limitations of their economies. Unlike the exuberance of the 1950’s with the assumption of limitless energy in the form of oil, there’s an awareness that the fuel underlying the entire scheme is increasingly more difficult and expensive to extract. Concerns about diminishing returns from exploration and extraction are mixed with notions that there may be an end to the affordability of oil given the voracious appetite of two of the new G-20 members,
A R T I C L E S China and India. But the leaders can sit in repose at their elegantly catered conference dinners with the comfort that although they may not be the managers of a perpetual scheme of “growth” for their incredibly wealthy patrons, they will certainly transition to the role managing the chaos caused by their efforts. Their street level operatives unveil new technologies and techniques at each G-20 conference to discourage those who seek to disagree by public assembly and free speech. When the G-20 is in town, basic political rights here and overseas are suspended. It’s time for the beat down. The heavy handed, technically brutish suppression of public protest is a form of instructive theater that engenders a feeling of helplessness for many who might otherwise be motivated to resist. This in turn perpetuates order and protection for the G-20’s ongoing acts of greed and incompetence inflicted upon the vast majority of citizens in the nations they represent. If they quiet the voice of the people long enough, the leaders may even begin to think that the voices never existed in the first place. They can ignore what they’ve forgotten, the will of those they govern. 29 September 2009 Michael Collins is a writer in the DC area who researches and comments on the corruptions of the new millennium. Source: http://www.opednews.com
BY 2050, 25M MORE CHILDREN WILL GO HUNGRY AS
CLIMATE CHANGE LEADS TO FOOD CRISIS By Suzanne Goldenburg since last year’s riots.
Twenty-five million more children will go hungry by the middle of this century as climate change leads to food shortages and soaring prices for staples such as rice, wheat, maize and soya beans, a report says today.
If global warming goes unchecked, all regions of the world will be affected, but the most vulnerable – south Asia and subSaharan Africa – will be hit hardest by failing crop yields, according to the report, prepared by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) for the World Bank and Asian Development Bank. The children of 2050 will have fewer
calories to eat than those in 2000, the report says, and the effect would be to wipe out decades of progress in reducing child malnutrition.
The grim scenario is the first to gauge the effects of climate change on the world’s food supply by combining climate and agricultural models. Spikes in grain prices last year led to rioting and unrest across the developing world, from Haiti to Thailand. Leaders at the G20 summit in Pittsburgh last week committed $2bn to food security, and the United Nations is set to hold a summit on food security in November, its second
But the UN secretary general, Ban Kimoon, is pressing the World Bank and other institutions to do more. He said the industrialised world needs to step up investment in seed research and to offer more affordable crop insurance to the small farmers in developing countries. Though prices have stabilised, the world’s food system is still in crisis, he said at the weekend. “Ever more people are denied food because prices are stubbornly high, because purchasing power has fallen due to the economic crisis, or because rains continued next page
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continued from page 6 have failed and reserve stocks of grain have been eaten,” he said. Even without global warming, rising populations meant the world was headed for food shortages and food price rises. “The food price crisis of last year really was a wake-up call to a lot of people that we are going to have 50% more people on the surface of the Earth by 2050,” said Gerald Nelson, the lead author of the report. “Meeting those demands for food coming out of population growth is going to be a huge challenge – even without climate change.” After several years in which development aid has been diverted away from rural areas, the report called for $7bn a year for crop research, and investment in irrigation and rural infrastructure to help farmers adjust to a warming climate. “Continuing the business-as-usual approach will almost certainly guarantee disastrous consequences,” said Nelson. The G20 industrialised nations last week began discussing how to invest some $20bn pledged for food security earlier this year. Some regions of the world outlined in the report are already showing signs of vulnerability because of changing rainfall patterns and drought linked to climate change. Oxfam yesterday launched a $152m appeal on behalf of 23 million people hit by a severe drought and spiralling food prices in Kenya, Ethiopia, Somalia and Uganda. The charity called it the worst humanitarian crisis in Africa for a decade, and said many people in the region were suffering from malnutrition. But southern Asia, which made great advances in agricultural production during the 20th century, was also singled out in the IFPRI report for being
