Tuesday, June 3, 2008

Drawing Your Last Breath Hungry. Burma, Food Crisis, Wall Street, and the World Economy.

In parts of Burma before the cyclone hit the heat was so severe that you could walk around on a hazy day and run the risk of sunstroke.

On Thingyan the Buddhist holiday in which people dunk each other with water you could get a full-face full-pail drenching and be crisply sundried in minutes.

But when the storm water rose on the Irrawaddy Delta drying out became secondary because the sun's rays were largely gone and so was much of the land, housing, and plantings.

No one really knows how many people died but the world press has made the point that it would have been far fewer if Burma had a better government.

The point could also be made, though, that far fewer still would have died if the world had a better system of producing and allocating its wealth.

It's hard to come up with solid figures but it seems safe to estimate that the entire disposable wealth of the Irrawaddy Delta before the storm, that of its' 3.5 million residents, could have been less than that of one table-full of diners at New York's Four Seasons Grill Room.

Actually, it's more dramatic than that.

Working with figures from Forbes magazine, the IMF, and the UNDP, it's possible to estimate that there are between three hundred and a thousand individuals whose accumulated wealth is so vast that any one of them alone could pay each person in the Irrawaddy Delta for a year, and in the case of the richest, like Warren Buffett, could do it for six decades running and still have billions left.

One could get a visualization of this notion and its implications when flying over the Netherlands. Looking down from the Royal Dutch Airline a few weeks after Irrawaddy sank, you could see another delta, a country with much land below sea level, but where long infusions of wealth -- much of it extracted from Southeast Asia by whip (see the histories of the Dutch East and West Indies Companies) -- have made possible the building, behind strong dikes, by the sea, of nice, glassy homes and offices.

A cyclone Nargis would have killed anywhere -- viz. the recent storms in the US midwest -- but whether you survive a storm depends in important part on whether you and your ancestors were rich or poor and were able to build good infrastructure (even in the US, see New Orleans).

So the rich world is right to flagellate the Burmese generals for holding back resources as people die (a BBC World TV interviewer yesterday called it "criminal neglect") but wrong to fail to note that they do the same thing daily, on a global, far more deadly, scale.

The rich do pass out some of their spare wealth during a cyclone or other covered crisis, but on a daily basis withhold enough of it such that 850 million people routinely go hungry.

The recent food price hike has upped that statistic by perhaps a hundred million, and so it is said that we are in a "food crisis" and that "the era of cheap food is over."

The world would indeed be in a food crisis if there were not enough food to feed the people. But that is not the case.

The problem is that many millions of people can't afford food. That, clearly, is not a food crisis, but rather a wealth crisis, more precisely a wealth distribution crisis that can be solved by shifts from rich to poor, and a crisis that can be kept from recurring if laws and economies are then modified to institutionalize a new, more realistic, system that doesn't happen to starve people -- an objective which, one would think, is a fairly modest, and perhaps popular, goal.

Today in Rome there is a world summit on food and there has been a political stir over an attempt to exclude Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe's liberator and despot.

The point is made correctly that Mugabe runs a failed economic system that kills many people who could have been saved if he had made different choices.

But the same could also be said of a number of others at the summit -- those who run the world economy --, which is certainly failed from the point of view of those who draw their last breath hungry.

UN people from FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization) and other agencies have also caused a flutter by talking about $50 billion, over many years, for various food projects, which is a tenfold increase but still less than the personal holdings of Buffett, Bill Gates, and Carlos Slim, who got quite rich essentially overnight when Mexico gave him its cell phone system. It's also what the US goes though in about five months of occupying Iraq, where child malnutrition has risen in rough correlation with precision bomb drops and Iraqui democracy.

If someone's dying and you have a dollar that could save them and you withhold it, you have killed them. It's so extreme it sounds ridiculous, but it happens to be true, and will continue to be true so long as surplus coexists with bodies living on the cliff of death, or, for the luckier young ones, the cliff of mere body stunting and underdevelopment of their brains.

The big story before the food crisis was the US Wall Street financial crisis. For some weeks sober economists were fearing 1929-style panic. But Ben Bernanke, the US Federal Reserve chairman, stepped in to save the day by essentially imagining into existence several hundreds of billions of dollars worth of money that was effectively made available to some of the world's richest institutions and people.

