Special l Marja: The city that never was section: l Goodbye to truth and liberty The lying l aipac tells another whopper game l A nation is pacified ColdType

TheWRITING WORTHReade READING l ISSUE 45 l aprirl 2010 J oh b n H arris / R e p

Photo Essay: The tax revolt that ended Thatcher’s reign ort digita l.c o . u k

The War Machine Essays on War and its Consequences by Norman Solomon, John Pilger, Sherwood Ross, Joe Bageant, Tom Engelhardt and George Monbiot ColdType TheReader

Special l Marja: The ciTy ThaT never was Section: l Goodbye To TruTh and liberTy the lying l aipac Tells anoTher whopper game l a naTion is pacified ColdType Issue 45 April 2010

TWRITING h WORTH e R READING e al ISSUE d 45 l e A p RIRl 2010 JOHbN HARRIS / REpORT DIGITAl.cO.Uk

Photo Essay: thE tax rEv o l t that EndEd thatchEr’s rEign 3. 37 years in solitary confinement Erwin James

The Lying game

thE War MachinE Essays on War and its consequences by norman solomon, john pilger, sherwood ross, joe bageant, Tom engelhardt and George Monbiot 8. marja: the city that never was Gareth Porter 10. Goodbye to truth; goodbye to liberty Paul Craig Roberts Editor: Tony Sutton ([email protected]) 13. aipac tells another whopper Stephanie Westbrook 17. a nation is pacified Kathy Kelly To subscribe, send an email to: [email protected] 20 the tax revolt that ended thatcher’s reign (Write subscribe in the subject line) John Harris and Howard Davis 24. down and out on the european animal farm Diana Johnstone Opinions expressed in The ColdType Reader are not 27. it’s enough to make you die laughing Michael I. Niman necessarily those of the 31. to hell in a handbasket David Michael Green editor or publisher

The war macHine 36. a bomber jacket doesn’t cover the blood Norman Solomon 38. have a nice world war, folks! John Pilger 40. 28 nations with no shame Sherwood Ross 48. who you gonna bomb next, eh? Joe Bageant 51. how to fight a better war (next time) Tom Engelhardt 54. war with the ghosts George Monbiot

56. invictus in reverse Dave Zirin 58. meddling where we oughtn’t meddle Fred Reed 60. informed consent William Blum

2 TheReader | April 2010 The Angola Three 37 years in solitary confinement In 1972, three men in a Louisiana prison were placed in solitary confinement after a guard was murdered. Two are still there – even though many believe they are innocent, writes Erwin James

ngola prison, the state peniten- been locked down in Angola’s maximum Having tiary of Louisiana, is the biggest security Closed Cell Restricted (CCR) block experienced the prison in America. Built on the – the longest period of solitary confinement isolation site of a former slave plantation, in American prison history. of “23-hour Athe 1,800-acre penal complex is home to Having experienced the isolation of “23- bang-up” during more than 5,000 prisoners, the majority of hour bang-up” during my own 20 years of my own 20 years whom will never walk the streets again as imprisonment, for offences of which I was of imprisonment, free men. Also known as the Farm, Angola guilty, I can attest to the mental impact for offences of took its name from the homeland of the that such conditions inflict. My first year which I was guilty, slaves who used to work its fields, and in was spent on a high-security landing where I can attest to the many ways still resembles a slave plantation the cell doors were opened only briefly mental impact that today. Eighty per cent of the prisoners are for meals and emptying of toilet buckets. such conditions African-Americans and, under the watchful If decent-minded prison officers were on inflict eye of armed guards on horseback, they still duty we were allowed to walk the yard for work fields of sugar cane, cotton and corn, 30 minutes a day. The rest of the time we for up to 16 hours a day. “You’ve got to keep were alone. The cells were 10ft x 5ft, with a the inmates working all day so they’re tired chair, a table and a bed. You could walk up at night,” says Warden Burl Cain, a commit- and down, run on the spot, stand still, or do ted evangelist who believes that the rehabil- push-ups and sit-ups – but sooner or later itation of convicts is only possible through you had to just stop, and think. Christian redemption. Undoubtedly there is less violence and Vivid dreams abuse among the prisoners under his war- As the days, weeks and months blur into denship than there was under his predeces- one, without realising it you start to live sors. But Angola is still a long way from be- completely inside your head. You dream ing a “positive environment that promotes about the past, in vivid detail – and fan- responsibility, goodness, and humanity”, as tasise about the future, for fantasies are he proclaims in the prison’s mission state- all you have. You panic but it’s no good ment. In fact at the heart of Cain’s prison “getting on the bell” – unless you’re dying regime is an inhumanity that would make – and, even then, don’t hope for a speedy Jesus weep. response. I had a lot to think about. When For more than 37 years, two prisoners, the man in the cell above mine hanged him- Herman Wallace and Albert Woodfox, have self I thought about that, a lot. I still do. You

April 2010 | TheReader 3 The Angola Three

King was also look at the bars on the high window and veins”. Until her death in 2007 Roddick was convicted of a think how easy it would be to be free of all a committed and passionate supporter of murder in Angola the thinking. their cause. At her memorial service King in 1973, and was Such thoughts must have crossed the played two taped messages from Wallace held in solitary minds of Wallace and Woodfox more than and Woodfox. In the congregation was film- alongside Wallace once during their isolation. They are fed maker Vadim Jean who had become good and Woodfox for through the barred gates of their 9ft x 6ft friends with Roddick and her husband Gor- 29 years, until his cells and allowed only one hour of exercise don during an earlier film project. “Anita’s conviction was every other day alone in a small caged yard. big thing was, ‘Just do something,’” says overturned in 2001 Their capacity for psychological endurance Jean. “No matter how small an act of kind- and he was freed alone is noteworthy. ness. Listening to Herman and Albert’s voi- Wallace and Woodfox were confined to ces at her memorial was like having Anita’s solitary after being convicted of murdering finger pointing at me and saying, ‘Just do Angola prison guard Brent Miller in 1972. something’.” And so he decided to make In But the circumstances of their trial was so the Land of the Free, a searing documentary, suspect that there are no doubts among released last month. their supporters that these men are inno- The story Jean’s film tells is one that has cent. Even Brent Miller’s widow, Teenie Ver- resonance on many levels. All three men ret, has her reservations. “If they did not were from poor black neighbourhoods In do this,” she says, “and I believe that they New Orleans. They grew up fearing the po- didn’t, they have been living a nightmare.” lice, who would regularly “clear the books” One man who understands the night- of crimes in the area, according to King, by mare that Wallace and Woodfox are living pinning then on disaffected young black more than anyone else is Robert King. King men. “If I saw the police, I used to run,” was also convicted of a murder in Angola in King says. He admits to being involved in 1973, and was held in solitary alongside Wal- petty crime in his early years, but “nothing lace and Woodfox for 29 years, until his con- vicious”. Eventually King was arrested for viction was overturned in 2001 and he was an armed robbery he says he did not com- freed. Together, King, Wallace and Woodfox mit and was sentenced to 35 years, which he have become known as the “Angola three”. began in New Orleans parish prison – and there he met Albert Woodfox. Roddick’s cause Woodfox had also been sentenced for The case of the Angola three first came to armed robbery – and given 50 years. On the international attention following the cam- day he was sentenced he escaped from the paigning efforts of the Body Shop founder courthouse. He made his way to Harlem in and humanitarian Anita Roddick. Rod- New York, where he encountered the Black dick heard about their plight from a young Panthers, the revolutionary African-Ameri- lawyer named Scott Fleming. Fleming was can political movement. He witnessed the working as a prisoner advocate in the 1990s Panthers engaging with the community in when he received a letter from Wallace ask- a positive, constructive way, educating and ing for help. The human tragedy Fleming informing people of their rights. He says it uncovered had the most profound effect on was the first time in his life that he had seen him. When he qualified as a lawyer, their African-Americans exhibiting real pride, case became his first. “I was born in 1973,” pride that emanated from the young activ- he says. “I often think that for my entire life ists, he says, “like a shimmering heatwave”. they have been in solitary.” Two days later Woodfox was caught and Through Fleming, Roddick met King and taken to New York’s Tombs prison where then Woodfox in Angola. Their story, she he saw first-hand the militant tactics of im- said later, “made my blood run cold in my prisoned Panthers who resisted their guards

4 TheReader | April 2010 The Angola Three with organised protests. In Tombs, Woodfox dangerously high. The jury had been was labelled “militant” and sent back to These were the conditions in which Brent picked from the New Orleans where he joined King on the Miller met his untimely death. That April, a local populace, parish prison block, known – due to the prisoner work strike drew the attention of many of whom high concentration of Panther activists – as the guards who were called from normal earned their living “the Panther tier”. There Woodfox became a duties to deal with the disturbance. Miller, a from the prison member of the Black Panther party. strong, athletic young man of 23, stayed be- or had families Outside, confrontations between the hind alone. He entered a dormitory holding and friends that Panthers – described by FBI director J Ed- 90 prisoners and sat on an elderly prisoner’s worked there; all gar Hoover as “the greatest threat to the bed, drinking coffee and chatting. Moments were white internal security of the country” – and the later he was attacked and stabbed 32 times. police were escalating. In an attempt to un- Two days later, four men identified as dermine the influence of the Panthers in “black militants”, including Wallace and New Orleans parish prison, officials tried Woodfox, were accused of the murder. It to shoehorn men they termed “Black Gang- was quickly ascertained that one of the sters” on to the tier – men like Wallace, also four had been inserted into the case by the serving decades for armed robbery. One day prison administration. Charges against him Wallace was suffering from the pain of ill- were dropped. Another, Chester Jackson, fitting shoes. One of the Panthers, on his admitted to holding Miller while the guard way to a court appearance, took his shoes was stabbed to death. Jackson turned state’s off and handed them to Wallace. “Right evidence in return for a plea to manslaugh- then I knew that that was what I needed ter. The case was tried in a town called St to be a part of,” he says. In the summer of Francisville, the closest courthouse to An- 1971 Wallace and Woodfox were shipped to gola. The jury had been picked from the lo- Angola. cal populace, many of whom earned their living from the prison or had families and Still segregated friends that worked there; all were white. The civil rights bill had been signed in 1964, Wallace and Woodfox were found guilty of but seven years later Angola was still oper- Miller’s murder, sentenced to life imprison- ating a segregated regime. Prisoner guards ment without parole and taken from the carried guns and were also responsible, ac- court straight to Angola’s CCR block to be- cording to well-documented sources, for gin their life in isolation. organising systematic sexual abuse of vul- Robert King was brought to Angola from nerable prisoners, which flourished in the the parish prison two weeks after Miller’s prison’s mostly dormitory accommoda- killing, as part of a roundup of black radi- tion. And violence between prisoners had cals. King had never met Miller and was in reached such levels that Angola was known a prison 150 miles away when the murder as “the bloodiest prison in America”. took place. Yet he was investigated for the Woodfox and Wallace quickly extended crime and identified as a “conspirator” be- the New Orleans chapter of the Black Pan- fore being transferred to lockdown on CCR thers into Angola, establishing classes in alongside Wallace and Woodcock. political ideology and exposing injustices. The following year a prisoner named They organised work stoppages, demon- August Kelly was murdered on King’s CCR strating to fellow prisoners the liberating tier. A man named Grady Brewer admitted power of acting with a “unity of purpose” that he alone was responsible for the kill- and worked to eradicate the prevalent sexu- ing, which he said he carried out in self- al abuses. But their political activities made defence. But King was also charged. The them targets for the administrators. By the two men faced trial together in the same St spring of 1972, tensions in the prison were Francisville courthouse where Wallace and

April 2010 | TheReader 5 The Angola Three

A bloody Woodfox had been convicted the year be- to explain the case. Once again, the jury was fingerprint was fore. The sole evidence against King came composed of people who worked in Angola found close to from flawed prisoner testimony. He and or were related to people who worked there. Brent Miller’s Brewer had not been allowed to speak to Butler’s husband and co-author was Mur- body. It was their attorneys for any length of time before ray Henderson, who had been the warden determined that their trial. When they protested, the judge of Angola when Brent Miller was murdered. it did not belong ordered their hands to be shackled behind It is worth noting that Henderson was a key to Woodfox nor their backs and their mouths gagged with member of the original investigation team to Wallace, but duct tape for the duration of their trial. The and that, during that investigation, a bloody despite the prison men were convicted and sentenced to life fingerprint was found close to Brent Miller’s holding all the without parole. King later won an appeal; body. It was determined that it did not be- fingerprints of all the federal court ruled that he had not been long to Woodfox nor to Wallace, but despite the prisoners, no sufficiently unruly in the dock to warrant the prison holding all the fingerprints of all attempt was made the shackling and gagging. He went back to the prisoners, no attempt was made to find to find out whose trial in 1975, was re-convicted and immedi- out whose it was. The bloody print was also it was ately sent back to CCR. ignored at Woodfox’s retrial. He was recon- When, after Scott Fleming’s intervention victed and sent back to isolation in Angola’s in the case of Wallace and Woodfox in the CCR. 1990s, new lawyers reviewed the original It was 26 years before King won the right trial of both men, discovering “obfusca- to another appeal. In 2001 the Federal court tion after obfuscation”. The state had used found that the jury in King’s original trial a number of jailhouse informants against had systematically excluded African-Amer- them, many of whom gave contradictory icans and women and agreed that the case accounts of what they saw. One was regis- should be reheard. This time around the tered blind. The key witness in the case was prisoner witnesses recanted and the federal a man called Hezikiah Brown who testified court sent the case back to the district court he witnessed the murder. In his initial state- for review. The state negotiated a deal with ment to investigators however, Brown said King. Reluctantly, and with his left hand he had not seen anything. Three days later, raised instead of his right, he pleaded guilty when he was taken from his bunk at mid- to conspiracy; an hour and a half later he night by prison officials and promised his was freed. freedom if he testified, he agreed to say that he saw Wallace and Woodfox kill Miller. At Convistion overturned the time Brown was serving life without pa- In September 2008, Woodfox’s conviction role for multiple rapes. Immediately after he was overturned; the federal court ruled agreed to testify he was given his own mini- that his core constitutional rights had been mum security private house in the prison violated at his original trial. Louisiana at- grounds and a weekly cigarette ration. torney general Buddy Caldwell could have Wallace and Woodfox did not give up. set Woodfox free immediately. Instead he They fought their convictions from their cells decided to contest the federal decision and and in 1993 Woodfox was granted an appeal, Woodfox, now 64, was returned to Angola’s forcing a new trial. The case was sent back CCR, where he remains. Herman Wallace, to the same courthouse to be tried in front now 68, was moved to another Louisiana of a new grand jury. A local author, Anne prison last year, where he too continues to Butler, who had published a book in which be held in solitary confinement. she detailed the case and was convinced Today King, now 67, is still campaigning that the right people had been convicted, for justice for his friends. Albert Woodfox: acted as jury chairperson. No witnesses “Our primary objective is that front gate. were called. Instead Butler was called upon That is what we are struggling for and we

6 TheReader | April 2010 The Angola Three are actually fighting for our freedom. We Erwin James served 20 years of a life “We are fighting are fighting for people to understand that sentence before his release in August 2004. for people to we were framed for a murder that we are to- In prison he took a degree course with the understand that tally, completely and actually innocent of.” Open University, majoring in history, and we were framed Robert King says he is free of Angola, but graduated in 1994. His first article in the for a murder until his friends are free, “Angola will never Guardian appeared in 1998 and he began that we are be free of me.” writing a regular column, entitled A Life totally, completely Jean hopes his film will make a difference. Inside, in the Guardian in 2000. A collection and actually “These men need help,” he says. “Louisiana of his columns, A Life Inside, a Prisoner’s innocent of” needs to be shamed into doing the right Notebook, was published in 2003. A follow- thing.” CT up, The Home Stretch, From Prison to In the Land of the Free was released on 26 Parole, was published in 2005. March Copyright: Guardian News & Media Ltd 2010

Disasters Do not merely Destroy, but create. anD they can bring out the best in people.

“ A landmark work that gives impassioned challenge to the social meaning of disasters.” —The New York Times Book Review

“ Thought-provoking . . . captivating and compelling.” —Los Angeles Times

“ In her far-reaching and large- spirited new book, Solnit argues that disasters are opportunities as well as oppressions.” —San Francisco Chronicle “ Stirring . . . fascinating • A New York Times Notable Book . . . presents a withering critique • Chosen as a Best Book of the Year by: of modern capitalist society.” The New York Times —The Washington Post Los Angeles Times San Francisco Chronicle The Washington Post Chicago Tribune The New Yorker www.penguin.com The Christian Science Monitor Viking A member of Penguin Group (USA)

April 2010 | TheReader 7 Military Fiction Marja, the city that never was The target of a major offensive in the Afghanistan war didn’t actually exist, writes Gareth Porter

It turns out that or weeks, the US public followed for International Development as recently the picture of the biggest offensive of the Afgha- as 2005, agrees that Marja has nothing that Marja presented nistan war against what it was told could be mistaken as being urban. It is an by military officials was a “city of 80,000 people” as “agricultural district” with a “scattered series and obediently Fwell as the logistical hub of the Taliban in of farmers’ markets,” said Scott. reported by that part of Helmand. That idea was a central The ISAF official said the only popula- major news media element in the overall impression built up tion numbering tens of thousands associ- is one of the in February that Marja was a major strategic ated with Marja is spread across many vil- clearest and most objective, more important than other district lages and almost 200 square kilometres, or dramatic pieces of centres in Helmand. about 125 square miles. Marja has never even misinformation of It turns out, however, that the picture of been incorporated, according to the official, the entire war Marja presented by military officials but there are now plans to formalise its and obediently reported by major status as an actual “district” of Hel- news media is one of the clearest mand Province. and most dramatic pieces of mis- the The official admitted that the information of the entire war, ap- confusion about Marja’s popula- parently aimed at hyping the of- lying tion was facilitated by the fact fensive as a historic turning point game that the name has been used both in the conflict. for the relatively large agricultural Marja is not a city or even a real area and for a specific location where town, but either a few clusters of farmers’ farmers have gathered for markets. homes or a large agricultural area covering However, the name Marja “was most much of the southern Helmand River Valley. closely associated” with the more specific lo- “It’s not urban at all,” an official of the In- cation, where there are also a mosque and a ternational Security Assistance Force (ISAF), few shops. That very limited area was the ap- who asked not to be identified, said. He called parent objective of “Operation Moshtarak”, Marja a “rural community”. to which 7,500 US, NATO and Afghan troops “It’s a collection of village farms, with were committed amid the most intense pub- typical family compounds,” said the official, licity given any battle since the beginning of adding that the homes are reasonably pros- the war. perous by Afghan standards. So how did the fiction that Marja is a city Richard B. Scott, who worked in Marja as of 80,000 people get started? The idea was an adviser on irrigation for the US Agency passed on to the news media by the US Ma-

8 TheReader | April 2010 Military Fiction rines in southern Helmand. The earliest ref- the issue in a Feb. 21 story, referring to “three CNN managed erences in news stories to Marja as a city with markets in town – which covers 80 square to refer to Marja a large population have a common origin in miles …” twice as a “region” a briefing given Feb. 2 by officials at Camp A “town” with an area of 80 square miles and once as Leatherneck, the US Marine base there. would be bigger than such US cities as Wash- “the city” in the The Associated Press published an ar- ington, D.C., Pittsburgh and Cleveland. But same Feb. 15 ticle the same day quoting “Marine com- AP failed to notice that something was seri- article, without manders” as saying that they expected 400 ously wrong with that reference. any explanation to 1,000 insurgents to be “holed up” in the Long after other media had stopped for the apparent “southern Afghan town of 80,000 people.” characterising Marja as a city, the New York contradiction That language evoked an image of house to Times was still referring to Marja as “a city house urban street fighting. of 80,000”, in a Feb. 26 dispatch with a Mar- The same story said Marja was “the big- ja dateline. The decision to hype up Marja gest town under Taliban control” and called as the objective of “Operation Moshtarak” it the “linchpin of the militants’ logistical by planting the false impression that it is a and opium-smuggling network”. It gave the good-sized city would not have been made figure of 125,000 for the population living in independently by the Marines at Camp “the town and surrounding villages”. ABC Leatherneck. news followed with a story the next day re- A central task of “information operations” ferring to the “city of Marja” and claiming in counterinsurgency wars is “establishing that the city and the surrounding area “are the COIN [counterinsurgency] narrative”, ac- more heavily populated, urban and dense cording to the Army Counterinsurgency Field than other places the Marines have so far Manual as revised under Gen. David Petraeus been able to clear and hold.” in 2006. That task is usually done by “higher The rest of the news media fell into line headquarters” rather than in the field, as the with that image of the bustling, urbanised manual notes. Marja in subsequent stories, often using The COIN manual asserts that news me- “town” and “city” interchangeably. Time dia “directly influence the attitude of key magazine wrote about the “town of 80,000” audiences toward counterinsurgents, their Feb. 9, and the Washington Post did the same operations and the opposing insurgency.” Feb. 11. The manual refers to “a war of perceptions As “Operation Moshtarak” began, US … conducted continuously using the news military spokesmen were portraying Marja media.” as an urbanised population centre. On Feb. Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, commander Gareth Porter is 14, on the second day of the offensive, Ma- of ISAF, was clearly preparing to wage such an investigative rine spokesman Lt. Josh Diddams said the a war in advance of the Marja operation. In historian and Marines were “in the majority of the city at remarks made just before the offensive be- journalist this point.” gan, McChrystal invoked the language of the specialising in He also used language that conjured im- counterinsurgency manual, saying, “This is US national ages of urban fighting, referring to the insur- all a war of perceptions.” security policy. gents holding some “neighbourhoods”. The Washington Post reported Feb. 22 that The paperback A few days into the offensive, some re- the decision to launch the offensive against edition of his porters began to refer to a “region”, but only Marja was intended largely to impress US latest book, Perils created confusion rather than clearing the public opinion with the effectiveness of the of Dominance: matter up. CNN managed to refer to Marja US military in Afghanistan by showing that Imbalance of twice as a “region” and once as “the city” in it could achieve a “large and loud victory.” Power and the the same Feb. 15 article, without any expla- The false impression that Marja was a Road to War in nation for the apparent contradiction. significant city was an essential part of that Vietnam, was The Associated Press further confused message. ct published in 2006.