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particularly at risk of food shortages. Some countries, such as Canada and Russia, will experience longer growing seasons because of climate change, but other factors – such as poor soil – mean that will not necessarily be translated into higher food production. The report was prepared for negotiators currently trying to reach a global deal to fight climate change at the latest round of UN talks in Bangkok. It used climate models prepared by the National Centre for Atmospheric Research in Colorado and the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation in Australia to arrive at estimates of how changes in growing seasons and rainfall patterns would affect farming in the developing world and elsewhere. Without an ambitious injection of funds and new technology, wheat yields could fall by more than 30% in developing countries, setting off a catastrophic rise in prices. Wheat prices, with unmitigated climate change, could rise by 170%-194% by the middle of this century, the report said. Rice prices are projected to rise by 121% – and almost all of the increase will have to be passed on to the consumer, Nelson said. The report did not take into account all the expected impacts of climate change – such as the loss of farmland due to rising sea levels, a rise in the number of insects and in plant disease, or changes in glacial melt. All these factors could increase the damage of climate change to agriculture. Others who have examined the effects of climate change on agriculture have warned of the potential for conflict. In a new book, Plan B 4.0: Mobilising to Save Civilisation, published today, Lester Brown, founder of the Earth Policy Institute, warns that sharp declines in world harvests due to climate change
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A R T I C L E S could threaten the world order. “I am convinced that food is indeed the weak link,” he said. Brown saw Asia as the epicentre of the crisis, with the latest science warning of a sea level rise of up to six feet by 2100. With even a 3ft rise, Bangladesh could lose half of its rice land to rising seas; Vietnam, the world’s second largest producer of rice, could also see much of the Mekong Delta under water. Wheat and rice production would also fall because of acute water shortages, caused by past over-pumping and the melting of the Himalayan glaciers, which currently store water that supplies the region’s main rivers: the Indus, Ganges, and Yangtse. Brown said: “The potential loss of these mountain glaciers in the Himalayas is the most massive projected threat to food security ever seen” . Global shortfall People in both the developing and developed worlds will have less to eat by 2050 if climate change is not seriously addressed, though the shortfall will be relatively slight in richer countries. Prices rises and shortages of food will drive down the average calories available: • The calories available for each person in industrialised nations will fall from 3,450 in 2000 to about 3,200. • In developing countries overall, the average will fall from 2,696 to 2,410 calories. • In sub-Saharan Africa, people will on average have only 1,924 calories a day, compared with 2,316 in 2000. 30 September 2009 Suzanne Goldenberg is the US environment correspondent of The Guardian Source: www.commondreams.org
GLOBAL NUCLEAR INFRASTRUCTURE By Mary Kaldor
Over the last couple of years, a new antinuclear movement has emerged led by former politicians and officials of the Cold War era. They want to rid the world of nuclear weapons and they have put forward proposals for achieving this that largely consist of business left unfinished when they were in power. If they are to
succeed in their ultimate goal, they need to be complemented by an anti-nuclear movement composed of citizens and politicians of the emergent global era who could develop a new set of proposals aimed at challenging outdated ways of thinking about nuclear weapons.
This new movement was launched in an article in the Wall Street Journal in January 2007 signed by George P.Shulz, William J. Perry, Henry A. Kissinger, and Sam Nunn calling for a world free of nuclear weapons. A follow-up article in January, 2008 outlined more detailed proposals for continued next page
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continued from page 7 reaching their goal. Mikhail Gorbachev responded enthusiastically in the Wall Street Journal (January 31 2007) and subsequently organised a series of meetings within the framework of the World Political Forum, which he founded. The initiative was also taken up by politicians of a similar standing from other countries such as Britain (Malcolm Rifkind, Douglas Hurd, David Owen and George Robertson in The Times June 30 2008), Italy (Corriere della Sera July 24 2008), Germany (Helmut Schmidt, Richard von Weizäcker, Egon Bahr, and Hans Dietrich Genscher in the International Herald Tribune 9 January 2009), and Poland (Aleksandr Kwasniewski, Tadeusz Mazowiecki and Lech Walesa in Moscow Times 7 April 2009). In December 2008, the Global Zero campaign was launched calling for a ‘a legally binding verifiable agreement, including all nations, to eliminate nuclear weapons by a date certain.’ Its signatories are a roll call of famous names, including many who vigorously defended nuclear weapons in the last years of the Cold War, like Richard Burt, Reagan’s nuclear adviser, or Zbigniew Brzezinski, the arc of crisis theorist, as well as most of the above. The proposals that have been put forward for reaching the goal of a nuclearfree world, so far, have largely involved different variants of the following set of approaches: Reduce and de-alert US and Russian nuclear weapons. These account for 95% of the world’s nuclear warheads so it makes sense for any reductions to start with them. Actually, numbers have steadily declined through a series of agreements since the end of the Cold War and the most recent agreement to further reduce numbers was signed by President Obama and President Medvedev on Obama’s first visit to Moscow. Since a certain proportion of these weapons consist of land-based or submarine-based ballistic missiles ready to be launched within a few minutes, the world would clearly be a bit safer if these were put in what the jargon terms ‘responsive mode’ with a little more warning time and decision time. Control and reduce stockpiles of nuclear warheads and nuclear materials. There is an enormous amount of nuclear detritus left over from the Cold War; not all of it is