The coverage focused on the fact that Bernanke did this cleverly, and succeeded, but it could also have noted that this is a remarkable aspect of today´s economy: while most people have to work for their money incrementally, bending in mud to plant their rice, a few can imagine it into existence in large blocks, and give it to their friends and colleagues.

By printing money, issuing bonds, making loans, creating new financial instruments, and by other means, these few create notions that have the power to buy goats, or anything else one wants, and can continue doing so indefinitely so long as rich society buys the pretense.

Which is to say that though, say, getting food to people, requires rearranging some physical things, most of the task involves rearranging the notions that govern actions from people's heads.

It´s simply a choice as to whether the power to conjure funds will be used for hungry people, and not just the juridical, imaginary persons that are investment corporations (US judicial precedent gives corporations the legal rights of persons, but like persons become ghosts it´s impossible to jail them if they transgress).

And it is likewise simply a choice whether or not to save expiring people by allowing resources to be shifted from an aid ship off Burma´s shore, or from the guys having drinks and lunch at the Four Seasons, table four.


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Thursday, February 21, 2008

And Satan Said: 'Recite the Names of the People You Killed.'

The other day a Chilean journalist asked whether the Spanish Guatemala genocide prosecution was mainly "symbolic," but I said that it was more than that since international arrest warrants had been issued. (Re. the prosecution see postings of February 5, 7, and 9, 2008).

What neither of us knew was that as we were speaking one of the defendants had just died, and that the International Herald Tribune/ AP headline would read: "Former Guatemalan police director wanted in Spain for crimes against humanity dies" (International Herald Tribune website, February 18, 2008).

Though that only begins to ping the surface of the lake of blood that is his legacy, it is not a bad summing-up of the life of Col. German Chupina, torturer, rapist, murderer, and steward of the American Chamber of Commerce in Guatemala (AMCHAM).

(See postings of December 2, 2007, "'Go ahead, kill them. Just be sure to fill out your expense account.,'"and February 9, 2008, "It's Not the Man, It's the Mission. The Whisperers of Death.").

That's one small benefit of trying to enforce the murder laws, even in a world that doesn't yet want to. Sometimes the proceeding makes chroniclers feel free to call things by their proper names.

That didn't much happen with Suharto, who was a bigger fish and better connected, and who was, in any event, never brought up before a murder tribunal.

(The New York Times managed to start its story on the man who surpassed Saddam and rivaled Pol Pot: "Indonesia embraced Suharto as a great leader Sunday, greeting his death with official solemnity and with surging, shouting crowds..." [Seth Mydans, "In death, ex-dictator elicits grief and tributes," in International Herald Tribune, January 28, 2008]; for poor victims', rather than rich perpetrators', perspectives see posting of January 13, 2008, "General Suharto of Indonesia. One Small Man Leaves a Million Corpses." ).

But imagine if proceedings, even after the fact, were brought against those who deserved it. In the US there's a popular TV cop show, "Cold Case," devoted to that notion.

But the show only deals with common criminals, like people who kill kids -- that is, people who kill kids while not on state business, or with no state political motive.

US Presidential libraries would have to start devoting exhibits in their biographical dioramas. 'The Early Years,' 'The Race for the White House,' 'The State Terrorism Tribunal.'

Though these cases are small breakthroughs, they're big, because they happen on a big, important front.

Yesterday's Haaretz tells the story of Israeli Gen. Doron Almog who, in 2005, cowered in a plane for two hours on the tarmac at London's Heathrow airport and thereby "escaped arrest for alleged war crimes ... because U.K. police feared an arrest would spark a shootout with Israeli security officials..." ( Haaretz Service, "Report: IDF general dodged U.K. arrest as police feared shootout," Haaretz, February 20, 2008.)

He wasn't such a shrinking violet when he allegedly lobbed flesh-shredding flechette shells at Gaza civilians or was smashing 50 homes there, but its different when you're not playing on your home court, and there's real law enforcement, with guns.

As it happened, this outbreak of law enforcement was unexpected, and quickly contained. Citizens had complained, a local British court had issued a warrant, the cops went to do their job, and after the general had returned to Israel -- where the cops had no job to do -- the British Foreign Office apologized profusely.