April 2010 | TheReader 9 Propaganda Rules Goodbye to truth; goodbye to liberty Paul Craig Roberts wonders why truth no longer seems relevant to Americans, who are now ruled by propaganda

Truth is an here was a time when the pen was collar jobs in which Americans innovate unwelcome entity. mightier than the sword. That and finance activities that occur offshore. It is disturbing. was a time when people believed All Americans need in order to participate It is off limits. in truth and regarded truth as an in this “new economy” are finance degrees Those who speak Tindependent power and not as an auxiliary from Ivy League universities, and then they it run the risk of for government, class, race, ideological, per- will work on Wall Street at million dollar being branded sonal, or financial interest. jobs. “anti-American,” Today Americans are ruled by propa- Economists who were once respectable “anti-semite” ganda. Americans have little regard for took money to contribute to this myth of or “conspiracy truth, little access to it, and little ability to “the New Economy.” theorist” recognize it. Truth is an unwelcome entity. And not only economists sell their souls It is disturbing. It is off limits. Those who for filthy lucre. Recently we have had re- speak it run the risk of being branded ports of medical doctors who, for “anti-American,” “anti-semite” or money, have published in peer- “conspiracy theorist.” the reviewed journals concocted Truth is an inconvenience for “studies” that hype this or that government and for the interest lying new medicine produced by groups whose campaign contri- game pharmaceutical companies that butions control government. paid for the “studies.” Truth is an inconvenience for prosecutors who want convictions, not Swine flu the discovery of innocence or guilt. The Council of Europe is investigating the Truth is inconvenient for ideologues. drug companies’ role in hyping a false swine Today many whose goal once was the dis- flu pandemic in order to gain billions of dol- covery of truth are now paid handsomely to lars in sales of the vaccine. hide it. “Free market economists” are paid The media helped the US military hype to sell offshoring to the American people. its recent Marja offensive in Afghanistan, High-productivity, high value-added Ameri- describing Marja as a city of 80,000 under can jobs are denigrated as dirty, old indus- Taliban control. It turns out that Marja is trial jobs. Relics from long ago, we are best not urban but a collection of village farms. shed of them. Their place has been taken by And there is the global warming scandal, “the New Economy,” a mythical economy in which NGOs, the UN, and the nuclear in- that allegedly consists of high-tech white dustry colluded in concocting a doomsday

10 TheReader | April 2010 Propaganda Rules scenario in order to create profit in pollu- compensation packages to top managers, Astonishingly, tion. who achieve these “performance awards” Americans, or Wherever one looks, truth has fallen to by replacing US labor with foreign labor. most of them, money. While Washington worries about “the believe that Wherever money is insufficient to bury Muslim threat,” Wall Street, US corpora- civil liberties, the truth, ignorance, propaganda, and short tions and “free market” shills destroy the such as habeas memories finish the job. US economy and the prospects of tens of corpus and due I remember when, following CIA direc- millions of Americans. process, protect tor William Colby’s testimony before the Americans, or most of them, have proved “terrorists,” and Church Committee in the mid-1970s, presi- to be putty in the hands of the police state. not themselves dents Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan issued Americans have bought into the govern- executive orders preventing the CIA and US ment’s claim that security requires the sus- black-op groups from assassinating foreign pension of civil liberties and accountable leaders. In 2010 the US Congress was told by government. Astonishingly, Americans, or Dennis Blair, head of national intelligence, most of them, believe that civil liberties, that the US now assassinates its own citi- such as habeas corpus and due process, zens in addition to foreign leaders. protect “terrorists,” and not themselves. When Blair told the House Intelligence Many also believe that the Constitution is Committee that US citizens no longer a tired old document that prevents govern- needed to be arrested, charged, tried, and ment from exercising the kind of police convicted of a capital crime, just murdered state powers necessary to keep Americans on suspicion alone of being a “threat,” he safe and free. wasn’t impeached. No investigation were Most Americans are unlikely to hear from pursued. Nothing happened. There was no anyone who would tell them any different. Church Committee. In the mid-1970s the I was associate editor and columnist for CIA got into trouble for plots to kill Castro. the Wall Street Journal. I was Business Week’s Today it is American citizens who are on the first outside columnist, a position I held for hit list. Whatever objections there might be 15 years. I was columnist for a decade for don’t carry any weight. No one in govern- Scripps Howard News Service, carried in 300 ment is in any trouble over the assassina- newspapers. I was a columnist for the Wash- tion of US citizens by the US government. ington Times and for newspapers in France As an economist, I am astonished that and Italy and for a magazine in Germany. I the American economics profession has no was a contributor to the New York Times and awareness whatsoever that the US economy a regular feature in the Los Angeles Times. has been destroyed by the offshoring of Today I cannot publish in, or appear on, the US GDP to overseas countries. US corpora- American “mainstream media.” tions, in pursuit of absolute advantage or lowest labor costs and maximum CEO “per- Mainstream ban formance bonuses,” have moved the pro- For the last six years I have been banned duction of goods and services marketed to from the “mainstream media.” My last col- Americans to China, India, and elsewhere umn in the New York Times appeared in Jan- abroad. When I read economists describe uary, 2004, coauthored with Democratic US offshoring as free trade based on compara- Senator Charles Schumer representing New tive advantage, I realize that there is no in- York. We addressed the offshoring of US telligence or integrity in the American eco- jobs. Our op-ed article produced a confer- nomics profession. ence at the Brookings Institution in Wash- Intelligence and integrity have been pur- ington, D.C. and live coverage by C-Span. A chased by money. The transnational or glob- debate was launched. No such thing could al US corporations pay multi-million dollar happen today.

April 2010 | TheReader 11 Propaganda Rules

The American For years I was a mainstay at the Wash- on the chopping block. Former Goldman corporate media ington Times, producing credibility for Sachs chairman and US Treasury Secretary does not serve the Moonie newspaper as a Business Week Hank Paulson is after these protections for the truth. columnist, former Wall Street Journal edi- the elderly. Fed chairman Bernanke is also It serves the tor, and former Assistant Secretary of the after them. The Republicans are after them government US Treasury. But when I began criticizing as well. These protections are called “en- and the interest Bush’s wars of aggression, the order came titlements” as if they are some sort of wel- groups that down to Mary Lou Forbes to cancel my col- fare that people have not paid for in payroll empower the umn. taxes all their working lives. government The American corporate media does With over 21 per cent unemployment not serve the truth. It serves the govern- as measured by the methodology of 1980, ment and the interest groups that empower with American jobs, GDP, and technology the government. America’s fate was sealed having been given to China and India, with when the public and the anti-war movement war being Washington’s greatest commit- bought the government’s 9/11 conspiracy ment, with the dollar over-burdened with theory. The government’s account of 9/11 is debt, with civil liberty sacrificed to the “war contradicted by much evidence. Neverthe- on terror,” the liberty and prosperity of the less, this defining event of our time, which American people have been thrown into the has launched the US on interminable wars trash bin of history. of aggression and a domestic police state, The militarism of the US and Israeli is a taboo topic for investigation in the me- states, and Wall Street and corporate greed, dia. It is pointless to complain of war and a will now run their course. As the pen is cen- police state when one accepts the premise sored and its might extinguished, I am sign- upon which they are based. ing off. CT These trillion dollar wars have created fi- nancing problems for Washington’s deficits Paul Craig Roberts was an editor of and threaten the US dollar’s role as world the Wall Street Journal and an Assistant reserve currency. The wars and the pressure Secretary of the US Treasury. His latest book, that the budget deficits put on the dollar’s How The Economy Was Lost, has just been value have put Social Security and Medicare published by CounterPunch/AK Press.

Paying tribute to howard Zinn Download an excerpt from Zinn’s book, Voices of a People’s History Of the United States, together with tributes from Dave Zirin and Rory O’Connor at

www.coldtype.net/index.mar10.html

12 TheReader | April 2010 Israel’s Story AIPAC tells another whopper The story that AIPAC wants you to hear is quite a tale, notable for what it doesn’t mention, writes Stephanie Westbrook

he theme of last month’s annual Large numbers of young people attended The conference policy conference for the Ameri- the conference. With more than 900 univer- also included can Israel Public Affairs Commit- sity students from 370 campuses as well as fear-mongering tee (AIPAC) was ‘Israel: Tell the 397 high school students, many benefiting workshops TStory.’ And it was quite a story that AIPAC from scholarships, students made up nearly in Spanish, wanted to tell. 17% of the total number of participants. presumably as The conference aimed at imparting to Standing outside the conference it was an attempt to more than 7,000 attendees ‘an intimate un- clear that AIPAC is reaching out well be- reach the Latino derstanding of the many ways that Israel yond the Jewish community for support. community, on is making the world a better place,’ with a The constant flow of buses, with- tax Iran’s influence focus on peacemaking and innovation. Ac- payer-funded police escort, dropped off in Latin America cording to the AIPAC web site, confer- conference attendees including many via its strong ties ence goers will also ‘meet Israelis African-American delegations. In with Venezuela, who rush to the scene of natural fact, workshop sessions centered Cuba and Brazil, disasters in far away lands be- the on the emerging alliance with and concerns that cause they believe that to save lying the African American commu- this might lead to one life is to save the whole nity and how this alliance can terrorism, Islamic world.’ No mention was made of game be ‘ignited around the pro-Israel extremism and the 1,400 people killed during the cause.’ anti-American Israeli assault on Gaza. The conference also included fear- sentiments Against a backdrop of creative blends of mongering workshops in Spanish, presum- US and Israeli flags and icons, the three-day ably as an attempt to reach the Latino com- conference in Washington DC included ple- munity, on Iran’s influence in Latin America nary speeches by former Israeli Foreign Af- via its strong ties with Venezuela, Cuba and fairs Minister Tzipi Livni and US Secretary Brazil, and concerns that this might lead of State Hillary Clinton, whom, according to terrorism, Islamic extremism and anti- to journalist MJ Rosenberg, delegates were American sentiments. warned in advance not to boo or hiss. Work- Additional workshops focused on capi- shops varied from self-serving questions talizing on pro-Israel support from the such as ‘Are Settlements An Obstacle to Christian evangelical community as well as Peace?’ and ‘Is Israel Treated Unfairly in the a ‘new era of military and intelligence coop- Press?’ to ‘The Gaza Dilemma’ and ‘Inside eration’ with India. Iran.’ However, the scope of most of the work-

April 2010 | TheReader 13 Israel’s Story

“The Israeli shops was to prepare participants for the wonder Israel would prefer US taxpayers government lobbying day on Capitol Hill, with the three foot the bill! has announced main requests for Congress. First and fore- Inside the Washington Convention Cen- plans to replace most, AIPAC was calling for ‘crippling sanc- ter, AIPAC was simultaneously calling for its aging fleet tions on Iran.’ Noting that it was unlikely for the US public to be kept in the dark regard- of F-16 fighter the UN Security Council to pass such a reso- ing any disputes with Israel while asking jets with new, lution, AIPAC called on the United States ‘to taxpayers to fund 20% of Israel’s defense American-made lead the international community,’ a euphe- budget. Outside it was a different story. Ac- F-35 fighters, a mism for unilateral action. tivists from CodePink, Veterans for Peace, major cost that The second request dealt with the cur- Military Families Speak Out, Avaaz, Jewish Israel hopes will be rent tensions between the US and Israel Voice for Peace and the US Campaign to substantially borne following the continued announcements of End the Israeli Occupation kept up a pres- by American new illegal settlements in East Jerusalem. ence during the conference with signs and taxpayers” An AIPAC-drafted letter initiated by House banners calling for respect for international majority and minority leaders Steny Hoyer law and human rights, an end to the siege (D-MD) and Eric Cantor (R-VA) called on of Gaza, Israeli apartheid and US taxpayer Secretary Clinton to ‘reaffirm our commit- funding of war crimes. ment to the unbreakable bond that exists Using street theatre, we set up a check- between our country and the State of Israel’ point to greet the participants, and I, in the and to solve any disputes ‘quietly, in trust role of a Palestinian woman, tried in vain to and confidence, as befits longstanding stra- get through. I pleaded with the sometimes tegic allies.’ Over 50% of the US House of startled conference-goers to help me get to Representatives have signed onto the letter. a hospital, but Tighe Barry, playing an IDF A similar letter is circulating in the Senate. soldier at the checkpoint, pushed me away telling the AIPAC supporters, “You can pass. New fighters This is a Jewish only road.” Last but certainly not least, AIPAC urged During our presence outside the con- support for continuing US military aid for ference, I got an earful of everything from Israel, which AIPAC refers to as ‘security as- thoughtful debate to the most vulgar of in- sistance,’ by approving President Obama’s sults to outright ignorance on the issues: request for $3 billion for fiscal year 2011 as “There is already a settlement freeze!” part of the 10-year $30 billion package. Time “Gaza isn’t under siege, Israel is!” “AIPAC magazine was unusually candid in its cov- has nothing to do with policy!” This last re- erage of this request, reporting ‘the Israeli mark was made while standing under the government has announced plans to re- enormous sign reading ‘AIPAC Policy Con- place its aging fleet of F-16 fighter jets with ference.’ new, American-made F-35 fighters, a major We were outnumbered roughly 100 to 1, cost that Israel hopes will be substantially yet the very sight of us sent some people borne by American taxpayers.’ over the edge. A few people even resorted to That’s the same F-35 that Secretary of De- violence, shoving and hitting the activists. fense Gates was referring to in his testimony During a press conference held outside the before Congress on March 25 when he spoke Convention Center, we were constantly in- of “unacceptable delays and cost overruns.” terrupted, with people shouting and walk- The price tag for the Pentagon’s most ex- ing in front of the cameras. Josh Ruebner of pensive weapons program has nearly dou- the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupa- bled since 2001, recently leading Secretary tion rightly judged this as a classic example Gates to replace the program manager and of the AIPAC crowd trying to completely withhold more than $600 million from the control the debate so that no other voices lead contractor, Lockheed Martin. It’s no can be heard.

14 TheReader | April 2010 Israel’s Story

But there was at least some debate going the dinner waiting for her moment. After Shortly after on inside the conference. Hadar Susskind of the traditional Roll Call, the interminable Rae was forcibly the new self-proclaimed pro-Peace pro-Isra- reading of the names of the Congress mem- removed from el lobby J Street was being interviewed by bers present – some 59 senators and 269 the dinner, Joan the BBC when Alan Dershowitz, one of the members of the House of Representatives – Stallard, also conference’s principal speakers, approached Netanyahu finally took the stage. of CodePink, and the two got into a heated debate. As the “When the prime minister announced unfurled a banner press gathered around, Dershowitz asked Israel’s commitment to defense, I could no and shouted, “How can you not agree that Goldstone is longer remain silent,” so Rae jumped up on “Stop the a despicable human being?” referring to the AIPAC Executive Director Howard Kohr’s settlements!” well-respect South African judge who led private table right next to the stage and Joan, who was the UN fact-finding mission investigating opened a banner reading ‘Build Peace Not seated a little to the Israeli assault on Gaza. AIPAC security Settlements’ while shouting, “Lift the siege close to security, quickly moved in to usher the argument of Gaza! No illegal settlements!” was quickly outside the building. A French documenta- Shortly after Rae was forcibly removed thrown to the ry crew had their credentials revoked after from the dinner, Joan Stallard, also of Code- floor and promptly refusing to leave. Pink, unfurled a banner and shouted, “Stop removed from The second day of protests outside the the settlements!” Joan, who was seated a lit- the dinner conference made use of satire to try to get tle to close to security, was quickly thrown the message through. CodePink issued a to the floor and promptly removed from the fake press release announcing AIPAC’s sup- dinner. port for a settlement freeze in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. The phony release was Beating the crowd picked up by several news outlets prompt- Following Tony Blair’s speech the morn- ing AIPAC to issue a statement refuting the ing of the third day of the conference, the claim, and thereby confirming that they are AIPAC lobbyists made their way to Capitol not in line with US policy on the issue or Hill, where a reported 500 meetings with the majority of US citizens. Some confer- Congress had been set up. We arrived early ence participants were then questioning to beat the crowd and delivered thank you why AIPAC was not supporting a settlement letters to the 36 members of the House who freeze. had voted NO on the resolution condemn- Later that morning, ‘Netanyahu and ing the Goldstone Report. the Settlements’ arrived at the conference. ‘Netanyahu and the Settlements’ had ar- Activists with the global online advocacy rived by the time we finished and were there group Avaaz.org showed up wearing card- to greet the AIPAC lobbyists as they lined board boxes shaped like settlement housing up to enter the Rayburn building. Holding along with someone in a Netanyahu mask a gigantic cheque made out for ‘Endless Il- wearing a Caterpillar hard-hat chanting, legal Settlements’ signed by Barack Obama, “Build settlements, not peace.” Later that we called out on the megaphone, “Bank afternoon, nicely dressed activists escorted of Israel, otherwise known as the United the conference participants: “Right this way States Congress. Nothing is too much for to the Apartheid Conference.” Israel.” There were a number of groups of The main attraction of the three-day young people on the Hill the same day lob- event was, of course, the gala dinner where bying for education and jobs programs. As Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu spoke. Rae we passed, I told them, “Sorry, no money Abileah of CodePink, who had purchased a left for your school or jobs. Congress wants ticket to the conference but then received to give it to Israel.” a certified letter saying that her registration We then walked over to the Senate side of had been cancelled, was nonetheless inside the Hill. Two senators, Republican Lindsey

April 2010 | TheReader 15 Israel’s Story

Just one day Graham of South Carolina and Democrat clearly that “the [Israeli-Palestinian] conflict before the AIPAC Charles Schumer of New York, had spoken foments anti-American sentiment due to a conference began, the previous day at the AIPAC conference. perception of US favoritism toward Israel.” UN Secretary Senator Graham quickly dismissed the pes- On CNN recently, there has been unprec- General Ban Ki ky problem of East Jerusalem: “Jerusalem is edented talk of an Apartheid state in Israel Moon stated not a settlement. No government in Israel and calls for cutting off US military aid. And during a tour of will ever look at Jerusalem as a settlement! just one day before the AIPAC conference Israel, the West No government in the United States should began, UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon Bank and Gaza, ever look at Jerusalem as a settlement! It is stated during a tour of Israel, the West Bank “Let us be clear. the undivided capital of the State of Israel. and Gaza, “Let us be clear. All settlement All settlement It is the eternal home of the Jewish faith. activity is illegal anywhere in occupied ter- activity is illegal And it is now time to move onto other is- ritory and must be stopped.” anywhere in sues.” As much as AIPAC appears to be living in occupied territory We paid visits to the offices of both Sena- a bubble, it also seems unlikely that the US and must be tors Graham and Schumer, as well as those government, or the international commu- stopped” of Senators Lieberman and Kyl. Donning tu- nity for that matter, will take a courageous nics that said ‘Settler’ and waving a flag that stance and do what many Israelis have been read ‘Mine,’ we moved in, occupied the of- asking, save Israel from itself. That’s why fice, set up a road block and began moving so many activists are now taking it upon the furniture around to our pleasing. Again themselves to lead the way by supporting playing the part of a Palestinian woman, I the Palestinian call for boycotts, divestment pleaded with the staff, who were, not sur- and sanctions (BDS) against Israel. Right prisingly, alarmed at what was happening, outside the AIPAC conference the newly for their help in removing the settlers from formed BDS group of the greater Washing- my family’s land. In three out of four cases ton area called on local residents not to buy we managed to secure a meeting with a Israeli products as a way to make a mean- member of the staff; at Sen. Graham’s of- ingful contribution to ending the Israeli oc- fice Capitol Police arrived and promptly re- cupation. moved us! Invest in peace. Boycott Israel! CT This year’s AIPAC conference couldn’t have been scheduled during a more inter- Stephanie Westbrook is a US citizen who esting period, with unusually high tensions has been living in Rome, Italy since 1991. between the US and Israel. Holding signs She is active in the peace and social justice saying ‘Israel Endangers Peace’ during the movements in Italy and traveled to Gaza Senate Armed Forces Committee hearing on in June 2009. She can be reached at March 16, we heard General Petraeus state [email protected]