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accounted for and some is insecure and weakly controlled. With new preoccupations about terrorism, there are great fears about access for non-state actors or for illegal trade in these materials. So much greater accountability, transparency and security are needed. Strengthening the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and implementing the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). The NPT, which is designed to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons, is up for review in 2010. Strengthening the NPT would mean taking the disarmament pillar of the NPT more seriously and enhancing monitoring of civilian programmes. The CTBT was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1996 but it will not enter into force until a sufficient number of potentially nuclear capable states have ratified the treaty. Not only would these proposals reduce the risks of nuclear accident, mistake, or theft but they would also contribute to a web of treaties and transnational mechanisms for monitoring and verification, which would further enmesh states in a multilateral network that in itself would reduce the likelihood of nuclear threats. They would be a way of reaching what Senator Nunn at a conference on ‘Overcoming Nuclear Dangers’ held in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Rome in April, 2009, referred to as the ‘base camp’ before ascending to the summit of a nuclear free world. But how would such a summit be climbed? Most of these proposals have their origins in the period when the new anti-nuclear activists were politicians and when their main concern was to reduce the risks of the nuclear arms race while preserving the capabilities of existing nuclear powers. This was the essence of what were then known as ‘arms control’ rather than disarmament measures. Reductions of American and Russian nuclear warheads will still leave both countries with enough nuclear capacity to destroy the world several times over. The NPT and the CTBT are designed to constrain the development of nuclear weapons by new powers but, in effect, legitimise existing arsenals. Indeed, it could even be argued that by implicitly endorsing the nuclear status of great powers, they represent an incentive for emerging powers like Iran or North Korea to acquire nuclear weapons. The
proposals for securing and limiting nuclear stockpiles are likewise designed to prevent nuclear capacity getting into the wrong hands while protecting the stockpiles of existing nuclear powers. But they cannot, of themselves, prevent the manufacture of weapons grade materials by Iran, say, or, a further example, the export of nuclear know-how by rogue elements in Pakistan. Arms control proposals are based on a geo-political statist understanding of the world. The possession and implicit threat to use nuclear weapons is associated with an absolutist view of state sovereignty. The possession of nuclear weapons implies an absolutist prerogative on the part of states to risk the lives of its own citizens on a massive scale not to mention citizens in other countries without any prior public debate or discussion. The use of nuclear weapons would constitute an unimaginable violation of human rights and hence the implication of their possession is that states have the right to inflict such an unimaginable violation. In Europe, where most nuclear weapons are still American, it is not even European states that have this absolutist character, it is the American President alone who is allowed to risk the lives of European citizens. The problem with arms control proposals is that they treat nuclear weapons as thought they were part of the normal armoury of states - they naturalise nuclear weapons. And yet we cannot ascend to the top of the mountain without changing those fundamental assumptions and without rethinking the implications of possessing nuclear weapons in to-day’s globalised world. The geopolitical framework of arms control proposals is totally at variance with the changing character of sovereignty in a global era. Nowadays we tend to think of sovereignty as continued next page
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continued from page 8 conditional - both on relations with other states and respect for multilateral rules of the game and on domestic consent and respect for human rights. It is rather odd, indeed anachronistic, that we have negotiated bans on land mines or cluster munitions on the grounds that these type of weapons inherently violate human rights and international humanitarian law on account of their indiscriminate nature - and yet we treat nuclear weapons as though they were legitimate. If we are to reach the summit, we need to put forward proposals that reframe the issue of nuclear weapons as a humanitarian issue and that require courage and leadership on the part of politicians if they are to support them. It is easy enough to be in favour of ridding the world of nuclear weapons while supporting the maintenance of national nuclear weapons since the