The general deplaned.

Tony Blair recently went to the trouble of commenting that a similar contemplated British case against Avi Dichter, Israel's Public Security Minister, was "utter nonsense" (The case concerns a "targeted killing" that killed the target's wife and three children, among others. Dichter last year threatened Palestinians with a "Nakba" -- cataclysm -- if they kept remembering their 1948 Nakba), an interesting remark by Blair, a man now tasked by the Quartet as an honest broker on Israel-Palestine, and who backed an Iraq invasion that his own Foreign Office's deputy legal adviser called "a crime of aggression" (which is prosecutable).

(For Blair quote: Barak Ravid, "Sources: Blair 'shocked' by Dichter fears of arrest in U.K.," Haaretz, February 8, 2008. For Dichter quote: Meron Benvenisti, "Time to Stop Mourning," Haaretz, December 12, 2007. For legal adviser quote see posting of January 17, 2008, "US Precision Bombing in Iraq and Afghanistan. Killing Civilians, Carefully.").

So what would Chupina and Suharto talk about, if they met, at the boiling pool, in Hell?

'CIA Station Chiefs I have known?'

In Chupina's case, it would include V. Harwood Blocker 3d, 1977-1980; Barry Royden, 1980; and Robert Hultslander, 1981-83 (see my "The Country Team," The Nation [US], June 5, 1995).

Or maybe Satan would step in: 'OK Chupina, OK Suharto, before you get to eat (if they eat down there), recite for me, from memory, the names of all the people you killed.'

You know how long it takes to recite a million names, or even some mere thousands?

And what if, as is likely, they didn't know or have forgotten most of the names?

Maybe even Satan wouldn't be that cruel.

For true viciousness, you must look aboveground.


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Sunday, February 17, 2008

"Dying for a Second Round." Israel Said to Plan Attack on Lebanon.

On Friday I asked a top-level Israeli, a former IDF (Israel Defense Forces) elite unit man and prime-ministerial confidante, whether the assassination of Hezbollah's Imad Mughniyeh could have been done by a Lebanese group.

He snorted at the preposterous notion. This was "way too sophisticated," he said. "This [the car bombing] was a precisely orchestrated international operation," and this was the "third or fourth or fifth time in a year that Israel has carried out a military operation in Syria."

When I asked him to repeat that last part he added the word "allegedly."

But the message, or at least the boast, was clear. So why is Israel doing this?

The man said of his colleagues: "There are a lot of [Israeli] military and cabinet people just dying for a second round with Lebanon. If given the opportunity they'll take it," i.e. attack Lebanon again, not in spite of "but because of" the perception that their '06 attack failed.

Though the IDF leveled blocks and villages, dropped 4 million cluster bomblets (some of which are still exploding), and killed some 200 Hezbollah combatants and 1,000 Lebanese civilians (roughly 40 Israeli civilians were killed by Hezbollah), they apparently departed Lebanon feeling politically inadequate.

The official feeling was that they either did not destroy enough, or destroy enough of the right people and items, to avoid the embarrassing perception that they lost to Hezbollah.

So to have the option of solving this problem they've apparently staged a provocative assassination in hopes of goading Hezbollah into retaliating and providing a pretext for new -- better -- destruction that this time around will "succeed," i.e. soothe hurt Israeli feelings.

There've been attempts to put this in strategic terms, as educated killers (and those who study them) prefer. 'Israel must prove its strategic value to the United States' (What? Washington is going to dump Israel? Hezbollah's "victory" strengthened the Palestinians, or Lebanon, or put Israel's existence in danger?). Or, alternatively: 'Hezbollah must be eradicated' (which everyone knows is impossible).

In fact, the closer you look the more it looks like leaders' blood psychotherapy.

And the same thing goes for the publics that follow them. Olmert is in political trouble. If he doesn't kill some Arabs soon (who or where is secondary), his governing coalition may well dissolve. The public has to feel good, too.

The problem -- for the to-be-killed, and for the notion of murder law, not to mention (and few do) decency -- is that the Israeli body politic is now set this way: demanding -- with a few, brave, exceptions -- not just daily, routine, killings of Palestinians, but periodic dramatic strikes that thrill and let them strut like hero/ victims.