Read the best of frontline magaazine http://coldtype.net/frontline.html

16 TheReader | April 2010 War Crimes A nation is pacified Kathy Kelly wonders why the US public seems so unconcerned about the killings of innocent civilians by its military forces

f the US public looked long and hard carried out its own investigation and on Feb- The Pentagon into a mirror reflecting the civilian ruary 24th, 2010, issued an apology, attesting initially reported atrocities that have occurred in Af- the boys’ innocence. that the victims ghanistan, over the past ten months, February 12, 2010: US and Afghan forces had been running Iwe would see ourselves as people who have raided a home during a party and killed five a bomb factory, collaborated with and paid for war crimes people, including a local district attorney, a although distraught committed against innocent civilians who local police commander two pregnant moth- villagers were meant us no harm. ers and a teenaged girl engaged to be married. willing to swear Two reporters, Jerome Starkey (the Times Neither Commander Dawood, shot in the that the victims, UK), and David Lindorff, (Counterpunch), doorway of his home while pleading for calm youngsters, aged have persistently drawn attention to US war waving his badge, nor the teenaged Gulalai, 11 – 18, were crimes committed in Afghanistan. Makers died immediately, but the gunmen refused just seven normal of the film “Rethinking Afghanistan” to allow relatives to take them to the schoolboys and have steadily provided updates hospital. Instead, they forced them one shepherd boy about the suffering endured by Af- the to wait for hours barefoot in the ghan civilians. Here is a short list winter cold outside. of atrocities that have occurred lying Despite crowds of witnesses in the months since General Mc- on the scene, the NATO report Chrystal assumed his post in Af- game insisted that the two pregnant ghanistan. women at the party had been found December 26th, 2009: US-led forces, bound and gagged, murdered by the (whether soldiers or “security contractors” male victims in an honor killing. A March (mercenaries) is still uncertain), raided a 16, 2010 U.N. report, following on further re- home in Kunar Province and pulled eight porting by Starkey, exposed the deception, to young men out of their beds, handcuffed meager American press attention. them, and gunned them down execution- Two weeks later: February 21st, 2010: A style. The Pentagon initially reported that three-car convoy of Afghans was traveling to the victims had been running a bomb facto- the market in Kandahar with plans to pro- ry, although distraught villagers were willing ceed from there to a hospital in Kabul where to swear that the victims, youngsters, aged 11 some of the party could be taken for much- – 18, were just seven normal schoolboys and needed medical treatment. US forces saw one shepherd boy. Following courageous re- Afghans travelling together and launched an porting by Jerome Starkey, the US military air-to-ground attack on the first car. Women

April 2010 | TheReader 17 War Crimes

How odd to in the second car immediately jumped out On November 27, 2009, after a steady out- have grown up waving their scarves, trying desperately to cry on the part of the German public, the wondering how communicate that they were civilians. The Defense Minister was withdrawn from his anyone could US helicopter gunships continued firing on post, (he is now a labor minister), and two ever have been the now unshielded women. 21 people were German military officials, one of them Ger- an uninvolved killed and 13 were wounded. many’s top military commander Wolfgang bystander allowing There was press attention for this atrocity, Schneiderhan, were forced to resign. Nazi atrocities and US General Stanley McChrystal would I felt uneasy and sad when I realized that to develop and to issue a videotaped apology for his soldiers’ my first response to this story was a feeling find myself, four tragic mistake. Broad consensus among the of curiosity as to how the public of another decades later, press accepted this as a gracious gesture, with country could manage to raise such a furor puzzling over how no consequences for the helicopter crew ever over deaths of people in faraway Afghani- German people demanded or announced. stan. How odd to have grown up wondering or any country’s Whether having that gunship in the coun- how anyone could ever have been an unin- citizenship could try was a mistake – or a crime – was never volved bystander allowing Nazi atrocities to exercise so much raised as a question. And who would want it develop and to find myself, four decades lat- control over their raised? Set amidst the horrors of an ongoing er, puzzling over how German people or any governance eight-year war, how many Americans think country’s citizenship could exercise so much twice about these atrocities, hearing them control over their governance. on the news. So I’m baffled to learn that in Today, in the US, attacks on civilians are Germany, a western, relatively comfortable frequently discussed in terms of the “war for country, citizens raised a sustained protest hearts and minds.”. when their leaders misled them regarding Close to ten months ago, Defense Secre- an atrocity that cost many dozens of civilian tary Robert Gates told reporters at a June 12, lives in Afghanistan. 2009 press conference in Brussels that Gen- The air strike was conducted by US planes eral Stanley McChrystal “would work to min- but called in by German forces. On Sep- imize Afghan civilian casualties, a source of tember 4, 2009, Taliban fighters in Kunduz growing public anger within Afghanistan.” province had hijacked two trucks filled with “Every civilian casualty – however caused petrol, but then gotten stuck in a quagmire – is a defeat for us,” Gates continued, “and a where the trucks had sank. Locals, realizing setback for the Afghan government.” that the trucks carried valuable fuel, had ar- On March 23rd, 2010, McChrystal was rived in large numbers to siphon it off, but interviewed by the Daily Telegraph. “Your when a German officer at the nearest NATO security comes from the people,” he said. station learned that over 100 people had as- “You don’t need to be secured away from sembled in an area under his supervision, he the people. You need to be secured by the decided they must be insurgents and a threat people. So as you win their support, it’s in to Germans under his command. At his call, their interests to secure you, … . This can a US fighter jet bombed the tankers, incin- mean patrolling without armored vehicles or erating 142 people, dozens of them confirm- even flak jackets. It means accepting greater able as civilians. short-term risk – and higher casualties – in On September 6, 2009, Germany’s De- the hope of winning a “battle of perceptions fense Minister at the time, Franz Josef Jung, and perspectives” that will result in longer- held a press conference in which he defend- term security.” ed the attack, playing down the presence of And on March 2nd, 2010, he told Gail Mc- civilians. He wasn’t aware that video footage Cabe “What we’re trying to do now is to in- from a US F15 fighter jet showed that most crease their confidence in us and their confi- of the people present were unarmed civilians dence in their government. But you can’t do gathering to fill containers with fuel. that through smoke and mirrors, you have to

18 TheReader | April 2010 War Crimes do that through real things you do – because “To be the last man to die for a mistake,” It isn’t very they’ve been through thirty-one years of war while contemporary polls showed less prom- difficult to pacify now, they’ve seen so much, they’re not going inent Americans far more willing to call the US people. We’re to be beguiled by a message.” Vietnam war an evil – a crime – a sin – than easily distracted We’re obliged as Americans to ask our- “a mistake.” The purpose of that war, as of from the war, and selves whether we will be guided by a mes- Obama’s favored war in Afghanistan, was when we do note sage such as McChrystal’s or by evidence. to pacify dangerous populations – to make that an atrocity Americans have not been through thirty-one them peaceful, to win the battle of hearts has happened, years of war, and we have managed to see and minds. we seem more very little of the consequences of decades of Afghan civilian deaths no longer occur at likely to respond warmaking in Afghanistan. the rate seen in the war’s first few months, with a shrug of According to a March 3, 2010 Save the in which the civilian toll of our September 11 dismay than with a Children report, “The world is ignoring the attacks, pretext for the war then as it is now, sustained protest daily deaths of more than 850 Afghan chil- was so rapidly exceeded. But every week we dren from treatable diseases like diarrhea hear – if we are listening very carefully to the and pneumonia, focusing on fighting the in- news, if we are still reading that final para- surgency rather than providing humanitar- graph on page A16 – or if we are following ian aid.” The report notes that a quarter of all the work of brave souls like Jerome Starkey – children born in the country die before the of tragic mistakes. We are used to tragic mis- age of five, while nearly 60 percent of chil- takes. Attacking a country militarily means dren are malnourished and suffer physical or planning for countless tragic mistakes. mental problems. The UN Human Develop- Some of us still let ourselves believe that ment Index in 2009 says that Afghanistan the war can do some good in Afghanistan, is one of the poorest countries in the world, that our leaders’ motives for escalating the second only to Niger in sub-Saharan Africa. war, however dominated by strategic eco- The proposed US defense budget will cost nomic concerns and geopolitical rivalries, the US public two billion dollars per day. still in some small part include the interests President Obama’s administration is seeking of the Afghan people. a 33 billion dollar supplemental to fund wars There are others who know where this in Iraq and Afghanistan. war will lead and know that our leaders Most US people are aware of Taliban know, and have simply become too fatigued, atrocities, and many may believe the US too drained of frightened tears by this long troops are in Afghanistan to protect Afghan decade of nightmare, to hold those leaders villagers from Taliban human rights abuses. accountable anymore for moral choices. At least the mainstream news media in Ger- It’s worthwhile to wonder, how did we be- many and the UK will air stories of atrocities. come this pacified? The US people are disadvantaged inasmuch But far more important is our collective as the media and the Pentagon attempt to effort to approach the mirror, to stay in front pacify us, winning our hearts and minds to of it, unflinching, and see the consequences bankroll ongoing warfare and troop escala- of our mistaken acquiescence to the tragic tion in Afghanistan. Yet it isn’t very difficult mistakes of war, and then work, work hard, to pacify US people. We’re easily distracted to correct our mistakes and nonviolently re- from the war, and when we do note that an sist collaboration with war crimes. CT atrocity has happened, we seem more likely to respond with a shrug of dismay than with Kathy Kelly co-coordinates Voices for a sustained protest. Creative Nonviolence (www.vcnv.org) and At the Winter Soldier hearings, future helps promote the Peaceable Assembly presidential hopeful John Kerry movingly Campaign, a Voices project to end US asked Congress how it could ask a soldier funding for war and occupation.

April 2010 | TheReader 19 Looking Back The tax revolt that ended Thatcher’s reign Photographs by John Harris and Howard Davies

London, March 31, 1990 – When Britain’s prime minister Margaret Thatcher introduced a poll tax to cover local authority spending in 1990, she didn’t realise that she was sowing the seeds of her own downfall later that year. The tax replaced a system that taxed people on the estimated value of their house to an occupancy tax. This meant, for example, that the Duke of Westminster, who had previously paid £10,255 in taxes on his estate, was billed £417, the same as his housekeeper and chauffeur. The heavy-handed implementation of the tax, which resulted in the prosecutions of thousands of people who refused – or

couldn’t afford – to pay, culminated in a . u k massive 100,000-strong demonstration o in and around London’s Trafalgar Square where more than 400 rioters were arrested as protesters battled police.

The unpopularity of the tax contributed l.c digita ort to Thatcher’s resignation in Novermber 1990 after 11 years as prime minister. Her succesor, John Major scrapped the poll tax in 1991 and replaced it with one based on the value of a house.

– Audsley Edwards J oh b n H arris / R e p

20 TheReader | April 2010 Photo Essay

Stone-throwing youths confront mounted police in a street close to Trafalgar Square during the London poll tax riot in 1990.

April 2010 | TheReader 21 Looking Back .uk o .c digi tal ort s / Rep vie a ar d w h o

Above: Truncheon poised, a puffing policeman restrains a demonstrator as his colleagues move in to help. Below: On the attack, – a band of riot police .uk o charges demonstrators in Trafalgar Square. Right: Love conquers .c digi tal ort all – a building burns in the background as a pair of punks try a different form of demonstration. J o h b n Harr i s / Rep

22 TheReader | April 2010 Looking Back .uk o .c digi tal ort s / Rep vie a ar d w h o

April 2010 | TheReader 23 Troubled Times Down and out on the European Animal Farm The fall of Greece really is a capitalist plot, writes Diana Johnstone

The markets, like or Europe’s poorest countries, GDP respectively. In fact, this limit is being the ancient gods, European Union membership widely transgressed, quite openly by France. have a great old has long held out the promise of But major scandal arrived with revelations time tormenting tranquil prosperity. The current that Greece’s budget deficit reached 12.7% mere mortals in FGreek financial crisis ought to dispel some in 2009, with a gross debt forecast for 2010 trouble, so their of their illusions. amounting to 125% of GDP. response to the There are two strikingly significant levels Of course, European leaders got togeth- Greek problem to the current crisis. While primarily eco- er to declare solidarity. But their speeches was naturally nomic, the European Union also claims to were designed not so much to reassure the to rush to profit be a community, based on solidarity – the increasingly angry and desperate Greek from it sisterhood of nations and brotherhood of people as to soothe “the markets” – the peoples. However, the economic deficit is real hidden almighty gods of the European nothing compared to the human deficit it Union. The markets, like the ancient gods, exposes. have a great old time tormenting mere mor- To put it simply, the Greek crisis shows tals in trouble, so their response to the Greek what happens when a weak member of this problem was naturally to rush to profit from Union is in trouble. It is the same as what it. For instance, when Greece is obliged to is- happens on the world scale, where there is sue new bonds this year, the markets can no such morally pretentious union perpetu- blithely demand that Greece double its in- ally congratulating itself on its devotion terest rates, on grounds of increased “risk” to human rights. The economically strong that Greece won’t pay, thus making it that protect their own interests at the expense of much harder for Greece to pay. Such is the the economically weak. logic of the free market. The crisis broke last autumn after George Papandreou’s PASOK party won elections, Squeeze the people took office and discovered that the cup- What the EU leaders meant by “solidar- board was bare. The Greek government had ity” in their appeal to the gods was not that cheated to get into the EU’s euro zone in they were going to pour public money into 2001 by cooking the books to cover deficits Greece, as they poured it into their troubled that would have disqualified it from mem- banks, but that they intended to squeeze bership in the common currency. The Eu- the money owed the banks out of the Greek ropean Treaties capped the acceptable bud- people. get deficit at 3% and public debt at 60% of The squeezing is to take the forms made

24 TheReader | April 2010 Troubled Times familiar over the past disastrous decades by think it is fair to guess that not even Angela The traditional the International Monetary Fund: the Greek Merkel, who is trained as a scientist, under- way out for State is enjoined to cut public expenses, stands clearly what went on, much less the Greece would be which means firing public employees, cut- incompetent Greek politicians who accept- to leave the euro ting their overall earnings, delaying retire- ed the Goldman Sachs trickery. It allowed and return to a ment, economizing on health care, raising them to create an illusion of success – for a devalued drachma, taxes, and incidentally probably raising the while. Success meant being a “member of in order to cut jobless rate from 9.6% to around 16%, all the club” of the rich, and it can be argued imports and with the glorious aim of bringing the deficit that this notion of success has actually fa- favor exports. down to 8.7% this year and thus appeasing vored bad government at the national level. This way, the almighty invisible gods of the market. Belonging to the EU gave a false sense of se- the burden This just might propitiate both the gods curity that contributed to the irresponsibil- of necessary and German leaders, who above all want to ity of incompetent political leaders. sacrifices would maintain the value of the euro. The finan- not be borne s cial markets will no doubt grab their pound Debt trap closes olely by the of flesh in the form of increased interest Having euros to buy imported goods (no- working class rates, while the Greeks are bled by IMF-style tably from Germany) pleased rich consum- “shock treatment.” ers, while the euro priced Greek goods out And what about that great theater of hu- of their previous markets. Now the debt man rights and universal brotherhood, the trap is closing. The traditional way out for European Parliament? Well, in that august Greece would be to leave the euro and re- forum everyone gets to speak for a carefully turn to a devalued drachma, in order to cut clocked 1, 2, or 3 minutes, but when it comes imports and favor exports. This way, the to the most serious matter, the budget, the burden of necessary sacrifices would not be authoritative voices are all German. borne solely by the working class. But the Thus the chairman of the EP’s special embrace of EU “solidarity” is there to pre- committee on the economic and financial vent this from happening. German authori- crisis, Wolf Klinz, has called for sending a ties are preparing to lay down the law to the “high representative” of the EU to Greece, Greeks, after reducing the income of their an “economies commissar” to make sure own working class in order to benefit Ger- the Greeks carry out the austerity measures many’s export-oriented economy. properly. The Greek crisis can allow the Austerity measures are the opposite EU to put into practice for the first time its of what is needed in a time of looming “Treaty instruments” concerning “super- depression. Rather, Keynesian measures vision of budgetary and economic policy.” should be used to stimulate employment Interest rates may go up because of “risk,” and strengthen the domestic market. But but there is to be no risk. The pound of flesh Germany is firmly attached to the export will be delivered. model, for itself and everyone else (“global- There was no such supervision of the ization”). For a country like Greece, which financial fiddling which caused this mess. cannot compete successfully within the EU, The EU statistics agency Eurostat recently exports outside the EU are crippled by its discovered and revealed that in 2001, Gold- use of a strong currency, the euro. Bound man Sachs secretly (“but legally,” protest its to the euro, Greece can neither stimulate its executive officers) helped the Greek gov- domestic market nor export successfully. ernment meet EU membership criteria by But it is not going to be allowed to extricate using a complicated “currency swap” that itself from the debt trap and return to its masked the extent of public deficit and na- traditional currency, the drachma. Poverty tional debt. appears to be the only solution. Who understands how that worked? I There is discontent within the German

April 2010 | TheReader 25 Troubled Times

Northern working class at their country’s policies languages has declined, except for English European media aimed at shrinking wages and social bene- (omnipresent, if mangled). Mass media portray Greece fits for the sake of selling abroad. In an ideal news reports are turned inward, featuring practically as “social Europe”, workers in Germany would missing children and pedophiles ahead a Third World come to the aid of workers in Greece by of even major political events in other EU country, peripheral demanding a radical revision of economic member states. and picturesque, policy, away from catering to the interna- Northern European media portray Greece where people tional financial markets toward building a practically as a Third World country, periph- speak an solid social democracy. The reality is quite eral and picturesque, where people speak impossible different. an impossible language, dance in circles language, dance in The Greek financial crisis exposes the ab- on islands, and live beyond their means in circles on islands, sence of any real community spirit in the their carefree way. The crickets in the Aesop and live beyond EU. The “solidarity” declared by the coun- fable, scorned by the assiduous ants. Media their means in try’s EU partners is a solidarity with their in Germany and the Netherlands imply that their carefree way own investments. There is no popular soli- IMF-style shock treatment is almost too darity between peoples. The EU has estab- good for them. The widening polarization lished a surrogate ideology of international- between rich and poor, between and within ism: rejection of the nation-state as source EU member states, is taken for granted. of all evil, a pompous pride in “Europe” as The smaller indebted countries within the center of human rights, giver of moral the EU are amiably designated by the Eng- lessons to the world, which happens to fit lish-speaking financial priesthood as the in perfectly with its subservience to United PIGS – Portugal, Italy (perhaps Ireland), States imperial foreign policy in the Middle Greece, Spain – an appropriate designation East and beyond. for an animal farm where some are so much The paradox is that European unification more equal than others. CT has coincided with decreasing curiosity in the larger EU states about what happens to Diana Johnstone is a widely-published their neighbors. Despite a certain amount of essayist and columnist who has written specialized training needed to create a Eu- extensively on European and international rocrat class, the general population of each politics. She is the author of The Politics of EU member is only superficially acquainted Euromissiles: Europe’s Role in America’s with the others. They see them as teams in World (Verso, 1985) abnd Fools’ Crusade: soccer matches. They go on holiday around Yugoslavia, NATO, and Western Delusions the Mediterranean, but this mostly involves (Monthly Review Press, 2003). She can be meeting fellow tourists, and study of foreign reached at [email protected] My father was a freedom fighter Gaza’s Untold story By Ramzy Baroud “Ramzy Baroud’s sensitive, thoughtful, searching writing penetrates to the core of moral dilemmas that their intended audiences evade at their peril.” – Noam Chomsky Macmillan/Pluto Press $18 (US) / £10.99 (UK)

26 TheReader | April 2010 The Angry Brigade It’s enough to make you die laughing Michael I. Niman is scratching his head in amazement over the latest deranged tactics of those wacky republicans

ctivists took to the streets a The 15-year-old boys weaned on Beavis Today we’re generation ago to protest nucle- and Butthead are now 30-year-old Republi- seeing a new wave ar power, unpopular immoral cans phoning death threats in to congressio- of angst, only wars, sexism, homophobia, nal offices and gathering in small numbers to this time it has Apolice violence, racism, sweatshops, envi- scream incoherent phases to Fox News crews produced relatively ronmental destruction, human rights viola- whose wonks deify them as “patriots.” small numbers of tions, union-bustinig, and anti-labor trade This is one of those weird junctures in rather inarticulate pacts, to name a few causes. Protests such as history when we have to stop, take a deep protesters, buoyed the 1982 New York City march against Ron- breath, and gather some data – if not to figure by an intellectually ald Reagan’s nuclear weapons policies drew out what has happened, at least to chronicle vapid mass media historically unprecedented crowds with, for the moment for future comedians. that celebrates example, police estimating 750,000 partici- their semi-lucid pants and organizers estimating over one Republican beliefs by the numbers intellectual million at that demonstration. Despite the Perhaps some recent polling data can shed flatulence at every size of these protests, corporate media orga- light on the zeitgeist of this new Know- opportunity nizations did their best to minimize, trivial- Nothing Movement. A March 2010 Harris ize or outright ignore these events. poll surveying a “representative sample” of Today we’re seeing a new wave of angst, slightly more than 2,000 voters found that only this time it has produced relatively small 24 percent of Republican voters think Presi- numbers of rather inarticulate protesters, dent Obama “may be the Anti-Christ.” Of buoyed by an intellectually vapid mass me- course, it’s telling that such questions make dia that celebrates their semi-lucid intellec- their way into a political poll in the first tual flatulence at every opportunity. It’s the place, but to put it into context, a Gallup last hurrah of angry white Republican guys, poll found that 18 percent of Americans be- rising to protest the conspiracy to guarantee lieve that the sun revolves around the earth, their right to receive healthcare and perhaps so hey, I guess if enough people suspect a avoid being pauperized by the experience. political candidate has cloven hooves, that Or at least, according to recent polls, they can turn an election. For the sake of under- aren’t going to accept healthcare reform standing, let’s indulge the Republican po- from a racist, white-hating, fag-loving, anti- litical debate, if for no other reason than to American, terrorist-sympathizing, socialist- understand how nutjobs like Pennsylvania’s capitalist, Hitleresque Anti-Christ, foreign- Rick Santorum get elected to the US Senate. born president. “M-i-s-t-e-r,” that’s six letters; “B-a-r-a-c-k,”