final goal depends on global agreement. Even Mahmoud Ahmadinejad or Kim Il Jong would probably be in favour of the global zero declaration, if asked. The difficult part is how to reach that global agreement. Beyond the impasse I have three proposals. First of all, the threat or use of nuclear weapons should be criminalised. The threat or use of nuclear weapons should be treated as a war crime or a crime against humanity and should be included in the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court. This was proposed by NGOs in the Peace Caucus pressing for the treaty, which established the International Criminal Court, and was supported by the NonAligned Movement and by India in particular. In addition the ICRC (the Red Cross) favoured a general prohibition on weapons that ‘cause superfluous injury or unnecessary suffering’ or are ‘inherently indiscriminate’ (i.e. cannot discriminate between combatants and non-combatants) - something which is already part of international humanitarian law. As Chinkin and Singh make clear in their opinion on the Trident replacement, the threat or use of nuclear weapons violates international humanitarian law because of the ‘intransgressible’ requirement that a distinction be drawn between combatants and noncombatants. The final statute establishing the International Criminal Court (the Rome Treaty) however made no reference either to nuclear weapons
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or to biological and chemical weapons, although it did refer to expanding bullets, poison weapons, poisonous gases and analogous materials, relegating all other weapons to a possible future annex. Now is the time to revive this proposal. The 1996 International Court of Justice advisory opinion, which found nuclear weapons to be illegal except (on the basis of the Chairman’s ruling) in the case of the survival of the state (an implicit endorsement of the state’s absolutist prerogatives), should also be revisited. Secondly, nuclear weapons should be eliminated area by area. In other words, the idea of nuclear free zones should once again be promoted. There are already nuclear free zone treaties in Africa and Latin America and many countries have declared themselves nuclear free. Those who were active in the campaigns against nuclear weapons in the 1980s will remember the movement to establish nuclear free cities. In particular, it ought to be possible to call again for a European nuclear free zone. That would mean getting rid of American tactical nuclear weapons in Europe, the British and French nuclear weapons and Russian weapons based in the European part of Russia. (Interestingly in the article by the former German politicians they do call for the removal of American tactical nuclear weapons from Germany - a proposal that departs from the multilateralist arms control proposals that the ex-politicians have tended to favour). Egypt has proposed a weapons of mass destruction free zone in the Middle East and this should also be explored further. My third proposal is specifically directed at Britain. It appears rather absurd to most of us that Britain has been represented by the Iranian regime as the dominant agent directing the current wave of unrest in the aftermath of flawed elections. What it means is that Britain
It is often said that nuclear weapons cannot be disinvented. That is true; but the knowledge of how to make nuclear weapons does not reside in a single individual but in social infrastructure that involves a complex combination of specific skills, knowledge and equipment. And only states have the capacity to build such infrastructures. Nowadays, the big fear is that terrorists will get hold of nuclear materials and this could be hugely dangerous in places like Pakistan or Central Asia. But terrorists could not construct their own infrastructure; they would need access to states. Thus the best way to prevent this from happening is indeed to dismantle the global nuclear infrastructure in a way that allows extensive international monitoring and verification. Perhaps the most important task is to break the link between nuclear weapons and great power status - something that would involve a profound change in global public discourse. But this cannot be achieved just by the advocacy of wellmeaning former politicians who are still steeped in statist thinking. We need a new generation of politicians, diplomats and citizens who fully understand what has happened in today’s world, where nuclear weapons are fast becoming a metaphor for military power in general. In to-day’s world, the US has lost power both economically and politically as a result of military spending. Military force has proved ineffective in Iraq and Afghanistan, where it has become evident that as with nuclear weapons - you can destroy, but you cannot persuade anyone to act in the way you want them to act. Nuclear weapons only represent power if you believe they represent power. Change the mind-set, and that era is at an end. What we need now is proposals that cannot easily be accepted and that force a meaningful debate. 11 August 2009 Mary Kaldor is professor of global governance at the London School of Economics (LSE). Source: OpenDemocracy.net
Sign the Declaration www.globalzero. org/en/ sign-declaration
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KEEP ISRAEL’S NUKES SECRET By Eli Lake