It's as if the inhabitants of a US Fox News studio had multiplied and become a nation.

It, of course, doesn't have to be that way, but it is obviously that way now. All you have to do to see it is pick up the papers or talk to a few Israelis. (For representative quotations see Gideon Levy, "Little Ahmadinejads, Haaretz," 10/06/2007).

Its one thing for a state to be murdering and/or oppressing others when their local public doesn't know about it (as was largely the case when Washington was decimating Central America in the 1980s), but it's another when the public knows about it and supports the injustices and crimes (as was the case with US whites and slavery, and in the first stages of US/Iraq, where public support seemed to turn -- as it may still -- on the question of whether the US was "winning").

In the first situation, the killing policy is vulnerable. If word gets out, the public might be angry. But in the second it is more stable, and deadly, since the public knows, and asks for more.

But people and states don't get to entirely write their own histories.

They usually interact with others.

In the case of Israel, the key interaction is with the US, their military guarantor/ mass subsidizer, and with American Jews, where, among the young, opinion appears to be slowly turning (see postings of December 7, 2007, "Imposed Hunger in Gaza. The Army in Indonesia. Questions of Logic and Activism," and February 13, 2008, "Big Killer Takes Out Smaller One. 'Wipe Out a Neighborhood.' Life by Mafia Rules in the Israeli - US Domain," particularly the plaint of Malcom Hoenlein.).

Alternatively, Palestinians and groups like Hezbollah and Hamas could join the US as important determinants, but only if they too reset their outlooks (and their willingness to kill or murder) -- as some Palestinians and other Arabs at the grassroots level are now urging, cautiously -- and switched to active, but non-violent, or minimally violent resistance (like the first intifada, or the Gaza wall-breaking) and stopped letting themselves be used as a "provocation-response" button that Israel can press when it wants a thrill.

(See posting of January 26, 2007. "The Breaking of the Gaza Wall. Wise, Justified Political Violence.").

Link to view this posting in Arabic translation.

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Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Big Killer Takes Out Smaller One. "Wipe Out a Neighborhood." Life By Mafia Rules in the Israeli - US Domain.

I happened to learn about the car-bomb assassination of Imad Mughniyeh, the Hezbollah commander, while talking to a Palestinian Fatah man who is a confidante of Mohammed Dahlan, who is famously reputed in the press to have been both a torturer and the CIA's man in Gaza, until the Hamas ousted him.

The Fatah/ Dahlan man who imparted the assassination news hates Hamas with a passion -- he said that in last year's rival security forces showdown they grabbed and tortured him with knives for four hours (he was earlier tortured by the Israelis far longer, and worse, but views that as par for the course)-- and is no fan of Hezbollah, but he viewed the killing with irony. He said he was hearing that the Israelis were saying "we cleared the account with him (Mughniyeh)" (Palestinian Authority security forces, like those Dahlan ran, now have regular coordination meetings with their ostensible enemies, Israeli intelligence), yet he claimed that Mughniyeh's major killings had been more against other Arabs (eg. Saudi, Kuwait) than against Israelis.

The Israeli killing men are trying to contain their grins. The government issued a non-denial denial "Israel rejects the attempt by terror groups to attribute to it any involvement in this incident. We have nothing further to add" -- i.e. they reject terror groups saying they were involved, but do not say that they were not involved.

The US, which had a $25 million bounty on Mughniyeh's head (he's implicated, in, among other things, the Lebanon Marine barracks bombing, the kidnap/ holding of AP reporter Terry Anderson, a TWA hijacking) felt no need to show restraint, saying, through the State Department: "The world is a better place without this man in it. He was a cold-blooded killer, a mass murderer and a terrorist responsible for countless innocent lives lost."

In a world of proportionality and full enforcement of the murder laws -- or even, rough justice-style "what goes around comes around" -- George Bush's men would not want to make that statement, since they (and Israel) are responsible for vastly more, and vastly more civilian, killings, don't have Mughniyeh's sometime excuse of responding to invasion, and don't want to start up their cars tomorrow morning and wind up blown to bits.

But that is not this world. This is mafia world. If you're big enough, you can whack guys.