April 2010 | TheReader 27 The Angry Brigade

One fifth think another six; “H. O-b-a-m-a,” another six. in this poll either think Obama is a foreigner Obamas not That’s it, smoking gun, 666, the beast. I get (36 percent) or are not sure where he was a socialist, an it now. born (22 percent). observation that’s According to the same Harris poll, 47 A Research 2000 poll breaks into other perhaps informed percent of Republicans believe that Presi- areas of Republican thought, showing that by his right-leaning dent Obama “resents America’s heritage,” 41 33 percent of Southern Republicans would determination percent say he’s anti-American, 42 percent themselves like to be foreigners: They think to preserve the think he’s a racist who hates white people, 22 their states should secede from the US. The private banking and percent say “he wants the terrorists to win,” nationwide number of Republicans no lon- health insurance whatever that means, and 38 percent say “he ger wanting to be American is just under one industries and a is doing many of the things that Hitler did.” quarter. A majority of Republicans polled be- tax system that (Like eating and sleeping, perhaps?) lieve that reality show host, half-term Alaska favors the rich Two thirds of Republicans polled believe governor, and former Republican vice presi- Obama is a “socialist,” while 40 percent, dential candidate Sarah Palin “is more quali- seemingly unclear on the concept of social- fied to be President than Barack Obama.” ism, think he’s under the control of “Wall One third weren’t sure about that, while 14 Street and the bankers,” who presumably percent thought that perhaps the president must also be socialists, albeit in denial. was smarter or more experienced in worldly Most Republicans, according to the poll, matters. think the president is a sort of one-man sleeper cell who “wants to turn over sover- Republican intellectuals eignty of the United States to a one world This recent data is contextualized by a Uni- government,” which makes sense to them versity of Maryland poll conducted in 2003 since 45 percent of them think the Hawaiian- that found that people who got their news born president was, like the Panamanian- from commercial networks were more likely born John McCain, not born in the United to believe that the secular Iraqi government States – a premise with which many native was aligned with its fundamentalist al-Qae- Hawaiian rights activists would agree. And da enemies, and hence presumably linked 57 percent of them think he’s a Muslim. to the 9/11 attacks; that US troops actually You’d think all his church-going and his lack found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq; of any affiliation with a mosque might have and that world opinion supported the US clued them in otherwise. invasion of Iraq. Fox News viewers, the poll Forty-five percent of Republicans polled showed, were the most confused and mis- think Obama “is a domestic enemy that the guided, with their misconceptions inform- US Constitution speaks of.” ing their political opinions and actions. Another recent poll, conducted by Re- Fast-forward to the present. Radio host search 2000, and using a similar sample size Rush Limbaugh reacted to the Harris poll and methodology, came to relatively similar last week by bemoaning that only 67 percent findings on similar questions. One fifth think of Republicans believe Obama to be a social- he’s not a socialist, an observation that’s per- ist. His argument: “I mean, the facts are the haps informed by his right-leaning determi- facts. The president is a socialist.” If that em- nation to preserve the private banking and piricism hasn’t put your skepticism to rest, health insurance industries and a tax system try Fox News host Glenn Beck’s argument that favors the rich. But the survey found on for size. Obama, he argued earlier this that two-thirds of Republicans thinking the month, “has surrounded himself with Marx- president who rode into office on a wave of ists his whole life.” Of course, with Marxist corporate campaign contributions is a so- economic scholars producing some of the cialist, while 16 percent struggled with the most prescient economic predictions, per- question. Fifty-eight percent of Republicans haps a capitalist like Obama would stand to

28 TheReader | April 2010 The Angry Brigade benefit from immersion in an intellectual en- the structural problems created by the Rea- If history teaches vironment that included such thinkers. Alas, gan tax cuts for the rich, ultimately turning us anything, it is Beck made it all up. There’s no evidence of the budget surplus left by the Clinton ad- that Republicans any such associations in the president’s past ministration into the worst deficit in his- will grandstand – just a lot of hobnobbing with the usual tory. Likewise, decades of apocalyptic con- against all painful crowd of neo-liberal conservative capitalists. sumerism and environmental inaction have remedies, leaving Beck’s Fox News colleague, Sean Hannity, left the world with an ecological deficit that the Democrats argued in late march that Obama’s decision to is coming due in the form of catastrophic to impose them, fight against the popular demand for a Cana- climate change and species extinctions. then retake power dian-style single payer healthcare plan, and Now that the grownups have returned to on the “are you instead further entrench a for-profit private the White House, it’s time to start cleaning any better off” health insurance industry in his healthcare up the mess. Like the austerity measures the platform. Then proposal, was “the single biggest power grab Clinton administration imposed, mostly on they will once and move toward socialism in the history of the backs of the poorest Americans, after again loot the the country.” I guess Hannity is unaware of the fiscal irresponsibility of the Reagan and economy and Roosevelt’s “New Deal,” the expansion of the Bush Senior presidencies, the new fiscal and leave the mess for military, the creation of Social Security and environmental medicine will be harsh to Democrats to fix Medicare, and the creation of public educa- swallow. If history teaches us anything, it is – again, usually on tion and the interstate highway system. Sad- that Republicans will grandstand against all the backs of poor ly, Stephen Hayes of the Wall Street Journal painful remedies, leaving the Democrats to and working folks quickly chimed in to agree with Hannity. I impose them, then retake power on the “are say “sadly” because until its recent acquisi- you any better off” platform. Then they will tion by Fox News’ owner, Republican activist once again loot the economy and leave the Rupert Murdoch, the Wall Street Journal was mess for Democrats to fix – again, usually on a reputable conservative news organization. the backs of poor and working folks. The racism allegations don’t stem from The Party of No strategy leaves Republi- anything Obama wrote, said, did, or support- cans with clean hands, because their hands ed, but from the Republican noise machine. never leave their pockets. Hence, the party Limbaugh, for example, proclaimed last July, that has controlled government for most of “They’re finally hearing me. He’s an angry my life can ride to a new victory on a wave black guy. I do believe that about the presi- of anti-government feelings while their cor- dent. I do believe he’s angry.” porate masters continue to benefit from the Not to be outdone, Glenn Beck, on the social injustices of both Democratic and Re- following day, told his Fox audience that publican administrations. The real difference Obama harbors “a deep-seated hatred for between the parties is that the Democrats white people or the white culture,” whatever more or less try to keep the country afloat that may mean. “This guy,” he went on, “is, I and save capitalism from collapse, mostly at believe, a racist!” the expense of working people who see their There we have it. quality of life and economic security declin- ing. The bones that Democrats have histori- Republicans in action cally thrown our way, things like the New In Washington, the Republicans may be the Deal, Social Security, and now minimalist Party of No, trying to gain idiot points by healthcare reform, keep popular discontent opposing all Democratic and independent in check, and keep a miniscule social safety attempts to rectify or even address the eco- net in place in order to hold rampant crime nomic, environmental, and social destruc- and disease epidemics at bay. tion left in the wake of the Bush presidency. Republicans, on the other hand, just shout The reality is that the Bush wars and tax and loot between sex scandals. cuts for the richest Americans compounded “Dittoheads” who drink too much of Lim-

April 2010 | TheReader 29 The Angry Brigade

Limbaugh rallied baugh’s Kool-Aid are the storm troopers of prisoners. The Republican response to these his rabid sheep, this new movement, and presumably the violent response has been, “Who, us, what telling them, folks who are chanting racist slogans at Tea did we do? Sure, some of the fellas are get- “We need to Party branded events and posting them on ting a bit unruly, but that’s not our fault. defeat these rightist blogs – you know, like calls to “lynch” What, are we their mothers or something? [Democratic] Eric Holder, the nation’s first black Attorney Don’t look at us.” bastards, we need General. At the end of March, Limbaugh ral- But I did look. I went right to their god- to wipe them out” lied his rabid sheep, telling them, “We need dess’s Twitter page on March 26, just as the to defeat these [Democratic] bastards, we bricks were flying and the phone lines were need to wipe them out.” ablaze with terrorist threats, knowing that Later in the week, liberal Democrat Lou- if anyone could master a tweet, it would be ise Slaughter, who represents parts of Buf- Sarah Palin. Her wisdom for her followers? falo and Rochester in Congress, got a brick “Don’t Retreat, instead Reload! Pls see my through her office window in Niagara Falls Facebook Page.” Reload? I went to her Face- and another through the window of her book page. There I found a map of the US party’s headquarters in Rochester, while a with target crosshairs over 20 Democratic phone caller left a message that snipers were congressional districts. readying to assassinate the children of Dem- What I didn’t find there or anywhere else ocratic members of Congress like Slaugh- in the Republican noise machine was a co- ter, who voted to guarantee them a right to herent argument for maintaining the health- healthcare. care status quo, as Palin’s party did during Republican officials, for their part, are the eight years they controlled the White crying foul on their followers’ death threats, House, the Senate, the House of Representa- saying Democrats are playing them up for tives, and the Supreme Court. CT political gain. You know, threatening to as- sassinate politicians and their families has Dr. Michael I. Niman is a professor of gotta be just some harmless dumb fun, like journalism and media studies at Buffalo State pranking a rival frat or torturing some Iraqi College.

Subscribe to ColdType If you enjoy The Reader subscribe to future issues – it’s free! E-mail: [email protected]

30 TheReader | April 2010 Home of The ? To hell in a handbasket The kindest thing you can say about America today is that it is not a serious country anymore, says David Michael Green

klive in New York. To say that the Which, considering the sheer scummi- Albany is out of politics of my state are dysfunctional ness of this lot, could very well be a good control, including would be like saying that Adolf Hitler thing. one state senator could sometimes be not such a nice It’s certainly a common thing. I grew up who cut his Ifellow. It’s all true, of course. It just doesn’t in California, which seems determined not girlfriend’s face do justice to the scope of the crimes com- to be eclipsed by New York or anybody in open with broken mitted. the dyfunctionality department. California glass, and a We have a governor (as of this writing, once had the nation’s top school system. former leader of anyhow) who just got blasted by the New But it cost money, so they gutted property the Senate on York State Commission on Public Integrity tax revenues and made it nearly impossible trial for wholesale for lying under oath in their investigation for the state to ever raise taxes again. Now corruption of him. But that’s okay. Before that, he ac- the schools are making Mississippi’s look cepted the favor of free tickets to the World good. California once had a great Supreme Series, which is what he lied about. But Court, too, which was the envy of other that’s okay. Before that he was putting pres- states in the union. But the justices weren’t sure on a woman who was the victim of do- killing enough inmates, so some nice folks mestic violence to go away and shut up. But engineered a then-unheard of thing and got that’s okay. The person who was beating the public to recall half the bench, replac- and choking her was one of his top staffers. ing them with pro-death penalty (oh, and But that’s okay, before that he and his wife incidentally, pro-corporate) new judges. were involved in all sorts of tawdry but un- California also once had a decent and politi- specified sex and drug related scandalous cally very moderate governor. But then En- behavior. But that’s okay. He’s the governor ron came in and created power black-outs who came in after the last governor had to in order to drive up electricity prices on the resign because he was laundering money grid, and so he to was blamed and then re- in order to visit high-priced hookers. But called too, replaced by a movie actor who that’s okay. Everybody in Albany is out of played a tough but loving cyborg from the control, including one state senator who cut future. Now, in his new role as governor of his girlfriend’s face open with broken glass, California, he plays the leader of a nascent and a former leader of the Senate on trial third world country, fiscally so chaotic it’s for wholesale corruption. But that’s okay, about ready to qualify for IMF bailouts. because none of them actually do anything, As for Texas, I don’t live there and I didn’t anyhow. grow up there, either. (I did kinda like Ste-

April 2010 | TheReader 31 Home of The ?

Lots of the vie Ray Vaughan, though. I don’t know if thing, ever. And, if by some inadvertent Neanderthal that counts for anything.) But them folks mistake they actually do take action of Party’s members are about to re-elect a governor who just last some sort, they’re equally devoted to doing fulminated year was talking about how so very heavy it ineptly, ineffectively, and on the terms of in Congress is the yoke of the federal government that their adversaries. expressing their Texas just might have to secede from the Well, really, nominal adversaries would outrage at the union. Er, rather, secede again, I should say. be a more accurate way to put it, since the stimulus bill, while Funny, though. He didn’t mention how the party that once actually used to do some- simultaneously states where you find the most tea-partiest thing for the public interest every once in bragging at home type of politics tend to be the ones bringing a while has now joined the other party in about how many home the bulk of the federal bacon. As the full-on devotion to the feeding and care of federal dollars Seattle Post-Intelligencer noted in 2005, only oligarchs, 24/7. The only difference is the from it they were five blue states are net recipients of federal masks they wear. If you’re merely a sick able to funnel into subsidies, while only two red states are net puppy, you put on the disguise of inepti- fat local projects payers of federal taxes. Imagine my surprise tude and frustration as you do the bidding at the hypocrisy of it all, and at recent rev- of your corporate masters. If you are, on elations that lots of the Neanderthal Party’s the other hand, absolutely sociopathic, you members fulminated in Congress express- work for the same folks, but you sell it to ing their outrage at the stimulus bill, while the numb-nuts you affectionately refer to as simultaneously bragging at home about your constituents in the form of protection how many federal dollars from it they were from fur’ners and fags, instead. Oh, and a able to funnel into fat local projects. bit of wholesale violence with the invasion And then, of course, nominally presiding of some third world country every other over New York, California and Texas is the year or so. United States federal government, about as pathetic a sight as one is ever likely to see. Quality of leadership Groaning under the weight of enormous A very good measure of the health of a problems, almost all of them entirely of given polity – especially in a democracy – is its own making, it is completely unable to given by the quality of leadership running act in any fashion other then to exacerbate the joint. That measure is incredibly telling those problems further while denying their in the case of the United States, and what existence. It’s true that the Founders of this it is telling us is grim indeed. Consider the country set out to create a system of gov- last three presidents against the compara- ernment that would almost never be able to tive backdrop of one of our greats, and his do anything, and boy were those fellas good. response to the country’s most serious ex- Just in case, though, the current lot of klep- istential crisis ever, excepting the Civil War. tocrats in the Republican Party have done When the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, them one better, grinding a system that’s and the Germans soon thereafter declared already ground to a halt all the way into war on the US as well, Franklin Roosevelt reverse. Except when they have the keys to led the country into a massive national re- the government, of course. At which point sponse and a four-year-plus effort combin- they employ the legislative equivalent of ing full-on public support, massive military, bunker buster bombs to kick out the jambs industrial and societal mobilization, master- and rape the country with impunity. ful diplomacy and stellar strategic vision in Meanwhile, there’s another party in order to defeat the genuine threat of global Washington, too. You may have heard of fascism. them. Heck, they even control the govern- If Bill Clinton had been president, on ment, though you’d never know it. They’re the other hand, he would have responded pretty much committed to not doing any- by trying to cop a feel off the Japanese am-

32 TheReader | April 2010 Home of The ? bassador’s daughter. If George W. Bush had ing and prisoners being released from jail, The same idiots been president, he would invaded Mexico, also because of budget slashing. And I just who have been bungled the war for seven years, then in- want to ask those bright folks whether they seduced by vaded Botswana, and sapped the military’s still think all those tax cuts for the already cigarette-money- strength by simultaneously bungling that ir- outrageously wealthy plutocracy were such sized tax cuts relevant war for six years, all while the Japa- a good idea in retrospect, after all for themselves, nese and Germans rampaged freely, coming used to justify a closer to American shores every day. And if Imploding government massive slashing Barack Obama had been president, he would This is just the tip of the spear. American of the burden have studied the matter for a year, offered to government is in the process of imploding, once carried bargain away half of Europe and Asia in a and it won’t be long until the pathetically by the rich, are deal with the Axis Powers, and then, when minuscule social safety net that we have now bitching they spit in his face for the thirty-seventh will be shredded as well. Stupid voters who as government time, deployed a half-dozen or so unarmed turn to the Republican Party in the next two services implode marines in a rubber dinghy as America’s election cycles will be outraged at the GOP military response to the attack. if it does what it says it will do and slashes Our so-called leaders are bad enough, social spending. And, of course, they will be but it gets almost worse at the level of the equally outraged if the Republicans don’t. American public, who of course also bear It just doesn’t seem to occur to these folks the burden of choosing these abysmal presi- that you have to pay for government ser- dents, on top of their own crimes. These lat- vices. And why should it, really? The GOP ter include utter negligence in maintaining have been selling the magic of free govern- the gift of American democracy, complete ment since Ronald Reagan brought voodoo laziness in the most basic of civic duties, economics to the national stage in 1980, mass corruption of social, political and nearly quadrupling the national debt in the personal values, and a reliance upon every process. form of cheap magic or distraction to avoid And when the financial voodoo remedies basic personal and civic responsibilities. somehow amazingly fail to entice the gods And, always, it’s about having everything. sufficiently to redeem the disaster that is At once. For nothing. The same idiots who American fiscal policy, desperate political have been seduced by cigarette-money- invocations and supplications to the dei- sized tax cuts for themselves, used to justify ties du jour are sure to follow. In fact, they a massive slashing of the burden once car- began long ago. Term limits? Swell! No tax ried by the rich, are now bitching as govern- increase pledges? Cool! Tea parties? What a ment services implode. The New York Times great idea! Ross Perot and his binders full is reporting that citizens of Arizona – one of government plans gathering dusts on the of the most regressive states in the union shelves of bureaucracies all across Wash- – are now unhappy because their highway ington? Brilliant! Deregulation? Of course! rest stops have been eliminated due to the Let the market fix everything! Privatiza- state’s fiscal crisis. I just want to grab these tion? Why have a government when you people and shake them by the shoulders, can buy a lousier one for a lot more money, politely suggesting to them that next time so that profits can be extracted? Hey, and they have to pull over in the desert sands while we’re at it, why not pretend to fund between Tucson and Phoenix and squat our schools as the pretext for government- by the side of the road, they might want sponsored gambling through lotteries? Ex- to give a thought or two to all the money cellent! That’s a threefer! Bad schools, gov- they pissed away in another desert, this one ernment-induced addiction, and a rip-off of in Mesopotamia. Likewise, people are now the public’s money. also starting to whine about schools clos- The American public is in oscillating

April 2010 | TheReader 33 Home of The ?

We’ve worked parachute mode right now, and my guess is that there is no substantial economic re- pretty hard these that it’s going to get worse. Like a desperate covery – measured in jobs, not GDP or the last decades patient with a potentially terminal illness, Dow or Wall Street bonuses – in the com- to destroy the we careen from one panacea to the next, ing years. I regret to say that I think that’s a American middle hoping that the laws of political physics can pretty safe assumption. The abandonment class and to somehow be suspended if we just wish it of workers in America that we’re seeing hammer the earnestly enough. In observing this pathetic today is a the final (we hope) result of a working class sight, I am reminded of nothing so much as decades-long relentless pursuit of profits in and poor, all a cranky adolescent who expends ten times the name of overclass greed über alles. Who because the folks the energy and grief to avoid doing his math cares about American workers if you can do who were really assignment as it would take to just sit down a job cheaper with a machine? Why give a rich decided about for twenty minutes and crank it out. shit about shutting down entire communi- thirty years ago That’s the funny thing about the Ameri- ties if you can export those jobs overseas at that they instead can political malaise. Some of the changes a fraction of the cost? Sorry too about those deserved to be most necessary for our rescue would not trade treaties that only helped to exacerbate fantastically rich only be easy, they’d be way cheaper than that tendency! Oh, and too bad we don’t free. This country could solve ninety per- have any money to dump into community cent of its problems by the simple act of redevelopment or schools or infrastructure. getting money out of politics and thereby Got to do tax cuts for the rich instead. Got to (re)turning the American government into keep our priorities straight, you know? being an instrument for the benefit of the In short, we’ve worked pretty hard these public, rather than a servant for aggregat- last decades to destroy the American mid- ing wealth on behalf of a predatory plutoc- dle class and to hammer the working class racy. Among the immediate benefits such a and poor, all because the folks who were re- change might be expected to realize would ally rich decided about thirty years ago that be precipitous drops in military spending they instead deserved to be fantastically and corporate welfare, along with a serious rich. And, lo and behold, it’s worked! The rise in revenues from a tax system that re- good years of the mid-twentieth century in quired the rich to actually pay their share. America are now going, in the long view of In other words, for no cost to the individual history, from being a foundation to a con- American other than getting up off their tinuing and improved future to instead be- couches and actually demanding govern- coming an historical anomaly. It was a blip, ment for the people rather than for the in between the normal of gross disparities people’s vampires, the public could right of wealth that came before it and after it. A the ship of state and probably even get a be- thirty year party. A generational experiment loved tax cut out of the deal. But, alas, there that went badly awry for the boss class, ‘til is that couch to keep warm … they returned to clean up the mess. But it’s hard to give it up, especially since The wrong thing nobody told us it was a one-time deal. Ironi- Really, I’m afraid the kindest thing you can cally, our decline based on class thievery say about America today is that it is so not soon became become the perfect condition a serious country anymore. Churchill joked for its own amplified replication, as the re- that you can always count on America to gressive movement in America, starting do the right thing, after it has exhausted all with Reagan, began marketing an exacer- the other possibilities. I’m down with the bation of this effect, masked as just its op- second half of the equation, but unfortu- posite and channeling the fear and rage of nately growing increasingly dubious about economic insecurity into hatred and vio- the first. lence toward brown people, gays, women, Let’s assume, for the sake of argument, etc. Aided and abetted by an ‘opposition’

34 TheReader | April 2010 Home of The ? party that went from consternation to crash Which leaves, to my mind, only a third This is a country to concussion to confusion to compliance to option, kinda like the one Hitler brought steeped in co-optation to collaboration and then finally to the Weimar Republic, then suffering violence, political to clones, the process has been really quite from similar tendencies toward economic stupidity, remarkable for its diabolical ingeniousness despair, political oscillation and ineffective racism, sexism, and its near complete success. governance. That’s pretty drastic, but I guess homophobia, Emphasis on the word ‘near’, though. it comes down to the question of just what and beliefs in It’s not over yet, and this is where I think one thinks these people are capable of. every kind of we begin to get into some really scary ter- As for me, I say keep you passport cur- magic, including ritory, and where Churchill’s formula may rent. CT – especially – well break down. This is a country steeped religion in violence, political stupidity, racism, sex- David Michael Green is a professor of ism, homophobia, and beliefs in every kind political science at Hofstra University in New of magic, including – especially – religion. It York. More of his work can be found at his feels in my gut, right now, like a very com- website, www.regressiveantidote.net. bustible collection of tinder, and I don’t imagine the revolution, if it comes, will be a particularly progressive one. I would expect the Demo- “A one-man cratic Party to get annihilat- cultural ed in the next two election revolution” cycles. Assuming people – Koos Kombuis will even wait that long for “When it comes to serious change, that brings writing, Malan is Sarah Palin, or her equiva- dangerously good lent, and gang to power and there is no three years from now. getting away” Consider their choices as – Lin Sampson they take control of the gov- ernment. From the If this new regime does international nothing, or reverts to the best-selling GOP’s previous form of author of spending more, taxing less and borrowing like crazy, My Traitor’s they will solve nothing, and Heart will be tossed out (again) like the Democrats before AVAILABLE AT them. BOOKSHOPS If they govern like they NATIONWIDE actually say they will, they will slash spending on so- cial programs, angering the public furiously, and com- pletely alienating their only real remaining base, old Buy your copy at www.kalhari.co.za white people.