President Obama has reaffirmed a 4decade-old secret understanding that has allowed Israel to keep a nuclear arsenal without opening it to international inspections, three officials familiar with the understanding said. The officials, who spoke on the condition that they not be named because they were discussing private conversations, said Mr. Obama pledged to maintain the agreement when he first hosted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House in May. Under the understanding, the U.S. has not pressured Israel to disclose its nuclear weapons or to sign the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which
could require Israel to give up its estimated several hundred nuclear bombs. Israel had been nervous that Mr. Obama would not continue the 1969 understanding because of his strong support for nonproliferation and priority on preventing Iran from developing nuclear weapons. The U.S. and five other world powers made progress during talks with Iran in Geneva on Thursday as Iran agreed in principle to transfer some potential bomb fuel out of the country and to open a recently disclosed facility to international inspection. Mr. Netanyahu let the news of the continued U.S.-Israeli accord slip last week in a remark that attracted little notice. He was asked by Israel’s Channel 2 whether he was worried that Mr. Obama’s speech at the U.N. General Assembly, calling for a world without nuclear weapons, would apply to Israel. “It was utterly clear from the context of
the speech that he was speaking about North Korea and Iran,” the Israeli leader said. “But I want to remind you that in my first meeting with President Obama in Washington I received from him, and I asked to receive from him, an itemized list of the strategic understandings that have existed for many years between Israel and the United States on that issue. It was not for naught that I requested, and it was not for naught that I received [that document].” The chief nuclear understanding was reached at a summit between President Nixon and Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir that began on Sept. 25, 1969. Avner Cohen, author of “Israel and the Bomb” and the leading authority outside the Israeli government on the history of Israel’s nuclear program, said the accord amounts to “the United States passively accepting Israel’s nuclear weapons status as long as Israel does not unveil publicly its capability or test a weapon.” There is no formal record of the agreement nor have Israeli nor American governments ever publicly acknowledged it. In 2007, however, the Nixon library declassified a July 19, 1969, memo from national security adviser Henry Kissinger that comes closest to articulating U.S. policy on the issue. That memo says, “While we might ideally like to halt actual Israeli possession, what we really want at a minimum may be just to keep Israeli possession from becoming an established international fact.” Mr. Cohen has said the resulting policy was the equivalent of “don’t ask, don’t tell.” The Netanyahu government sought to reaffirm the understanding in part out of concern that Iran would seek Israeli disclosures of its nuclear program in negotiations with the United States and other world powers. Iran has frequently accused the U.S. of having a double standard by not objecting to Israel’s arsenal. Mr. Cohen said the reaffirmation and the fact that Mr. Netanyahu sought and received a written record of the deal suggest that “it appears not only that there was no joint understanding of what
had been agreed in September 1969 but it is also apparent that even the notes of the two leaders may no longer exist. It means that Netanyahu wanted to have something in writing that implies that understanding. It also affirms the view that the United States is in fact a partner in Israel’s policy of nuclear opacity.” Jonathan Peled, a spokesman for the Israeli Embassy in Washington, declined to comment, as did the White House National Security Council. The secret understanding could undermine the Obama administration’s goal of a world without nuclear weapons. In particular, it could impinge on U.S. efforts to bring into force the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and the Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty, two agreements that U.S. administrations have argued should apply to Israel in the past. They would ban nuclear tests and the production of material for weapons. A Senate staffer familiar with the May reaffirmation, who asked not to be named because of the sensitivity of the issue, said, “What this means is that the president gave commitments that politically he had no choice but to give regarding Israel’s nuclear program. However, it calls into question virtually every part of the president’s nonproliferation agenda.The president gave Israel an NPT treaty get out of jail free card.” Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association, said the step was less injurious to U.S. policy. “I think it is par for the course that the two incoming leaders of the United States and Israel would want to clarify previous understandings between their governments on this issue,” he said. However Mr. Kimball added, “I would respectfully disagree with Mr. Netanyahu. President Obama’s speech and U.N. Security Council Resolution 1887 apply to all countries irrespective of secret understandings between the U.S. and Israel. A world without nuclear weapons is consistent with Israel’s stated continued next page
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continued from page 10 goal of achieving a Middle East free of weapons of mass destruction. Obama’s message is that the same nonproliferation and disarmament responsibilities should apply to all states and not just a few.” Israeli nuclear doctrine is known as “the long corridor.” Under it, Israel would begin to consider nuclear disarmament only after all countries officially at war with it signed peace treaties and all neighboring countries relinquished not