It so happened that, hours before, another Palestinian man had used that mafia term as we wove through scrolls of barbed wire, checkpoints, walls, and Galil/M-16 toting Occupation men as Jewish settlers/occupiers zipped through the West Bank on ethnically/religiously segregated superhighways.

Two days before, a fairly typical day in Israeli politics, the lead front page headline in the Haaretz newspaper was "IDF (Israel Defense Forces) to step up Gaza assassinations," in response to homemade rockets from besieged, hungry, bombed Gaza that had recently wounded Israelis (for background on the siege and the disproportionate death tolls, see postings of December 7, 2007, "Imposed Hunger in Gaza, The Army in Indonesia. Questions of Logic and Activism," and January 6, 2008 "The Breaking of the Gaza Wall. Wise, Justified Political Violence.").

"The IDF needs to wipe out a neighborhood in Gaza," said the Israeli Interior Minister Meir Sheetrit, "We need to target all those responsible for terrorism without asking who they are" -- suggesting a broad definition of "responsible" that encompasses those whose actions are unknown, but who do, at least, fit the criterion of being Palestinians living in Gaza. (Haaretz English Edition, February 11, 2008).

Dani Yatom, the former Mossad chief, now a parliamentarian for what constitutes Israel's establishment left, the Labor Party, said on TV of blowing up the smaller killer Mughniyeh that "the free and democratic world today achieved a very important goal" -- suggesting that freedom and democracy do not have law and order (as opposed to whacking) as a prerequisite, which seems to undercut the whole US worldwide project of building up heavily-armed security forces (along with non-troublesome courts) -- in places including occupied Palestine -- on the claimed premise that you can't have freedom and democracy until you've first established the rule of law.

The politics are pretty clear. The US Republicans want terrorism -- other people's -- on the US electoral front burner (see posting re. the just-announced 9/11 tribunals, February 11, 2008, "The Guantanamo Gambit. A Smart But Vulnerable Establishment. Tactical Options in US Politics."), and Israel's Olmert administration is still smarting from a new official report (the Winograd Commission) saying they lost the '06 Lebanon war with Hezbollah (and with the precision-carpet-bombed civilian populations of southern Leabanon, and southern Beirut), and are simultaneously facing a fierce Israeli public clamor to go in and kill more Gazans.

There's always a certain -- weak -- case to be made for just taking out a killer if nice, legal courts can't do it (its the kind of thing that leftist guerrilla/liberation movements, or the French Resistance, did all the time). That was basically the case -- apart from the weapons/ Al Qeada lies -- that the US made for taking out Saddam Hussein. But the weak case becomes dangerously unserious when the one proposing to do the ajusticiamiento (delivery of justice, as they used to say in rebel Central America), has, like, say, the US or Israeli leadership, killed and murdered far more prolifically than has the proposed target. Then, though you remove a smaller killer from the face of the earth, you make the bigger killer still stronger, thus making life even more dangerous for regular people who are still walking around.

Surprisingly enough, for a man based in the New York area -- an old mob stronghold and recently the fictional home of HBO's Tony Soprano -- Malcom Hoenlein, head of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations seemed to express surprise, at a Tuesday Jerusalem press conference, at his group's poll findings that American popular support for Israel is "broad" but "also thin, and most Americans see Israel as a dark and militaristic place."

Evidently they shouldn't. When an assassination car bomb explodes, it gives off a lot of light.

(For the Hoenlein press conference see Anshel Pfeffer, "Hoenlein: Obama's spirit of change could harm Israel," Haaretz, February 13, 2008; despite the headline, he wasn't criticizing Obama, who like all the big 3 candidates, is already pledged to the official US/Israeli government line, including on Gaza. He was merely fretting that "[t]here is a legitimate concern over the zeitgeist around the campaign... All the talk about change, but without defining what that change should be, is an opening for all kind of mischief.").

Link to view this posting in Arabic translation.


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Monday, February 11, 2008

The Guantanamo Gambit. A Smart But Vulnerable Establishment. Tactical Options in US Politics.

Though they never said it, it now appears that Bush, or at least his Pentagon, did not, for whatever reason, want Rudy Giuliani to be US president.

Though purportedly weaker than the Democrats, these Republicans have made an ingenious move by announcing a surprise 9/11 death-penalty tribunal just months before the US election.