April 2010 | TheReader 35 The War Machine 1 A bomber jacket doesn’t cover the blood Norman Solomon questions Obama’s convoluted pep talk to his troops in Afghanistan

The man in the resident Obama has taken a fur- ghanistan visit is a day in 1966 when another bomber jacket ther plunge into the kind of war president, in the midst of escalating another doesn’t press the abyss that consumed predeces- war, also took a long ride on Air Force One to buttons that fire sors named Johnson, Nixon and laud and boost the troops. the missiles and PBush. In South Vietnam, at Cam Ranh Bay, Pres- drop the warheads, On Sunday, March 28, during his first ident Johnson told the American soldiers: but he gives the presidential trip to Afghanistan, Obama “Be sure to come home with that coonskin orders that make it stood before thousands of American troops on the wall.” Then, too, thousands of soldiers all possible to proclaim the sanctity of the war effort. responded to the president’s exhortations by He played the role deftly – a commander in whooping it up. And then, too, the media chief, rallying the troops – while wearing a coverage was upbeat. bomber jacket. In a cover story, Life quoted a corporal There was something candidly maca- who called Johnson’s visit the “best morale bre about the decision to wear that leather booster Cam Ranh’s ever had.” jacket, adorned with an American Eagle and The magazine piece, written by an emi- the words “Air Force One.” The man in the nent journalist of the era, Shana Alexander, bomber jacket doesn’t press the buttons that went on: “Certainly the corporal was right fire the missiles and drop the warheads, but and so was [White House press secretary Bill] he gives the orders that make it all possible. Moyers when he later compared the day to a One way or another, we’re used to seeing sermon, in that so much of the real meaning presidents display such tacit accouterments is not in what the preacher says but in what of carnage. And the president’s words were his listeners hear.” also eerily familiar: with their cadence and The article concluded that it had been a confidence in the efficacy of mass violence, “wild and quite wonderful day.” when provided by the Pentagon and meted Fast forward 44 years. out by a military so technologically supreme “There’s going to be setbacks,” President that dissociation can masquerade as ultimate Obama told the troops at Bagram Air Base. erudition – so powerful and so sophisticated “We face a determined enemy. But we also that orders stay light years away from hu- know this: The United States of America man consequences. does not quit once it starts on something.” The war becomes its own rationale for The applause line lingered as the next continuing: to go on because it must go on. words directly addressed the clapping troops: A grisly counterpoint to Obama’s brief Af- “You don’t quit, the American armed servic-

36 TheReader | April 2010 The War Machine 1 es does not quit, we keep at it, we persevere, if those veterans could pursue their dreams Best not to and together with our partners we will pre- without suffering from PTSD and traumatic acknowledge vail. I am absolutely confident of that.” brain injuries in the first place. how much better The president added: “And we’ll be there But such human realities are for private it would be if for you when you come home. It’s why we’re suffering, not public discourse. those veterans improving care for our wounded warriors, The next morning, the front page of the could pursue especially those with PTSD and traumatic New York Times reported that the president’s their dreams brain injuries. We’re moving forward with visit to Afghanistan “included a boisterous without suffering the post-9/11 GI Bill so you and your families pep rally with American troops.” CT from PTSD and can pursue your dreams.” traumatic brain Those words provide a kind of freeze Norman Solomon is national co-chair of the injuries in frame for basic convolution: The government Healthcare Not Warfare campaign, launched the first place will help veterans with PTSD and traumatic by Progressive Democrats of America. brain injuries to pursue their dreams. His books include War Made Easy: How In the realm of careful abstraction, where Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us actual people are rendered invisible, best not to Death. For more information, go to: www. to acknowledge how much better it would be normansolomon.com. © P aul B ox/reportdigital.co.uk

One of the first to grasp the potential of the internet for photography, Report Digital continues the tradition of critical realism, documenting the contradictions of global capitalism and the responses to it, both in the UK and internationally www.reportdigital.co.uk

April 2010 | TheReader 37 The War Machine 2 Have a nice world war, folks! John Pilger describes the increasing American war front across the world: from Afghanistan to Africa and Latin America, a Third World War in all but name

According to an ere is news of the Third World command and control. The heroic libera- American general, War. The United States has in- tors killed the usual civilians, poorest of the the invasion and vaded Africa. US troops have poor. Otherwise, it was fake. A war of per- occupation of entered Somalia, extending ception is meant to provide fake news for Afghanistan is Htheir war front from Afghanistan and Paki- the folks back home, to make a failed co- not so much a stan to Yemen and now the Horn of Af- lonial adventure seem worthwhile and pa- real war as a “war rica. In preparation for an attack on Iran, triotic, as if The Hurt Locker were real and of perception”. American missiles have been placed in four parades of flag-wrapped coffins through the Thus, the recent Persian Gulf states, and “bunker-buster” Wiltshire town of Wooten Basset were not a “liberation of the bombs are said to be arriving at the US base cynical propaganda exercise. city of Marja” on the British island of Diego Garcia in the “War is fun”, the helmets in Vietnam from the Taliban’s Indian Ocean. used to say with bleakest irony, meaning “command and In Gaza, the sick and abandoned popula- that if a war is revealed as having no pur- control structure” tion, mostly children, is being entombed be- pose other than to justify voracious power was pure hind underground American-supplied walls in the cause of lucrative fanaticisms such as Hollywood in order to reinforce a criminal siege. In the weapons industry, the danger of truth Latin America, the Obama administration beckons. This danger can be illustrated by has secured seven bases in Colombia, from the liberal perception of Tony Blair in 1997 which to wage a war of attrition against the as one “who wants to create a world [where] popular democracies in Venezuela, Bolivia, ideology has surrendered entirely to values” Ecuador and Paraguay. Meanwhile, the sec- (Hugo Young, the Guardian) compared with retary of “defence” Robert Gates complains today’s public reckoning of a liar and war that “the general [European] public and the criminal. political class” are so opposed to war they are an “impediment” to peace. Remember No threat this is the month of the March Hare. Western war-states such as the US and Brit- According to an American general, the ain are not threatened by the Taliban or any invasion and occupation of Afghanistan is other introverted tribesmen in faraway plac- not so much a real war as a “war of percep- es, but by the anti-war instincts of their own tion”. Thus, the recent “liberation of the citizens. Consider the draconian sentences city of Marja” from the Taliban’s “command handed down in London to scores of young and control structure” was pure Hollywood. people who protested Israel’s assault on Marja is not a city; there was no Taliban Gaza in January last year. Following demon-

38 TheReader | April 2010 The War Machine 2 strations in which paramilitary police “ket- invokes lazy historical precedents, conjur- The rise of tled” (corralled) thousands, first-offenders ing yet again the iconography of German tentacular have received two and a half years in prison and Italian repression. On the other hand, corporations that for minor offences that would not normally American authoritarianism, as the cultural are dictatorships carry custodial sentences. On both sides of critic Henry Giroux pointed out recently, in their own right the Atlantic, serious dissent exposing illegal is “more nuance, less theatrical, more cun- and of a military war has become a serious crime. ning, less concerned with repressive modes that is now a Silence in other high places allows this of control than with manipulative modes of state with the moral travesty. Across the arts, literature, consent.” state, set behind journalism and the law, liberal elites, having This is Americanism, the only predatory the façade of the hurried away from the debris of Blair and ideology to deny that it is an ideology. The best democracy now Obama, continue to fudge their indif- rise of tentacular corporations that are dic- 35,000 Washington ference to the barbarism and aims of west- tatorships in their own right and of a mili- lobbyists can ern state crimes by promoting retrospec- tary that is now a state with the state, set buy, and a tively the evils of their convenient demons, behind the façade of the best democracy popular culture like Saddam Hussein. With Harold Pinter 35,000 Washington lobbyists can buy, and a programmed gone, try compiling a list of famous writers, popular culture programmed to divert and to divert and artists and advocates whose principles are stultify, is without precedent. More nuanced stultify, is without not consumed by the “market” or neutered perhaps, but the results are both unambigu- precedent by their celebrity. ous and familiar. Who among them have spoken out about Denis Halliday and Hans von Sponeck, the holocaust in Iraq during almost 20 years the senior United Nations officials in Iraq of lethal blockade and assault? And all of it during the American and British-led block- has been deliberate. On 22 January 1991, the ade, are in no doubt they witnessed geno- US Defence Intelligence Agency predicted cide. They saw no gas chambers. Insidious, in impressive detail how a blockade would undeclared, even presented wittily as en- systematically destroy Iraq’s clean water lightenment on the march, the Third World system and lead to “increased incidences, if War and its genocide proceeded, human be- not epidemics of disease”. ing by human being. So the US set about eliminating clean In the coming election campaign in Brit- water for the Iraqi population: one of the ain, the candidates will refer to this war only causes, noted Unicef, of the deaths of half to laud “our boys”. The candidates are al- a million Iraqi infants under the age of most identical political mummies shrouded five. But this extremism apparently has no in the Union Jack and the Stars and Stripes. name. As Blair demonstrated a mite too eagerly, the British elite loves America because More nuance America allows it to barrack and bomb the Norman Mailer once said he believed the natives and call itself a “partner”. We should United States, in its endless pursuit of war interrupt their fun. CT and domination, had entered a “pre-fascist era”. Mailer seemed tentative, as if trying to John Pilger recently received the Sydney warn about something even he could not Peace Prize. His latest book, Freedom Next quite define. “Fascism” is not right, for it Time, is now available in paperback

subscribe to the reader – It’s free! Contact: [email protected]

April 2010 | TheReader 39 The War Machine 3 28 nations with no shame Sherwood Ross details the countries that have helped the US detain, interrogate and torture suspects in their ‘war’ on terror

Francis Boyle, wenty-eight nations have cooper- bia, Syria, Somalia, South Africa, Thailand, professor of ated with the US to detain in their United Kingdom, Uzbekistan, Yemen, and international law prisons, and sometimes to interro- Zambia. Some of the above-named coun- at the University gate and torture, suspects arrested tries held suspects in behalf of the Central of Illinois, Tas part of the US “War on Terror.” Intelligence Agency(CIA); others held sus- Champaign, The complicit countries have kept sus- pects in behalf the US military, or both. termed the pects in prisons ranging from public interior Francis Boyle, professor of international detention policies ministry buildings to “safe house” villas in law at the University of Illinois, Champaign, used by the downtown urban areas to obscure prisons termed the detention policies used by the US “Crimes in forests to “black” sites to which the Inter- US “Crimes against Humanity”: against Humanity” national Committee of the Red Cross(ICRC) “These instances of the enforced disap- has been denied access. pearances of human beings and their conse- According to published reports, an esti- quent torture, because they are both wide- mated 50 prisons have been used to hold spread and systematic, constitute Crimes detainees in these 28 countries. Additional- against Humanity in violation of the Rome ly, at least 25 more prisons have been oper- Statute for the International Criminal Court, ated either by the US or by the government which have been ordered by the highest of occupied-Afghanistan in behalf of the level officials of the United States govern- US, and 20 more prisons have been simi- ment … ” larly operated in Iraq. Referring to President Bush and his prin- As the London-based legal rights group cipal advisers, Boyle continued, “Since these Reprieve estimates the US has used 17 ships criminal activities took part in several states as floating prisons since 2001, the total num- that are parties to the ICC Rome Statute, ber of prisons operated by the US and/or that renders these US government officials its allies to house alleged terrorist suspects subject to prosecution by the International since 2001 exceeds 100. And this figure may Criminal Court on the grounds of territori- well be far short of the actual number. ality of the offense, even though the United Countries that held prisoners in behalf of States is not a party to the Rome Statute.” the US based on published data are Algeria, According to Human Rights Watch, as Azerbaijan, Bosnia, Djibouti, Egypt, Ethio- of Jan., 2004, the US held detainees from 21 pia, Gambia, Israel, Jordan, Kenya, Kosovo, different countries including Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Lithuania, Mauritania, Morocco, Pak- India, Iran, Iraq, Israeli-occupied Gaza and istan, Poland, Qatar, Romania, Saudi Ara- West Bank, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Malay-

40 TheReader | April 2010 The War Machine 3 sia, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, rian, Syrian, or Saudi Arabian prisons.” “It is illegal for Syria, Sweden, Tunisia, Turkey, Ukraine, the It was “because of the gruesome treat- the government United Kingdom and Yemen. ment of prisoners that made it expedient to to hold prisoners The nations that cooperated with the US remove suspects as much as possible from in such isolation in to detain these prisoners have done so even the responsibility of American judges. This secret prisons in though detainees commonly were held – in practice gave birth to the Guantanamo pris- the United States, the words of an Associated Press report of oner camp, as well as a whole range of so- which is why Sept. 18, 2006 – “beyond the reach of estab- called black sites, or secret interrogation ar- the CIA placed lished law.” Efforts by this reporter to learn eas, where the CIA keeps its most valuable them overseas, from the Pentagon the total number of pris- prisoners under continuous observation,” according to oners held captive and related information Der Spiegel said. several former proved futile. Writing in the Washington Post on Nov. and current However, in Feb., 2005, Maj. Gen. Don- 2, 2005, Dana Priest put it this way: “It is intelligence ald Ryder, Army Provost Marshal General, illegal for the government to hold prison- officials and other said, “In all, roughly 65,000 people have ers in such isolation in secret prisons in the US government been screened for possible detention, and United States, which is why the CIA placed officials” about 30,000 of those were entered into the them overseas, according to several former system, at least briefly, and assigned intern- and current intelligence officials and other ment serial numbers.” Possibly, to date, the US government officials. Legal experts and US and its allies have detained 100,000 sus- intelligence officials said that the CIA’s in- pects or more. ternment practices also would be consid- It is not known whether the customary ered illegal under the laws of several host legal rights of any of these tens of thou- countries, where detainees have rights to sands of captives have been honored. But have a lawyer or to mount a defense against given the absence of due process, trials, and allegations of wrongdoing.” convictions compared to the vast numbers In a concise observation that appears to of those detained, the “War on Terror” takes summarize the US campaign of detention, on the appearance of a monumental fraud. Patrick Quinn of the Associated Press wrote, As Jane Mayer wrote in The Dark Side “Captured on battlefields, pulled from beds (Anchor Books), “Seven years after the at- at midnight, grabbed off streets as suspect- tacks of September 11, not a single terror ed insurgents, tens of thousands now have suspect held outside of the US criminal passed through American detention, the court system has been tried. Of the 759 de- vast majority in Iraq. Many have said they tainees acknowledged to have been held in were often interrogated around the clock, Guantanamo, approximately 340 remained then released months or years later without there, only a handful of whom had been apology, compensation, or any word on why charged. Among these, not a single ‘enemy they were taken.” combatant’ had yet had the opportunity to Clive Stafford Smith, legal director of cross-examine the government or see the British human rights group Reprieve, told evidence on which he was being held.” Simi- the UK Guardian June 2, 2008: “By its own larly, Nick Turse of TomDispatch.com report- admission, the US government is currently ed US intelligence officials themselves esti- detaining at least 26,000 people without mated that 70-90% of prisoners detained in trial in secret prisons, and information sug- Iraq “had been arrested by mistake.” gests up to 80,000 have been ‘through the According to the German weekly Der system’ since 2001. The US government Spiegel in a Dec. 10, 2005, article: “It is likely must show a commitment to rights and that nobody will ever know how many ter- basic humanity by immediately revealing ror suspects abducted by the CIA have died who these people are, where they are, and in the torture chambers of Egyptian, Alge- what has been done to them.” Note: The

April 2010 | TheReader 41 The War Machine 3

Former detainees UN Commission on Human Rights asserts prisoners at Bagram for two or three years allege they were prolonged incommunicado detention itself without access to lawyers, Red Cross, or “regularly beaten, can “constitute a form of cruel, inhuman or their families. And the official US detention subjected to degrading treatment or even torture.” center in Kandahar is known among former blaring music A brief look at the prison operations of inmates as “Camp Slappy.” twenty-four hours America’s accomplices follows: a day, prevented AZERBAIJAN: prisoners have been de- from sleeping, AFGHANISTAN: Human Rights First says tained in behalf of the US in Baku, the capi- stripped naked since Nov., 2001, the US has operated ap- tal. The country is known for imprisoning and forced to proximately 25 detention facilities in Af- journalists and other critics, some of whom assume what ghanistan. Secret prisons at Bagram Air have been tortured and murdered. interrogators term Force Base include the “Dark Prison” and ‘stress positions’” “Salt Pit.” It was in Salt Pit in Nov., 2002, ALGERIA: The US transferred prisoners that guards stripped an Afghan prisoner there from Guantanamo. Amnesty Interna- naked, chained him to the concrete floor tional has warned against transfer of prison- and left him in below-zero temperatures ers to Algeria based on the country’s history all night. He was dead in the morning, Der of torture and warned “Algeria has become Spiegel reported. a prime ally of the United States (US) and Other prisons include Rissat and Rissat2, other governments preoccupied with the north of Kabul, and Prison Number 3. At so-called War on Terror.” According to Wiki- Kandahar Air Force Base, US army officers pedia, Manfred Nowak, a special reporter hung prisoners from the ceiling for days. At on torture, has catalogued in a 15-page U.N. times, the prison held up to 40 detainees. report that the United States, United King- Other Afghan sites include transient facili- dom, Canada, and other nations have violat- ties near Asadabad, Gereshk, Jalalabad, Tyc- ed international human rights conventions ze, Gardez, and Khost. A federal Grand Jury by deporting terrorist suspects to countries in North Carolina indicted CIA contractor such as Algeria. David Passaro for allegedly beating detainee Abdul Wali to death at Khost in June, 2003. BOSNIA: the Eagle Base in Tuzla is a black Officials there also told the family of Sher site. The British Telegraph said Eagle is part Mohammed Khan he was killed by snake- of a US military facility where alleged Al- bite when his body showed marks of abuse. Qaeda members were tortured. Another base, according to the Feb. 15, 2010, issue of the Nation, is Rish-Khor, an DIEGO GARCIA (UK): a British possession Afghan army facility atop a mountain over- in the Indian Ocean the US has transformed looking Kabul. The magazine also reported into a powerful military base to dominate there are nine Field Detention Sites the Red the Middle East and Asia. Reportedly, the Cross is aware of that “are enveloped in a CIA has a facility there that was used in blanket of official secrecy.” There may, how- 2005-06 to hold Mustafa Setmariam Nasar, ever, “be other sites whose existence on the a Syrian-Spanish national. According to Re- scores of US and Afghan military bases that prieve, “the UK has a significant military dot the country have not been disclosed,” and administrative presence on Diego Gar- writes the magazine’s Anand Gopal. At cia, which has its own independent admin- Bagram, Gopal wrote, former detainees al- istration run by the East Africa Desk of the lege they were “regularly beaten, subjected Foreign and Commonwealth Office in Lon- to blaring music twenty-four hours a day, don.” Reprieve further stated, “In October, prevented from sleeping, stripped naked 2003, Time magazine cited interrogation and forced to assume what interrogators records from the US prisoner Hambali that term ‘stress positions.” It is routine to hold had reportedly been taken on the island,