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only nuclear programs but also chemical and biological arsenals. Israel sees nuclear weapons as an existential guarantee in a hostile environment. David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security, said he hoped the Obama administration did not concede too much to Israel. “One hopes that the price for such concessions is Israeli agreement to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and the
A R T I C L E S Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty and an acceptance of the long-term goal of a Middle East weapons-of-massdestruction-free zone,” he said. “Otherwise, the Obama administration paid too much, given its focus on a world free of nuclear weapons.” 2 October 2009 Eli Lake is a staff writer for the Washington Times Source: www.iInformationclearinghouse
A 9/11 REALITY CHECK By Robert Scheer What if eight years ago the World Trade Center had been leveled by a small nuclear bomb that took out most of lower Manhattan as well? How many millions of innocent civilians would we have killed in retaliation? Would we still be a free society, or would Dick Cheney have attained the power of a demented king, having moved on from snooping on our phone calls and outing honest CIA agents to destroying the last vestiges of the rule of law? As assaults on a society go, the 9/11 attacks, which left 3,000 dead and are sure to be described in this anniversary week as being among the greatest of historical outrages, were something less than that, given the world’s experience with the ravages of war. The countless Russians and the 6 million Jews killed by those so finely educated Germans come to mind. The 3.4 million Vietnamese, mostly rice farmers, whom Robert McNamara admitted to having helped kill with his carpet-bombing of their country, are a forgotten footnote. Yet we who have never experienced such carnage on our home front all too easily poke out tens of thousands of eyes for each lost one of our own. Surely two planes crashing into office buildings and another hitting the Pentagon doesn’t compare to the leveling of every major city in Japan with conventional bombing, capped off by the mass murder of hundreds of thousands more at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Speaking of eyes lost, mark the words of Hiroshima’s mayor two years ago: “That fateful summer, 8:15 AM. The roar of a B29 breaks the morning calm. A parachute opens in the blue sky. Then suddenly, a flash, an enormous blast—silence—hell
on Earth. The eyes of young girls watching the parachute were melted.” We assumed that the Japanese people would readily forgive us and, having been raised in the spirit of total obedience to their emperor, they accommodated our occupation quite well, even injecting industrial-grade silicon into their women’s breasts to satisfy the erotic appetites of our soldiers. Americans who blithely claim the moral high ground with every pledge of allegiance to a flag that, because it is American, is assumed to have never been sullied by imperial greed or moral contradiction expect no less than instant and full forgiveness for our “mistakes.” Only last month, four decades after he led the massacre of 500 villagers in My Lai, Vietnam, did former Army Lt. William Calley express “regret” for his crimes. He served no time in prison for the pointblank shooting of toddlers, thanks to the commutation of his sentence by Richard Nixon, who might have been anticipating his own need for a presidential pardon. In blind and wrathful retaliation for 9/11 we wreaked havoc on Iraq, a nation that our then-president knew had not attacked us, and we continue to slaughter peasants in Afghanistan who aren’t able to find Manhattan on a map. We, a people whose nation has never suffered a long and widespread occupation, easily gave vent to our most barbaric impulses, assuming the absolute right to arrest and torture anyone anywhere in the world without revealing his identity, let alone respecting a single one of those God-given rights that we claim for ourselves alone. And even when
we identify the few we hold responsible for the attacks on our soil, we refuse them public and fair trials even after years of torturing them. But we do have a saving grace for our experiment in democracy—although unfortunately it did not exist in the Supreme Court or Congress as a barrier to an imperial vice presidency. It is the power of the lone whistle-blower of conscience, occasionally given voice in what remains of our free press and which can influence presidential elections, as happened quite dramatically this last time around. There are those like Joe Wilson, who exposed presidential fraud masquerading as national security concern over bogus Iraqi purchases of uranium from Niger, and more recently the truth-telling of Ali H. Soufan, a former FBI agent and lead interrogator of terrorists. In Sunday’s New York Times, Soufan, who was involved in obtaining much reliable information from prisoners before they were tortured, observed that the recently released memos cited by Cheney to back his argument that torture was efficient actually “fail to show that the techniques stopped even a single imminent threat of terrorism.” So, Cheney is again proved wrong, but if there had been a larger attack on 9/11, I doubt whether many free souls would be around now to tell him so. 9 September 2009 Robert Scheer, a journalist with over 30 years experience, is the editor of TruthDig. Source: www.TruthDig.com
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