42 TheReader | April 2010 The War Machine 3 while respected international investigators is either CIA or under Joint Special Opera- Horton noted Iraqi at the Council of Europe and the United Na- tions Command. It was to this camp, ac- law requires any tions expressed similar suspicions. US of- cording to Harper’s, where three prisoners detention to be ficials went on to make seemingly careless were taken and never again seen alive. In justified before public statements confirming the use of Di- 2006, the UN called for closing Guantana- a magistrate in a ego Garcia for secret detentions.” mo. According to the Miami Herald’s Carol matter of only a Rosenberg, (Jan. 29, 2010) Guantanamo has few days but the DJIBOUTI: said to have three CIA-run pris- held about 770 prisoners since it opened US has “complete ons, according to the Guardian. The former eight years ago and nearly 580 have been contempt for the French foreign legion base Camp Lemon- released over the years. What’s more, a re- requirements of nier is a US facility at Djibouti-Ambouli In- view by DOD and five other agencies agreed Iraqi law” ternational Airport. unanimously that “roughly 110” more are eligible for release, meaning there was not EGYPT: said to operate six prisons in be- enough evidence on 690 of the 770 pris- half of the CIA, where numerous victims oners to prosecute them – further proof, if have been rendered, one of them being the any is needed, of the fraudulent nature of General Intelligence Directorate in Cairo. US the War on Terror. Amnesty International officials are alleged to have participated in called for Guantanamo detainees to be ei- interrogation/torture sessions there where ther released from their “super max” high prisoners are hung from hooks and electri- security cells or allowed to stand trial. Irene cal shocks administered. On June 13, 2004, Khan, Amnesty International’s general sec- the UK Observer reported, “Egypt has also retary, termed Guantanamo “the gulag of received a steady flow of militants from our time.” American installations.” The paper also identified Mulhaq al-Mazra prison as a facil- IRAQ: The US and its allies have operated ity used in behalf of the US at least 20 prisons. In 2006, Human Rights First documented 98 deaths in US custody ETHIOPIA: has held detainees on behalf there, including five in CIA custody. Every of CIA. US agents interrogated one man detainee in Iraq “is detained because he there for three months. An investigation poses a security threat to the government of by the Associated Press published April 3, Iraq, the people of Iraq, or coalition forces,” 2007, found, “CIA and FBI agents hunting said a spokesman for US-led detainee opera- for al-Qaida militants in the Horn of Africa tions in Iraq, Army Lt. Col. Keir-Kevin Curry. have been interrogating terrorism suspects This statement is hard to credit as virtually from 19 countries held at secret prisons in all of the tens of thousands of persons ar- Ethiopia, which is notorious for torture and rested have never been charged with an of- abuse.” Three prisons are used for such pur- fense and the vast majority of them have poses, the report said. been let go. Scott Horton wrote in Harper’s that the GAMBIA: in Banjul, the capital, safe houses US “is holding 19,000 Iraqis at its two main in a residential area were used to jail Bisher detention centers, at Camp Cropper and Al-Rawi. He was also jailed in Guantanamo Camp Bucca.” Horton noted Iraqi law re- where he was said to be subjected to cold quires any detention to be justified before temperatures and had his prayer rug taken a magistrate in a matter of only a few days away when he tried to use it as a blanket. but the US has “complete contempt for the requirements of Iraqi law.” It should be not- GUANTANAMO: In addition to Camp Del- ed that Iraqi Prime Minister al-Maliki’s gov- ta, a military prison, this base is the site of ernment complained US detention violates “Camp No” about a mile to the north, that Iraq’s national rights. In March, 2006, UN

April 2010 | TheReader 43 The War Machine 3

At the notorious Secy.-Gen. Kofi Annan said the extent of ar- remember their screaming.” Ms. Taha was Abu Ghraib, bitrary detention in Iraq is “not consistent interviewed by Nagem Salam, an American Ms. Umm Taha, with provisions of international law govern- journalist, according to Islam Online of June an Iraqi woman ing internment on imperative reasons of se- 14, 2004. At its peak occupancy in 2004, detainee, told curity.” Since, as of this January, the US is Abu Ghraib, also known also known as the of tortures said to hold only 5,000 detainees in Iraq, ap- Baghdad Central Correctional Facility, was she witnessed. parently tens of thousands of persons have said to hold 7,000 prisoners. Soldiers made been released without ever being charged. At Al-Jadiriya prison, in Baghdad many prisoners stand Between June, 2004, and Sept., 2006, alone, prisoners were detained off the books, and one leg “then they the US released some 18,700 Iraqi detainees, at least 168 unlawfully detained were abused kicked them to according to a reliable source. there. Among the main detention facilities make them fall to This points to a massive conspiracy to in Iraq are Camp Redemption and Camp the ground” deprive innocent people of their rights by Ganci, both located at Abu Ghraib, as well as the US on a scale not seen since the US in- Camp Cropper, near the Baghdad Airport. terned its own Japanese-American popula- Other major facilities include Camp Bucca tion during World War II. “It was hard to in Umm Qasr and Talil Air Force Base south believe I’d get out,” Baghdad shopkeeper of Baghdad, also known as Whitford Camp. Amjad Qassim al-Aliyawi, told the Associ- Additional Iraqi bases where prisoners were ated Press after his release, without charge. held included Al-Rusafa, Al-Kadhimiyya, “I lived with the Americans for one year and and Al-Karkh, in Baghdad and Camp Fal- eight months as if I was living in hell.” It was con, near Baghdad; the Al-Diwaniyya Secu- in the US Forward Operating Rifles Base in rity Detainee Holding Area; Ashraf Camp Al Asad where Abdul Jaleel was murdered MEK near Al-Ramadi; FOB Tiger in Anbar in Jan., 2004, after being beaten and tied by province; an FOB near Al-Asad, outside his hands to the top of a door frame. At the Mosul; a temporary holding camp near Na- US detention facility in Al Qaim, Baghdad, siriyah; an FOB in Tikrit, in northern Iraq; former Iraqi Major-General Abed Hamad Al-Qasr al-Jumhouri and Al-Qasr al-Sujood. Mowhoush, was tortured and smothered to Another facility, Camp Sheba, is under Brit- death in Nov., 2003. At Camp Bucca, in the ish command. southern desert, said to hold 9,500, detain- According to GlobalSecurity.org, Camp ees were forcibly showered with cold water Whitehorse is a Marine-run detention site and exposed to cold air. At Site 4, a prison near Nasiriyah in Southern Iraq: “Prisoners run by Iraq’s Ministry of Interior and which were held at Whitehorse until they could be in May, 2006, held some 1,431 detainees, interrogated by a Marine ‘human exploita- there was evidence of systematic physical tion team,’ which would determine whether and psychological abuse and in a prison in the detainees should be released or trans- the Green Zone run by Baghdad Brigade de- ferred elsewhere. Prisoners were forced tainees suffered severe ill treatment. to stand 50 minutes of every hour, in heat At the notorious Abu Ghraib, Ms. Umm sometimes topping 120 degrees, for up to Taha, an Iraqi woman detainee, told of tor- 10 hours at a time. Prisoners were forced to tures she witnessed. Soldiers made prison- stand until interrogators from the Human ers stand one leg “then they kicked them to Exploitation Team arrived. If the team failed make them fall to the ground.” She said she to get the information it wanted, prisoners watched GI Lynndie England use a rubber were forced to continue standing.” glove to snap the detainees on their geni- GlobalSecurity.org reported further, “In tals. “The soldiers also made all the men lay October 2003 the US military charged eight on the ground, face down, spread their legs, US Marine reservists, including two officers, then men and women soldiers alike kicked with brutal treatment of Iraqi prisoners of the detainees between their legs. I can still war that may have resulted in the death of

44 TheReader | April 2010 The War Machine 3 one Iraqi man. The eight fought in Iraq as three different police stations in Nairobi, “Their detention part of the First Marine Division and were and also at a military police station locat- outside the US detailed to guard prisoners at Camp White- ed near Kiunga. Suspects “disappeared” in enables CIA horse. Military prosecutors allege that an 2007 in the region were believed to have interrogators to Iraqi man named Nagem Sadoon Hatab been interrogated by the CIA and FBI. apply interrogation died at Camp Whitehorse in early June 2003 methods that are following a possible beating by US guards.” KOSOVO: CIA-operated Camp Bondsteel, banned by US law, ISRAEL: “Thanks to the Israeli paper a black site; was said by some, including and to do so in a Haaretz,” wrote Tom Engelhardt of Tom- an official of the European Commission country where Dispatch.com of Nov. 2, 2006, “we learned on Human Rights, to be similar in design cooperation for the first time that at least some CIA to Guantanamo. The British Telegraph re- with the rendition flights stopped at Ben-Gurion In- ported alleged members of Al-Qaeda were Americans is ternational Airport in Tel Aviv on their way questioned and tortured at Bondsteel. particularly to and from Cyprus, Jordan, Morocco, and close, thereby other spots east and west, north and south LIBYA: Since 2004, for example, the CIA has reducing the – and that the first case ‘of the United States handed five Libyan fighters to authorities in danger of leaks” handing Israel a world jihadi suspect’ in a Tripoli. Two had been covertly nabbed by rendition operation has been confirmed.” the CIA in China and Thailand, while the others were caught in Pakistan and held JORDAN: Abducted men rendered by CIA in CIA prisons in Afghanistan, Eastern Eu- were held in Jordan’s General Intelligence rope and other locations, according to Lib- Department (GID) in Amman. One detain- yan sources, Craig Whitlock reported in the ee said his experience was “beyond descrip- Washington Post of October 27, 2007. tion.” On June 13, 2004, the UK Observer reported prisoners were also held “in des- LITHUANIA: The CIA operated a prison ert locations in the east of the country.” Al in a riding academy in Antaviliai, on the Jafr Prison, in the southern Jordanian des- outskirts of capital Vilnius. Lithuania held ert, has held prisoners for the US In the Is- eight terror suspects there for the CIA. raeli publication Ha’aretz, an article in Oct., 2004, said the CIA was holding 11 high-level MAURITANIA: CIA reportedly operated Al Qaeda prisoners incommunicado in Jor- one detention facility there. In an article in dan. The Jordanian government flatly de- the June 25, 2007, the New Yorker, investiga- nies there are any US detention facilities in tive reporter Seymour Hersh wrote: “I was Jordan. One of the 11 is said to have been told by the former senior intelligence offi- Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged cial and a government consultant that after mastermind of the hijacked airliner attacks the existence of secret C.I.A. prisons in Eu- on New York and Washington. Citing inter- rope was revealed, in the Washington Post, national intelligence sources, Ha’aretz said: in late 2005, the Administration responded “Their detention outside the US enables with a new detainee center in Mauritania. CIA interrogators to apply interrogation After a new government friendly to the US methods that are banned by US law, and to took power, in a bloodless coup d’état in do so in a country where cooperation with August, 2005, they said, it was much easier the Americans is particularly close, thereby for the intelligence community to mask se- reducing the danger of leaks.” cret flights there.”

KENYA: Detained 84 captives for the US in MOROCCO: Held CIA detainees at a prison Nairobi with no opportunity to challenge in al-Temara. The CIA rendered Binyam Mo- their detention. One captive, Mohamed Ez- hamed, a British citizen, to Morocco, where zoueck, a Britsh national, was detained at he was moved around to three different

April 2010 | TheReader 45 The War Machine 3

When the prisons. Abou Elkassim Britel, an Italian and 13, 2004, “Scores more (terror suspects) are Canadian Moroccan, was tortured at al-Temara. The thought to be at a US airbase in the Gulf government found prison is located in a forest five miles out- state of Qatar … ” Arar was tortured, side of Rabat, the capital. It was in Morocco the Prime Minister that Binyam Mohamed, an Ethiopian-born ROMANIA: Three CIA detention centers apologized to him British resident arrested in Pakistan in 2002 operated there, including one in downtown and Canada paid was tortured by interrogators who sliced his Bucharest and one in Timisoara. him $10.5-million penis with a scalpel and later transferred in compensation him to Guantanamo Bay. He was freed in SAUDI ARABIA: Ahmed Omar Abu Ali, plus legal fees Feb., 2009, without charge and allowed to was convicted in US federal court in Nov., return to England. 2005, on charges of conspiracy to commit The London Sunday Times reported Feb. terrorism. Amnesty International said his 12, 2006, that Morocco “is one of America’s trial was flawed as prosecution relied largely principal partners in the secret ‘rendition’ on evidence obtained when he was flogged programme in which the CIA flies prison- and beaten by the Saudi Arabian Ministry ers to third countries for interrogation.” The of Interior’s General Intelligence while im- paper said Amnesty International and Hu- prisoned with apparent US knowledge. In man Rights Watch have compiled dossiers Saudi Arabia, the Observer reported on June “detailing the detention and apparent tor- 13, 2004, “CIA agents are allowed to sit in on ture of radical Islamists at the DST’s current some of the interrogations.” headquarters, at Temara, near Rabat.” DST is the Moroccan secret police. SYRIAN ARAB REPUBLIC: The CIA ren- dered a number of captives to Far Falestin PAKISTAN: Human Rights Watch said men prison. Canadian Maher Arar was held there claimed the US tortured them when detained were he was tortured with cables and electri- there in behalf of the CIA. Several hundred cal cords. When the Canadian government suspects were seized in Pakistan in 2001- found Arar was tortured, the Prime Minis- 2002 and held in prisons in Kohat and Pe- ter apologized to him and Canada paid him shawar. Prisoners also held in an old fortress $10.5-million in compensation plus legal outside of Lahore; in the military barracks in fees. The Observer reported June 13, 2004, Islamabad. It was in Islamabad that Moaz- “In Syria, detainees sent by Washington are zam Begg was held and severely tortured. held at ‘the Palestine wing’ of the main in- At one villa in central Peshawar run by US telligence headquarters and a series of jails authorities, prisoners were beaten regularly. in Damascus and other cities.” Another facility in Peshawar was under- ground where Americans did all the interro- SOMALIA: Suleiman Abdallah, never char- gating. A black prison was also reported to be ged, was arrested in Somalia and held there in Alzai. Seymour Hersh received a report in for a short time by warlord Mohammed May, 2005 of “800-900 Pakistani boys 13-15 Dere, allegedly working for the US, and later years of age in custody.” interrogated by CIA and FBI. Another cap- tive, Mohamed Ezzoueck, a British subject, POLAND: The CIA operated a black prison was held at the Army base in Baidoa, Soma- from 2003 to 2005 where eight “high value” lia, but never charged. detainees were held in the village of Kiejku- ty. One of them was said to be Khalid Sheik SOUTH AFRICA: Guardian reported Jan. 23, Mohammed, alleged 9/11 mastermind, who 2009, that South Africa has two CIA “black was severely tortured. sites.”

QATAR: The UK Observer reported on June THAILAND: One of the first CIA black sites

46 TheReader | April 2010 The War Machine 3 known as “Cat’s Eye” is located outside of for interrogation on the USS Ashland and “At this time Bangkok. Al-Qaeda operatives were flown other ships in the Gulf of Aden during this many people there to be interrogated and tortured, in- time.” were abducted cluding waterboarding. Abu Zubaydah and The US Navy, through a spokesman, said, by Somali, Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri were videotaped “There are no detention facilities on US Kenyan and there. Some 92 videotapes were made and navy ships” but Commander Jeffrey Gor- Ethiopian forces stored and subsequently destroyed by the don told the Guardian some individuals had in a systematic CIA. In 2005 ABC News reported Zubaydah been put on ships “for a few days” during operation was held in an unused warehouse on an air- initial days of detention. involving regular base where he was made to stand in a cold Reprieve quoted one prisoner released interrogations by cell and waterboarded. from Guantanamo who was on one of the individuals believed US ships who said there were 50 other pris- to be members UZBEKISTAN: The New York Times report- oners in cages in the bottom of the ship of the FBI and ed in May, 2005, the US had sent dozens of and they were beaten even more severely CIA. Ultimately suspects to Tashkent. than in Guantanamo. Clive Stafford Smith, more than 100 Reprieve’s legal director, is quoted as say- individuals were YEMEN: US handed over prisoners, includ- ing, “They choose ships to try to keep their ‘disappeared’ ing some from its Bagram prison, to Yemen, misconduct as far as possible from the pry- to prisons in where they allegedly were tortured. ing eyes of the media and lawyers. We will locations including eventually reunite these ghost prisoners Kenya, Somalia, ZAMBIA: According to the Guardian of Jan. with their legal rights.” Ethiopia, Djibouti 23, 2009, Zambia is one of countries with a From all of the above, it would be diffi- and Guantanamo CIA secret prison facility. cult to conclude anything other than that Bay?” the US, with the help of a score of other In addition to the prisons in the above- nations, illegally seized and then processed cited nations, the US operates a number of countless innocent persons from the Mid- illegal floating prisons. dle East who were held incommunicado in scores of facilities where they were abused, US PRISON SHIPS: On June 2, 2008 the tortured, denied all legal rights, and where Guardian reported, “The US has admitted approximately 100 of them that we know of that the Bataan and Peleliu were used as died in Iraq alone, probably the victims of prison ships between December 2001 and homicide. January 2002”. Professor Boyle of the University of Illi- Reprieve says the US may have used 17 nois said he would submit the findings of ships as “floating prisons” since 2001. De- this article to the Prosecutor of the ICC in tainees are interrogated on ships and may support of his previous Complaint calling on be rendered to other, undisclosed locations. the ICC to open “an international criminal Reprieve expressed concern over the time investigation of these (President George W. the USS. Ashland spent off Somalia in early Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, etc.) for- 2007. According to the Guardian, “At this mer US governmental officials.” CT time many people were abducted by Somali, Kenyan and Ethiopian forces in a systematic Sherwood Ross is an award-winning operation involving regular interrogations journalist who formerly reported for the by individuals believed to be members of Chicago Daily News and worked as a the FBI and CIA. Ultimately more than 100 columnist for several wire services. Ross individuals were ‘disappeared’ to prisons in wishes to express his gratitude to the locations including Kenya, Somalia, Ethio- journalists whose works he quoted for their pia, Djibouti and Guantanamo Bay. Reprieve original research that exposed the conditions believes prisoners may have also been held in prisons described above.

April 2010 | TheReader 47 The War Machine 4 Who you gonna bomb next, eh? Joe Bageant has the answers to all of life’s questions, especially those emanating from Canada

You don’t have Hi Joe, point readers to some kindred spirits of to know much yours on the web who write in the same about the reetings from one of the at- mold? system to realize tic dwellers in Canada. We’ve And, do you see any Hunter-esque gon- the powers that been mocked as being eternally zos coming down the pike? If he sensed a be always have uninvited to the party going new rot creeping into the scene back in the the ability to Gon downstairs. However, lately it seems early 80s, his ashes must be doing the funky simply move the more like someone has called in the cops to chicken over Obama not even bothering to goalposts when it break up the bash. Canadians probably ob- coat the horseshit with honey these days. suits them sess over “America” even more than the Eu- Little Bush made it easy for Obama to ropeans and pretty much every other coun- give away the store. The Cheney-Rove brain try, and why wouldn’t we? You guys are the trust decided to put it all out in the open, 800-pound gorilla in the global room, and damn the torpedoes, and the trick worked. when thing start going to shit down there, Official White House policy, officially post- you can bet it’s going to hit the fan up here ed on the official White House website, too. officially listed criminal government ac- I was a year old when Vietnam ended, tions that would have put Nixon in a fuck- and I’m wondering how low the national ing gas chamber. You don’t have to know mood was back then compared to today. much about the system to realize the pow- Vietnam was obviously an epic American ers that be always have the ability to sim- ass-kicking, and the sense I get from some ply move the goalposts when it suits them. of your articles is that many Americans are But BushCo seemed to be saying something finally waking up to the fact that they’ve else altogether, something to the effect of: been getting kicked in the teeth by their “The goalposts don’t even exist. And, for own governments and corporations for an- any of you legal Luddites who think the other 35 years since then. In clinical terms, ‘rule of law’ does exist, or at least should you would be looking at a major PTSD pa- exist, well, it only exists insomuch as our tient whose shattered delusions of grandeur legal flunkies interpret that it exists. Which have been twisted into an ugly rage spiral – is to say, the rule of law doesn’t exist in any all of which is now being expressed in, um, other way than we say it exists. Try to think the Tea Party Movement? of it as the Rule of the Rulers of Law. Or Joe, many questions come to mind, but something like that. Whatever floats your one of the most pressing is this: can you boat. We don’t fucking care anyway.”

48 TheReader | April 2010 The War Machine 4

Following an act like that, Obama can we couldn’t win. To my mind the now take one long, protracted piss on the You could go down to the VFW (Veterans most important American public, and he doesn’t even have of Foreign Wars club and listen to ‘em piss effect of the to call it rain. and moan about how the politicians fucked Vietnam War was It could all lead to electoral disaster, but up what should have been a certain victory. that the 14-year if Dems are going to rule like Repubs any- Even then, about half of us at the VFW and war conditioned way, does it really matter all that much? the American Legion Halls were out back Americans to One last question Joe, just wondering smoking pot. And mocking the old guys accepting ongoing where you’re at with the Doomer type stuff saying all that shit, mostly the World War II warfare as an out there these days – obviously impossible vet set, whom we called “Big Vet.” ordinary backdrop to predict timelines for these sorts of things, As might be expected, all the New York to their lives. but if it does go bad at some point and the intellectuals were doing their usual jerking Since then we’ve food trucks stop running, where do you see off about the “meaning” of the war. As if always been at all that American civilian and military fire- any war meant anything but death for the war somewhere power gunning for first? anonymous “little people,” both yellow and to some degree Cheers, Caucasian, and profits for the big dogs. Peo- or another Ryan ple like Norman Mailer were making essen- tially the same arguments you mentioned, ––––––––––––––––– that Nam shattered illusions and was a blow to white masculinity and all that stuff. The Dear Ryan, average American scarcely knew who Mail- er was. Well, in 1975 when the war ended, America Only intellectuals worry about such was a different country. Damned near ev- things as American masculinity, as if all of eryone was quite happy to see it over, some our peckers were linked together in some because they were glad to see an end of the sort of sort of unified field. horror and expense, others because it had To my mind the most important effect of become boring television. All we have left the Vietnam War was that the 14-year war to document that war for your generation conditioned Americans to accepting ongo- is what the media said at the time. Which ing warfare as an ordinary backdrop to their is rather hyperbolic and full of gaps. Many lives. Since then we’ve always been at war of us who protested and whatever, felt that somewhere to some degree or another. Its ending the war was a pyrrhic victory. Six- language has penetrated the way we think. ty thousand dead, 160,000 wounded and Corporations launch a marketing “offen- at least a million on the other side. Not to sive,” We declare a “war on drugs.” Like- mention the wasted resources that could wise, the language of capitalist finance and have done so much to lift the American war meld. Twenty thousand dead civilians people toward what we could have been, become “collateral” damage. The aggregat- an educated, self-realized people. I feel my ed corpses become “damage.” The cumu- generation, or at least the best among them, lative result has been the Orwellian New- were on the cusp of that before the war. speak so nicely summed up by Gore Vidal Anyway, the right wing ideologues and in the phrase “Perpetual War for Perpetual their following made big noises about “if Peace.” we had only put more resources into it, The history of the era had to be rewritten and turned the generals loose to fig – yada, to keep the military industrial complex and yada.” They spread that shit around until its associated rackets in business, lest we all most knee jerk non-thinkers had it stamped end up unarmed, peace loving, educated on the tip of their tongues as their official people. So starting with the countercultural answer to any question regarding the war movement, starting with Newt Gingrich,

April 2010 | TheReader 49 The War Machine 4

The same old the Heritage Foundation, et al, tens of mil- a Supreme Court for that purpose. crew of elites lions were spent rewriting the Sixties era as I don’t know why everyone seems so has always been the beginning of the end of America. Since outraged at how we’ve been pissed on by pissing on the then the neocon forces have perfected mis- the Obama administration. Actually, it’s a citizenry down information to the point of stirring up more long standing tradition. The same old crew here. They’ve meanness in this country than I would have of elites has always been pissing on the citi- just had different ever thought possible Even the John Birch- zenry down here. They’ve just had different presidents holding ers are making a comeback. presidents holding their dicks for them. I their dicks for And the Teabaggers? Looks to me like wouldn’t worry too much about it “leading them its national base, if it really has one – it’s to electoral disaster?” Our electoral process hard to tell how much is neocon media IS a disaster. The electoral college is designed manipulation and how much is real – are to thwart the popular vote. And regarding pretty much the same ignorant characters “If the Dems are going to rule like the Re- as always. The frustrated, ill educated unin- publicans anyway.” Neither party rules. Cor- formed people who want to havev less gov- porations do the ruling. Politicians conduct ernment but more benefits, and to pay for the public sing-along about democracy. operating the country with tax cuts. Like anyone else who has soberly ob- Writers in the gonzo-esque mold? I really served this age of peak everything, and the don’t know any more than you do on that avaricious clowns in charge of our future, matter. I’d say James Howard Kunstler for I’m a doomer. Even if Abe Lincoln, FDR or one. You may not think of Jim that way, but Gandhi were in charge at this point, I’d be a if he were writing his stuff in 1970, he would doomer. But with enough booze, I can gut it have been seen as gonzo. But I’m not sure out in relative cheer. just who is out there. I really don’t cruise As for making predictions, I try to avoid the web as much as you might think. it. You see, I am in the racket of appearing But Hunter was one of a kind. Realistical- as if I might know these sorts of things, so ly speaking, Matt Taibbi is probably as good publishers will pay me money. It’s a deli- as Hunter was in many respects. But Hunter cate balancing act. Readers believe way too was the first. Taibbi is better than Hunter in much of what I say, and my wife doesn’t be- nailing down the facts, but strains too hard at lieve anything I say. Fortunately, my dog is times to be entertaining (who doesn’t?) Still, a good listener and never comments, unless I have a lot of respect for Taibbi. Also, Hunt- there is bacon involved. er’s political position inasmuch as he had And finally, your question as to who we one other than personal freedom, might be Americans will bomb next. The possibilities called armed and drugged-out libertarian. It are endless. Given that up there in Canada was a different era. If Hunter were starting you don’t carry guns, I kinda like the idea out today, I doubt he could get published of bombing you guys. Maybe we could win by mainstream mags and book publishers. a war for a change. Barring that, maybe Publishers’ legal fears and all. Australia. The place is so big and empty I Regarding “rulers” who do not give a doubt we’d hit anybody. Hell, it would take fuck: Nobody in either party has cared for ‘em a year to notice it. But I’m sure God, the past 30 years. Only the Democrats feel Wall Street and the Pentagon and will let us compelled to keep up the charade. You know when the time comes. CT are wrong about the way the legal system In art and labor, of lackeys works. When it comes to twist- Joe ing the interpretation of the law so you can steal from the people, violate privacy or oth- Joe Bageant is the author of the best selling erwise move the Constitutional goalposts, Deer Hunting With Jesus: Dispatches don’t blame that on the politicians. We have from America’s Class War (Random House,

50 TheReader | April 2010 The War MachinHeadere 5 How to fight a better war (next time) Tom Engelhardt has some suggestions for harrassed generals

raq remains a mess from which the Azizabad in Herat Province, at least 90 Af- Until recently, US military seems increasingly un- ghans, including 60 children, were killed the US military interested in withdrawing fully and in a series of US air strikes, while in May would initially deny Afghanistan a disaster area, but it’s 2009, up to 140 Afghan civilians died in a that civilians had Inever too soon to think about the next war. US bombing attack in Farah Province. even died; if the The subject is already on the minds of Pen- Understandably, such “incidents” have incident refused to tagon planners. The question is: Are they done little to endear the US and its allies go away, military focusing on how to manage future wars so to Afghans. Until recently, the US military spokespeople that they won’t last longer than the Ameri- would initially deny that civilians had even would then admit can Revolution, the Civil War, and World died; if the incident refused to go away, to small numbers War II combined? military spokespeople would then admit of civilian deaths There’s reason to worry, especially since to small numbers of civilian deaths (often (often blamed the lessons of both Iraq and Afghanistan blamed on the Taliban), while launching an on the Taliban), are clear: it takes years after a war has been “investigation” and waiting for the hubbub while launching launched for the US military to develop tac- to die away. Apologies or “regrets” came late an “investigation” tics that lead to stasis. (“Victory” is a word and grudgingly, if at all (along with modest and waiting that has gone out of fashion.) payments to the relatives of the dead). Back for the hubbub Here, then, are three modest suggestions then, being American and at war in distant to die away for recalibrating the American way of war. lands meant never having to say you were All are based on a simple principle – “pre- sorry. ventive war planning” – and are focused on More recently, Afghan war commander getting the next war right before it begins, General Stanley McChrystal has changed the not decades after it’s launched. rules, curbing air strikes (though not drone strikes), warning his troops to prevent civil- 1. Make the Apologies in Advance ian deaths, and instituting an instant ex- Who can doubt that the American way of pression of “regrets” for such deaths. One war has undergone changes since, in De- thing, however, has changed only margin- cember 2001, a B-52 and two B-1B bombers ally: the civilian deaths themselves. using precision-guided weapons essentially In mid-February, for instance, 12 civil- wiped out a village celebrating a wedding in ians died when two US rockets slammed Eastern Afghanistan? Of 112 Afghans in that into a compound near the city of Marja in wedding party, only two women survived. Helmand Province. The following day, five Similarly, in August 2008, in the village of Afghan civilians digging at the side of a road

April 2010 | TheReader 51 The War Machine 5

In the future, the in Kandahar Province were killed in an air prayers.”) We should also announce in ad- US military should strike after being mistaken for insurgents vance at least a $1,500 solatium payment for issue a blanket planting a roadside bomb. Then, in Uruz- any relative, spouse, or child who perishes, apology before gan Province, US Special Forces troops in as well as carefully calibrated sums for the going to war, and helicopters struck a convoy of mini-buses, loss of limbs, eyes, and the like. the first waves of killing up to 27 civilians, including women After this, whenever civilians die, the US planes should and children. military would simply refer interested par- not drop bombs After each of these incidents, regrets were ties to the prewar statement. This should but abjectly quickly expressed, investigations launched. guarantee a cleaner, more effective way of worded leaflets. In the case of the mini-buses, McChrys- war. These would take tal apologized to Afghan President Hamid responsibility in Karzai personally and then went on Afghan 2. Pre-Build the Bases, Prisons, and advance for future television to make his apology public. (“I Embassy Complexes civilian deaths pledge to strengthen our efforts to regain Thanks to nine years in Afghanistan and and pre-apologize your trust to build a brighter future for all seven in Iraq, it’s easier to grasp how the for them Afghans. Most importantly, I express my American way of war actually works. A deepest, heartfelt condolences to the vic- striking (if little discussed) aspect of it is tims and their families. We all share in their the base-building that accompanies it. In grief and will keep them in our thoughts the years of fighting, the Pentagon built sev- and prayers.”) eral hundred bases in each country, ranging Unfortunately, a policy of repeated apol- from tiny outposts to massive American ogy is unlikely to prove much more success- “towns.” It also constructed multiple pris- ful than the previous stonewalling tactic as ons and holding centers (some secret), and long as civilians die, which they will, given for each war, a nearly billion-dollar regional the American style of war. It may be too late command center, which we still inaccurate- to correct this in Afghanistan, but the next ly call an “embassy.” The one in Islamabad, war is another story. My suggestion is sim- Pakistan, is only now under construction. ple: in the future, the US military should is- Much of this was done on the fly and sue a blanket apology before going to war, in response to events. For the next war, it and the first waves of US planes should not would be more logical to prepare in advance. drop bombs but abjectly worded leaflets. Again, there is a partial precedent. In recent These would take responsibility in advance years, the US has pre-positioned equipment for future civilian deaths and pre-apologize at small bases and other locations around for them. the world, so that, should a sudden desire There is a partial precedent for this. In to intervene arise, the means are relatively both the Korean and Vietnam wars, Ameri- close at hand. This strategy should be signif- can planes regularly dropped leaflets warn- icantly expanded. The Pentagon and the US ing peasant farmers that they were living Intelligence Community could agree on the in “free fire zones” and should beware or four most likely places for future interven- move out. In this case, the pamphlets would tions. Say, Yemen, Colombia, Nigeria, and make clear that the United States is going Kyrgyzstan, and start laying the ground- after “the evil-doers” and admit that, de- work now. spite our ever more precise weaponry, we The usual private contractors – Fluor, will unfortunately kill a certain percentage DynCorp, and KBR – should be rounded up of you in the process. (“The US military ex- to build the necessary 1,400 bases and ac- presses our deepest, heartfelt condolences companying prisons under a global multi- to the future victims and their families. We billion dollar LOGCAP contract to be divid- will all share in their grief and, when they ed among them. At the same time, the State die, will keep them in our thoughts and Department would put those future mega-

52 TheReader | April 2010 The War MachinHeadere 5 embassies out for bid to US architectural pected” or engaging in “determined resis- For those old firms so that the now-typical fortress-like tance,” that they represented, in the words enough to designs (with their near-billion-dollar price of Centcom commander General David Pe- remember the tags) would be ready to go. traeus, a “formidable” force. Vietnam War, you With full-scale base-prison-embassy For those old enough to remember the could replace such complexes ready in four strategically locat- Vietnam War, you could replace such de- descriptions of ed regions, future invasions would have a scriptions of “our” Afghans with “our” Viet- “our” Afghans with reasonable shot at not dragging out for de- namese and “their” Afghans with “their” “our” Vietnamese cades. Vietnamese without breaking stride. One and “their” explanation for this is that indigenous peo- Afghans with 3. Pick the Right Natives ple react differently when fighting a foreign “their” Vietnamese It’s noticeable that the US military always occupying force rather than aiding it. How- without breaking seems to get stuck with the wrong natives. ever, as US forces are incapable of occupying stride. Take the recent campaign in Marja: a country thanks to our exceptionally good One explanation Afghan National Army (ANA) troops intentions (of which we are well aware), for this is that are regularly described as unable to read another explanation makes better sense: In indigenous people maps, incapable of “planning a complicated the kinds of countries we’re likely to invade, react differently patrol” or resupplying themselves, poor at there are evidently two races (or the equiva- when fighting a small unit maneuvering, poorly trained, re- lent) of natives – think of them as like the foreign occupying fusing to stand night guard duty and some- Eloi and the Morlocks in H.G. Wells’s novel force rather than times even to fight, high on drugs, riddled The Time Machine – and we always pick the aiding it with corruption, unable to aim their weap- wrong one. ons, “years away from functioning effec- So before the next invasion, we should tively on their own,” and as C.J. Chivers of make use of small teams of anthropologists the New York Times recently summed mat- and social scientists from the US Army’s Hu- ters up, totally inadequate when it comes man Terrain System, already trained to help to “transporting troops, directing them in the military with local cultural problems. battle and coordinating fire support [or] ar- They should be inserted in the country or ranging modern communications, logistics, region in question to identify which natives aviation and medical support.” are best suited for learning small-unit ma- And keep in mind that the soldiers sent neuvering and the other skills over which into Marja were reportedly the best the ANA the enemy always seems to have such a mo- has available. All this, despite multi-billions nopoly. Of course, a fourth planning pos- of dollars and years of effort invested in Af- sibility would involve not launching such ghan army training. (And the Afghan police, wars in the first place. But that path would for multi-billions more, make the Afghan conflict with a basic American can-do spirit army look good.) that this country prizes, so suggestions 1 On the other hand, perhaps a few hun- through three are undoubtedly a more prac- dred Taliban fighters stayed in Marja and tical way to proceed. CT fought. Descriptions of them invariably reflect grudging admiration. They are con- Tom Engelhardt, co-founder of the sidered capable of planning and executing American Empire Project, runs the Nation complex small-unit maneuvers as well as Institute’s TomDispatch.com. He is the “sustained and complex attacks,” of resup- author of The End of Victory Culture, a plying themselves, of “surprisingly accu- history of the Cold War and beyond, and rate” sniper fire, and of not being corrupt. a novel, The Last Days of Publishing. In Marja, it was repeatedly said that “out- He also edited The World According to numbered and outgunned” Taliban fighters TomDispatch: America in the New Age of were “mounting a tougher fight than - ex Empire (Verso, 2008).

April 2010 | TheReader 53 The War Machine 6 War with the ghosts What are Britain’s nuclear weapons for, and who controls them? asks George Monbiot

As usual, the haring Britain’s nuclear deterrence movies. Then I came across a tiny section government is with France is out of the question. labelled “foreign”, which contained about a preparing for the Last month the government slapped dozen European films. Either Hollywood’s last war, building a down a French offer to reduce the hegemony was such that the US was no lon- fantastical Maginot Scosts of our submarine patrols, by taking ger perceived as another country or Block- Line against turns to prowl the same seas rather than du- buster had adopted the US definition of for- ghost armies that plicating the effort and occasionally crashing eign and imported it 4,000 miles into the UK. haunt the official into each other. This proposal, it said, would The same confusion governs this country’s imagination cause “outrage”, on the grounds that it’s an defence policy. The other side of the Channel unacceptable erosion of sovereignty. Using a is forrin. The other side of the Atlantic isn’t. system leased from the US, on the other hand, As Dan Plesch shows in his report on Brit- presents no such difficulty. When the govern- ish weapons systems, we have no independent ment says our sovereignty is threatened, it deterrent3. Since 1943, when the UK joined the means that another nation might disrupt the Manhattan Project, our nuclear weapons pro- orders it receives from Washington. gramme has relied on crumbs from the US ta- So we must maintain the pretence that ble. The US has granted us a franchise on parts this is ours alone, and sustain our extravagant of its programme, which it has graciously al- doctrine of “continuous at-sea deterrence”. lowed us to rebrand with the Union flag. Deterrence against what? Nazis? Aliens? Kill- Our Trident missiles are currently leased er jellyfish? Our Trident missiles, due to be from the United States. The warheads they replaced and deployed at a cost of several tens carry are based on a US design (the W-76) of billions, have no visible strategic purpose. and manufactured at the Atomic Weapons They are the reification of a fantasy: a fantasy Establishment in Berkshire. Its factory is a that the United Kingdom is still a defining copy of a nuclear plant at Los Alamos and it is world power and that our enemies present two-thirds owned by the US companies Lock- an existential threat. As usual, the govern- heed-Martin and Jacobs Engineering. The fir- ment is preparing for the last war, building a ing system is designed and built in the US; so fantastical Maginot Line against ghost armies is the missile guidance system. The missiles that haunt the official imagination. are aimed with the help of US satellites. The Let’s begin with the sovereignty issue. subs themselves are designed and built in the When I once made the mistake of stepping UK, but use US components and US reactor into a Blockbuster video shop, I found myself technology. There might be the odd shaving walking past aisle after aisle of Hollywood brush and plastic cup on board that was de-

54 TheReader | April 2010 The War MachinDeare Joe 6 signed and manufactured entirely in the UK, from proliferation elsewhere, the nuclear na- Both the but that’s about the limit of our deterrent’s tions invite other countries to proliferate. government and independence. But the very power of these weapons the opposition Our dependence doesn’t end there. In 2003 defuses the threat they present. The conse- assert their virility the then UK defence secretary, Geoff Hoon, an- quences of using a nuclear weapon are such by rejecting offers nounced that he would restructure the armed that other nations know you’re not really go- of power-sharing forces to make them “inter-operable” with ing to do it. The only question you have to from Europe, those of the US. The idea that our government, ask yourself is this: if a country subject to while accepting which has renounced sovereign control of its someone else’s nuclear blackmail launches offers of forces, could launch a nuclear attack without its nuclear weapons, is it more or less likely subordination the blessing of – or instructions from – the to get nuked? Everyone knows the answer, from the US United States is ludicrous. Yet it will not con- which is why nuclear weapons are useless as template even sharing patrols with France. a credible strategic threat. They might have Both the government and the opposi- some use against a non-nuclear power, but in tion assert their virility by rejecting offers of that case the nuclear blackmailer is you, not power-sharing from Europe, while accepting the enemy. As WH Auden noted in his poem offers of subordination from the US. Never do The Quest, “In theory they were sound on they find themselves obliged to explain why. Expectation,/Had there been situations to be Those who most loudly proclaim themselves in;/Unluckily they were their situation”. patriots are the first to demand that we pros- A government serious about preventing trate ourselves before the United States. nuclear blackmail would be ready to bring So to the second issue, the question put by something decisive to the non-proliferation Field Marshall Lord Carver: “Trident – what review in New York in May. The UK’s claim the bloody hell is it for?” The Defence green that we’re working towards full multilateral paper contends that the system’s purpose is to disarmament while investing £70-odd billion “deter and prevent nuclear blackmail and acts in nuclear rearmament doesn’t exactly have of aggression against our national interests the ring of conviction. Our government sticks that cannot be countered by other means” to this course even as President Obama in- Let’s spend a moment unpacking that. sists that he will “take concrete steps towards It’s true that other states (eight to be pre- a world without nuclear weapons”. It clearly cise) possess nuclear weapons, though none doesn’t believe him, or it wouldn’t be invest- is currently willing or able to use them against ing in a new weapons programme. It will be us. This could change. But states possess nu- interesting to see how quickly the UK’s nucle- clear weapons because other states possess ar deterrent collapses if the US dismantles its them or might acquire them. Every nuclear own Trident missiles. state uses the same argument as the UK’s: it This is the only force which will kill our might be blackmailed by someone else with nukes. The opinions of parliament, where nuclear weapons. MPs launched one of their biggest revolts The only certain means of preventing nu- when asked to approve a new Trident pro- clear blackmail is multilateral disarmament. gramme, and the public, which has turned The only route to multilateral disarmament sharply against rearmament, count for noth- is for the nuclear powers to show that they ing. Only when the US orders it to do so will are serious about junking their weapons. The our government decide, autonomously and of non-proliferation treaty commits the nuclear its own volition, that our sovereign interests powers “to pursue negotiations in good faith are best served by abandoning our nuclear on … nuclear disarmament”. In return, other programme. Until then, as social services are George Monbiot’s nations promise not to acquire nuclear weap- cut, this fairytale budget won’t be touched. latest book is ons. By failing to honour their side of the The government must please its imaginary Bring On The bargain in the name of defending themselves friends and fight its imaginary enemies. CT Apocalypse

April 2010 | TheReader 55 World Cup Woes Invictus in reverse Dave Zirin on South Africa and the World Cup soccer finals

Welcome to ou see it the moment you walk ery conflict to present the image of a united South Africa, off the plane: a mammoth soc- nation to the world. As Danny Jordaan, the a remarkable cer ball hanging from the ceiling World Cup’s lead South African organizer place of jagged of Johannesburg’s O.R. Tanbo said, “People will see we are African. We are contrasts: YInternational Airport festooned with yellow world-class.” Note that the concern is about rich and poor; banners that read, “2010 Let’s Go! WORLD what the world sees, not what South Afri- black and white, CUP!” If you swivel your head, you see that cans see. What South Africans see, as one immigrant and every sponsor has joined the party – Coca young man told me, is, “Football … looting everyone else Cola, Anheuser-Busch – all branded with our country.” The contrasts are becoming the FIFA seal. It’s when your head dips conflicts because the government at the be- down that you see another, less sponsored, hest of FIFA, is determined to put on a good universe. Even inside this gleaming state- show, no matter the social cost. of-the-art airport, men ranging in age from There are the dispossessions as thou- 16-60 ask if they can shine your shoes, carry sands have been forced from their homes your bags, or even walk you to a cab. It’s the into makeshift shantytowns, to both make informal economy fighting for breathing way for stadiums and make sure that tour- room amidst the smothering sponsorship. ists don’t have to see any depressing scenes Welcome to South Africa, a remarkable place of poverty. The United Nations even issued of jagged contrasts: rich and poor; black a complaint on behalf of the 20,000 people and white, immigrant and everyone else. removed from the Joe Slovo settlement in On a normal week, it’s the dispossessed and Cape Town, called an “eyesore” by World the self-possessed fighting for elbow room. Cup organizers. But the 2010 World Cup, which starts in less There is the crackdown on people who than 90 days, has taken these contrasts and make their living selling goods by the sta- propelled them into conflict. diums. Regina Twala who has been vending The present situation in South Africa outside soccer matches for almost 40 years, could be called “Invictus in reverse.” For has been told that she and others must be at those who haven’t had the pleasure, the film least one kilometer from the stadiums at all Invictus is about the way Nelson Mandela times. She said to the Sunday Independent, used sport, particularly the near all-white “They say they do not want us here. They sport of rugby to unite the country after the do not want us near the stadium and we fall of apartheid. The coming World Cup has have to close the whole place.” In addition, in contrast, provoked the camouflage of ev- FIFA has pushed the South African govern-

56 TheReader | April 2010 World Cup Woes ment to announce that they would arrest of state-sponsored assassinations – have an We have learned in any vendors that sell products emblazoned echo for people from the days of apartheid. South Africa that with the words “World Cup” or even the It’s provoked a fierce, and wholly predict- unless we burn date “2010.” Samson, a trader in Durban, able resistance. In a normal month, South tires, unless we said to me, “This is the way we have always Africa has more protests per capita than any fight police, unless done business by the stadium. Who makes nation on earth. But when you factor in the we are willing to the laws now: FIFA?” World Cup crackdown, a simmering nation return violence on Samson was only referencing the threats can explode. violence, we will toward vendors, but he could have been Over 70,000 workers have taken part never be heard” speaking about the series of laws South in strikes connected to World Cup projects Africa has passed to prepare for the tour- since the preparations have begun, with 26 nament. Declaring the World Cup a “pro- strikes since 2007. tected event”, the government, in line with On March 4, more than 250 people, in a FIFA requirements, has passed by-laws that press conference featuring representatives “spell out where people may drive and park from four provinces, threatened to protest their cars, where they may and may not the opening game of the Cup unless their trade or advertise, and where they may walk various demands were met. These pro- their dogs.” They’ve made clear that beggars tests should not be taken lightly, A woman or even those found of using foul language named Lebo said to me, “We have learned (assumedly off the field of play) could be in South Africa that unless we burn tires, subject to arrest. unless we fight police, unless we are willing to return violence on violence, we will never Assassinations be heard.” Then there are the assassinations. In a story Patrick Bond from the Center Civil So- that has garnered international news but ciety in Durban said to me that protests little buzz in the United States, two people should be expected: “Anytime you have on a list of 20, have been assassinated for three billion people watching, that’s called “whistle-blowing” on suspected corrup- leverage.” Indeed. There is a scene in Invic- tion in the construction of the $150 mil- tus where Freeman’s Mandela says, “I thank lion Mbombela Stadium. The Sunday World whatever gods may be for my unconquer- newspaper attained the list, which included able soul. I am the master of my fate.” The two journalists and numerous political lead- people of South Africa still consider them- ers. There are accusations swirling that the selves unconquerable: whether they face list is linked to the ruling African National apartheid, FIFA, or their current govern- Congress, which the ANC has denied in bi- ment. But FIFA insists with equal insistence zarre terms, “The ANC … wants to reiter- that the World Cup will brook no dissent. In ate its condemnation of any murder of any 90 days, we’ll find out who masters the fate person no matter what the motive may be,” of this beloved country. CT said ANC spokesperson Paul Mbenyane. It’s never a good sign when you have to make Dave Zirin is the author of the forthcoming clear that you are anti-murder. Bad Sports: How Owners are Ruining the All of these steps – displacements, crack- Games we Love (Scribner). Contact him at downs on informal trade, even accusations [email protected].

Read the best of Joe Bageant http://coldtype.net/joe.html

April 2010 | TheReader 57 Another World Meddling where we oughtn’t meddle America couldn’t win its war on alcohol, so why does it think it’ll win the war on drugs and, more important, why is Mexico caught in the crossfire? asks Fred Reed

If Mexicans had to exico, if left alone, would be a judges, or kill a dozen teenagers at a party. choose between reasonably successful and sta- Then they disappear. the drug lords, ble country of the upper Third Thus they can destabilize the nation and who are often World. It isn’t Haiti, isn’t Ban- hold the population hostage. This doesn’t seen as counter- Mgla Desh, isn’t a dying patient with multiple bother Americans, who barely know where culture heroes, tubes in every orifice. If not strong-armed Mexico is. It bothers Mexicans, who know and the US, seen into chaos, it would be all right. their people are dying in an exported Amer- as an enemy too But the United States won’t leave it alone. ican war. dangerous to Washington is pushing it to wage its “war Bear in mind that anti-Americanism be openly called on drugs.” And, as usual, Washington has thrives here and throughout Latin America. an enemy, many no idea what it is doing. Nor does it care. Much of it is justified; some of it isn’t. The would go with Should untoward consequences follow, it US population, the most comprehensively their compatriots will be surprised, this being the characteris- ignorant of the advanced world, knows in the drug trade tic condition of American foreign policy. nothing of the reasons or of the countries. Untoward consequences are quite avail- But the hostility is real. Shrugging it off able. The narcotraficantes that Mexico is could prove a mistake. supposed to fight for Washington are a If Mexicans had to choose between the formidable armed force. They have unlim- drug lords, who are often seen as counter- ited money, which they use to buy heavy culture heroes, and the US, seen as an en- weapons, and which they use to corrupt the emy too dangerous to be openly called an government of a comparatively poor coun- enemy, many would go with their compatri- try. Mexico does not have the wherewithal ots in the drug trade. A repertoire of narco- to fight them. The army here is small and corridos, songs glorifying the narcos, exists. poorly armed. This is reasonable since Mex- Los Tigres del Norte in Sinaloa have special- ico has neither territorial ambitions nor en- ized in these. emies. Except, in effect, the United States. Although Mexico doesn’t have America’s The government is outgunned by the festering antagonisms – blacks hate whites narcos. Further, the traffickers have the ad- hate browns hate men hate women hate vantage of being dispersed and invisible. Jews – there are groups, particularly in The situation is, or quickly could be, exactly Chiapas, who are potential insurgents. If that faced by the US in Vietnam, Iraq, and they should ally themselves with the narcos Afghanistan: narcos can appear from no- and go to the mountains, or set up cells in where, blow up police stations, assassinate the cities, the result would be a long, bloody

58 TheReader | April 2010 Another World civil war: Afghanistan on the US border. instantly lost in the complex relationships, The colonels in This is not Freddian fantasy. Thoughtful informal arrangements, family loyalties and the Five-Sided Mexicans worry about it. invisible politics of Latin America. And they Squirrel Cage The Mexican army cannot handle an do not understand that when they inter- really believe they uprising of any magnitude. The Pentagon vene, they are not the good guys. can reform the would then intervene to “help” Mexico. This is why we hear again and again from Mexican judiciary Que dios nos ayude. some buzz-cut horse’s ass with stars on his and infuse the The Pentagon is working toward inter- shoulders about how we are trying so hard police with vention, whether it know that it is or not. to “help the Afghan people.” virtuous fervor for There is something called the Merida Ini- One might ask: Why are drugs Mexi- American ideals tiative, in which the US supplies money co’s problem? Americans, huge numbers and advice to transform Mexican society to of them, want drugs. If they didn’t want combat the narcos. The colonels in the Five- drugs, the narcos couldn’t sell the stuff. But Sided Squirrel Cage really believe they can the American government doesn’t want its reform the Mexican judiciary and infuse citizens to have drugs. Fine. Let the govern- the police with virtuous fervor for Ameri- ment attack its own citizens. Leave others can ideals. I spoke to a field-grade American out of it. officer about this. He had taken a six-month Washington isn’t going to rid the US of intensive course in Spanish at the Defense drugs any more than it rid the country of al- Language Institute and spoke less Span- cohol. Popular demand is far too great. The ish than my daughter did after two weeks US crawls with crank labs, open-air crack here. The money would be used to reform markets, meth cookers, fields of marijuh- the Mexican government, he said, which weenie too large not to have been noticed would then make short work of the narcos. by state authorities. California talks of legal- He explained this with the earnest mission- izing grass in defiance of the Feds. All God’s orientedness that officers display when they chillun love drugs – good ol’ boys, Ivy League are about to do something senseless. students, their professors, high-school kids, I didn’t say, “Give me a freaking break,” middle-class suburbanites, congressman, because I knew it would accomplish noth- musicians, and several Republicans. Mexico ing. You don’t “reform” countries you don’t is going to change this? They must be smok- understand by solemn brainless enthusi- ing something good in DC. asm. The money would vanish like water A friend recently told me of being in a in dry sand. Mexico does not want to be re- boat off Florida with several honeys in bi- made in the image of the United States, for kinis aboard. A Coast Guard cutter pulled remarkably good reasons. The more the US alongside because the guys wanted to look meddles, the less legitimate the government at the babes. My buddy, being sociable, hol- that permits it will be. Not a good idea. lered, “What are you guys doing?” Why does the military regularly mis- “We’re looking for drugs.” estimate the nature of the Third World? “Oh. We’ll follow you.” Because soldiers live, and think, in a rigid, Whereupon the Coast Guardies broke out conformist, orderly world in which good laughing. Even the cops don’t really care. (us) and evil (them) are starkly distinct, in Mexico can’t fix things, if indeed they are which one gives orders and things happen, broken. Leave the place alone. CT in which all are on the team and working toward a common goal. Officers are insular, Fred Reed has worked on staff for Army self-righteous, ruthless (after all, they are Times, The Washingtonian, Soldier of fighting Evil) and clueless. The workings of Fortune, Federal Computer Week, and the Third World are the polar opposite of The Washington Times. His web site is orderliness of the military. The colonels are www. fredoneverything.net

April 2010 | TheReader 59 Anti-Empire Report Informed consent Young people really ought to be told what they’re fighting for before they enlist in the military, writes William Blum

Don’t ever ask any bout half the states in the US re- or a leg. Or your life. If you come home alive of your officers quire that a woman seeking an and with all your body parts intact there’s a what we’re fighting abortion be told certain things good chance you will be suffering from post- for. Even the before she can obtain the medi- traumatic stress disorder. Do not expect the generals don’t Acal procedure. In South Dakota, for example, government to provide you particularly good know. In fact, the until a few months ago, staff was required to care for that, or any care at all. In any case, generals especially tell women: “The abortion will terminate the you may wind up physically abusing your don’t know. life of a whole, separate, unique, living hu- spouse and children and/or others, killing They would never man being”; the pregnant woman has “an various individuals, abusing drugs and/or have reached their existing relationship with that unborn hu- alcohol, and having an increased risk of sui- high position if they man being,” a relationship protected by the cide ideation and suicide. No matter how bad had been US Constitution and the laws of South Dako- a condition you may be in, the Pentagon may able to go beyond ta; and a “known medical risk” of abortion send you back to the battlefield for another the propaganda is an “increased risk of suicide ideation and tour of duty. They call this ‘stop-loss’. Your we’re all fed suicide.” A federal judge has now eliminated only alternative may be to go AWOL. Do you the second and third required assertions, have any friends in Canada? And don’t ever calling them “untruthful and misleading.” ask any of your officers what we’re fighting I personally would question even the first for. Even the generals don’t know. In fact, the assertion about a fetus or an embryo being a generals especially don’t know. They would human being, but that’s not the point I wish never have reached their high position if they to make here. I’d like to suggest that before had been able to go beyond the propaganda a young American man or woman can en- we’re all fed, the same propaganda that has list in the armed forces s/he must be told the influenced you to come to this office.” following by the staff of the military recruit- Since for so many young people in recent ment office: years one of the determining factors in their “The United States is at war [this state- enlistment has been the economy, this ad- ment is always factually correct]. You will ditional thought should be pointed out to likely be sent to a battlefield where you will them – “You are enlisting to fight, and per- be expected to do your best to terminate the haps die, for a country that can’t even pro- lives of whole, separate, unique, living hu- vide you with a decent job, or any job at all.” man beings you know nothing about and “I fear for us all, but I especially fear for who have never done you or your country those already poor. How much lower can they any harm. You may in the process lose an arm go without being cannon fodder or electric

60 TheReader | April 2010 Anti-Empire Report chair fodder or street litter or prison stuffing cifically targeted toward PMA’s clients who Seven members or just plain lonely suicide?” – Carolyn Chute, were seeking earmarks. Even though the of the House of novelist, Maine USA OCE recommended that the more powerful Representatives House ethics committee subpoena Visclosky steered hundreds Where seldom is heard a discouraging and his staff to answer questions under oath of millions of word … like “bribery” about his earmarking practice, the members dollars in largely I really did not know that I could still be so of the House committee chose not to sub- no-bid contracts surprised, even shocked, by corruption in poena Visclosky or any of the pertinent re- to clients of a the Congress of the United States. I thought cords. lobbying firm, my coating of cynicism was already more Wait, it gets better – The FBI actually raid- PMA Group than thick enough to be impervious to any ed the PMA offices as part of an investiga- new revelations. I was wrong. Consider the tion into whether the company had directed following. illegal campaign contributions to lawmakers Seven members of the House of Repre- who helped clients obtain earmarks, and in sentatives steered hundreds of millions of 2009 a federal grand jury issued subpoenas dollars in largely no-bid contracts to clients to Visclosky, one of his former aides, and his of a lobbying firm, PMA Group. In fiscal year political committees. But nothing – appar- 2008 alone, the seven lawmakers sponsored ently nothing – could move the members of $112 million worth of “earmarks” (construc- the Committee on Standards of Official Con- tion and other projects paid for by the gov- duct of the United States House of Represen- ernment) for PMA clients while accepting tatives to condemn their comrades. more than $350,000 in contributions from This is the kind of Congressional corrup- the firm’s clients and lobbyists. tion that drives so many Americans – on the Such behavior should be investigated by right and on the left – to think of forming a the House ethics committee, should it not? new party. At times, the thought hits me as And it was. The Committee on Standards of well. But two factors interfere. One, the over- Official Conduct issued a report stating unan- whelming role played by money in American imously that the Congressmembers had not electoral campaigns can trump the best of in- violated any rules or laws. “Simply because a tentions. Wealthy elites have no need for any member sponsors an earmark for an entity other party. The Democrats and Republicans that also happens to be a campaign contribu- serve their needs just fine, thank you. tor does not, on these two facts alone, sup- And two, ideology. Gathering together a port a claim that a member’s actions are be- lot of people who are turned off by Congres- ing influenced by campaign contributions.” sional venality and amorality sounds good Ethics watchdogs issued sharp denun- until the ideological shit hits the fan. There ciations, citing portions of the report that will undoubtedly be a wide range of ideologi- showed that the private companies them- cal leanings in any such group because peo- selves thought that their donations helped ple who are serious about third parties like them win earmarks. to be “non-sectarian” or “non-exclusionary”, One of the seven Congressmembers in- but this typically leads to serious friction, vestigated was Peter J. Visclosky (D-Ind.) disputes and splits. Even if you specify some- The Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE), thing like “the United States should get out a government agency not composed of of Afghanistan as soon as possible”, that can members of Congress, which conducts pre- still take various conflicting forms; people’s liminary reviews, found probable cause that politics are complicated, not to mention con- Visclosky sought contributions in exchange fused. To those who like to tell themselves for steering federal contracts to contributors. and others that they don’t have any particu- The OCE was in possession of e-mails sug- lar ideology I say this: If you have thoughts gesting that Visclosky’s fundraisers were spe- about why the world is the way it is, why

April 2010 | TheReader 61 Anti-Empire Report

What would it take society is the way it is, why people are the for it ... but do Americans really believe in for free health care way they are, what a better way would look free enterprise?” It was written several years to reach the shores like, and if your thoughts are at all organized, ago, as the examples I use make clear, but of the world’s only that’s your ideology, even if it’s not wholly this matters not for the ideological principles superpower? Well, conscious as such. Better to organize those have not changed. The essay concludes: “Ac- a president who thoughts as best you can, become very con- tivists have to remind the American people believed in it and scious of them, and consciously avoid getting of what they’ve already learned but seem to who had some involved with a political party that is incom- have forgotten: that they don’t want more backbone. But patible. It’s like a bad marriage. government, or less government; they don’t every passing day Things are indeed polarizing in America. want big government, or small government; brings us There’s The Tea Party on the right and The they want government on their side.” fresh evidence Coffee Party on the left. On the face of it, The that the man has Tea Party scarcely makes any sense. A seem- Paraguay, Honduras and Barack Obama no backbone ingly burgeoning new movement semi-hys- During his campaign for the presidency of terically marching and screaming that their Paraguay, former bishop Fernando Lugo beloved free enterprise is threatened by the promised to bring health care to the millions “socialist” Barack Obama. (What next, that unable to afford it. A month after Lugo took he’s a committed “Marxist” or “commu- office in August 2008, the Ministry of Public nist”? They’ve probably already said that; if Health and Social Welfare (MSPBS) gradu- you’re going to be dumb you may as well go ally began to make some public health ser- all the way and be retarded.) vices free, waiving fees for office, outpatient A group of more mainstream conserva- and emergency room visits. Later, hospital tives gathered February 17 at a Virginia es- admission fees were eliminated, along with tate once owned by George Washington and charges for intensive care, post-op incision called for a return to the principles of Wash- care, treatment in an infant incubator, oxy- ington’s time to fight the political battles that gen therapy, surgery and other services. In lie ahead. They produced a declaration, “The 2009, fees were removed for diagnostic tests Mount Vernon Statement: Constitutional in all specialties, and for dental and ophthal- Conservatism: A Statement for the 21st Cen- mological services. Almost all public health tury”. It is a short statement, a mere 546 services in Paraguay are now free of charge. words, yet the idea of “limited government” “What we are doing is making health care a or “self-government” is referred to seven right, regardless of a person’s ability to pay,” times. These people, no less than the Teapar- said the director general of the MSPBS. tyers, are obsessed with the idea that govern- After 61 years of rule by the right-wing ment intrusion into society of virtually any Colorado Party, the Paraguayan left needs to kind is harmful, or at least much inferior to institute various reforms to make sure that what could be derived from “free enterprise, free health care is sustainable in the long the individual entrepreneur, and economic term. reforms grounded in market solutions”, as So what would it take for free health care they put it. This is standard and familiar con- to reach the shores of the world’s only su- servative doctrine to be sure, but now feed- perpower? Well, a president who believed ing and powering a whole new generation of in it and who had some backbone. But ev- right-wing activists. ery passing day brings us fresh evidence that To counter the arguments of these activ- the man has no backbone. The Republicans, ists, progressives need to present their own or certain Democrats, or a powerful lobby, doctrine about the role and value of govern- or Israel applies a little pressure and the ment in people’s lives, a concise summary man buckles. Like a shack in Haiti during a of which I just happen to have prepared in quake. my essay: “The US invades, bombs and kills As to his beliefs ... In May of last year I

62 TheReader | April 2010 Anti-Empire Report wrote in this report: “The problem, I’m in- hear them now – “We don’t need no stinkin’ Undoubtedly, there creasingly afraid, is that the man doesn’t re- socialist government with its stinkin’ com- are any number of ally believe strongly in anything, certainly munist free health care” – and just waiting old-time right-wing not in controversial areas. He learned a long for someone at the Pentagon to casually nod military officers time ago how to take positions that avoid his head. in Paraguay who controversy, how to express opinions with- And if that happens, the Obama adminis- are just itching out clearly and firmly taking sides, how tration will embrace the Paraguayan caudi- to duplicate what to talk eloquently without actually saying llos just as they’ve done with the Honduran happened in anything, how to leave his listeners’ heads golpistas, the latest show of support being Honduras filled with stirring clichés, platitudes, and the announcement by Secretary of State Hil- slogans. And it worked. Oh how it worked! lary Clinton of the resumption of aid and her What could happen now, as President of the urging Latin American countries to recog- United States, to induce him to change his nize the new Honduran government, despite style?” its serious and daily violations of human How long before Fernando Lugo lets slip rights. CT some critical remarks about the behemoth to the north that tosses Paraguay into the ODE William Blum is the author of Killing (Officially Designated Enemy) dumpster Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions along with Venezuela, Cuba, Ecuador, Boliv- Since World War 2; Rogue State: A Guide ia, Nicaragua, et al.? Undoubtedly, there are to the World’s Only Superpower; West- any number of old-time right-wing military Bloc Dissident: A Cold War Memoir; and officers in Paraguay who are just itching to Freeing the World to Death: Essays on the duplicate what happened in Honduras. I can American Empire.

Hurwitt’s eye Mark Hurwitt

April 2010 | TheReader 63 Writing worth reading

ColdType

www.coldtype.net