Giuliani must be pounding the earth at the news that -- just after he dropped out of the race -- the US pre-election discussion will now be shaped, in important part, by the theme that was his only issue.

The Republicans were already in position to maybe overcome some bad fundamentals (Iraq, the US economy, too much incumbency) with the political brilliance of Senator John McCain, a man who is at once a rich military aristocrat (his father and grandfather were admirals), a regular guy in personality, a bomber, a torture survivor (by the people he was bombing), and a conservative Republican lauded for candor who manages to convince some liberal Democrats that he's actually lying -- excusably -- when he repeatedly says he's conservative.

To non-US readers asking what these US political terms mean (in Australia, for example, "liberal" is the name of the "conservative," "right wing" party), the short answer is: don't puzzle over it too much; it doesn't really affect you.

"Liberal" or "conservative," US foreign policy is quite consistent, historically -- as each new US Secretary of State accurately tells the world when there's a White House change of party.

Now, whatever small distance might have existed between the US establishment left and right (see posting of January 2, 2008, "The US Election is Already Over. Murder and Preventable Death Have Won") will be subjected to a powerful converging pull with this big Al Qaeda Guantanamo proceeding.

Senator Barack Obama, who, at this instant, may be slightly ahead for the Democrats' nomination, will now have one more reason to make sure that his eloquent, vague, talk of "change" will, if in office, actually amount to small change (See my January 3, 2008 Democracy Now! discussion of atrocities by advisers to Obama, as well as to Clinton, McCain, and others).

But one aspect of vast US killing/sparing power is that even tiny relative changes, can -- in absolute terms -- produce many more or many fewer corpses.

If, say, in theory, a series of US policy decisions can kill or save 1,000,000 people, a variation of just one percent can kill or save 10,000 people.

So even if the bitter, minimal, electoral choice must be made among 99% - identical candidates, that 1% difference does make a difference, though you may not know in which direction.

(It was the Democrats -- John F. Kennedy, for example, who created the Central American death squads [see my "Behind the Death Squads: An exclusive report on the U.S. role in El Salvador’s official terror," The Progressive, May, 1984, and a resulting Senate Intelligence Committee report, which you can't see, because it's classified] and did the most damage on Vietnam, and who, in the Kerry-Bush campaign had the harsher rhetoric on South American matters like Venezuela [key Democrats like James Carville and Mark Penn have been paid consultants to Chavez's anti-democratic, pro-coup opponents]).

Though Bush II varied from post-Vietnam establishment tactics with an Iraq invasion that made Washington look bad (not, in their terms, because of the mass civilian death, but because of the US failure to win fast) Bush himself has now been partly pulled back into line, and McCain was already in line (McCain helped to oust Rumsfeld, who, with Cheney, hurt US power by overplaying it, i.e. by invading a non-defenseless country, and, to boot, getting lots of US troops killed and maimed, conspicuously, on television).

What this means is that though the public rhetoric appears to stake out big differences, Washington insiders agree that on Iraq, as on many matters, the Republicans and Democrats are on the same page.

The Democrats' talk, for example, of starting to withdraw troops immediately does not mean anything. There are always troop rotations, so when some come home that can be called a withdrawal. Or you can withdraw -- drawing down numbers -- today and build them up tomorrow. The only pull-out statement that would be meaningful would be an expressed willingness to let Iraq's regime fall, something inconceivable for a Democratic nominee -- more so now with the Al Qaeda tribunal.

Its not just that the US has a habit of killing civilians, it's also that it has such huge power to do so (see posting of December 5, 2007,"It Takes [Out] a Village: Illegitimate American Power"). Neither is acceptable. Both should be broken, and the killers tried. But electing a Democrat -- or Republican -- as president won't do that. Other tactics must be attempted.

The US system is, in some respects, unusually open and even vulnerable. The electoral process, for one thing, is, as in most places, heavily influenced by rich people's money (it's a combination of one - person - one - vote, and one - dollar - one - vote), but it is also susceptible to not-fully-controlled television spectacle.

At one point, in 1992, the wild card candidate Ross Perot, actually led Bush I and Clinton, almost entirely based on some cable TV appearances that seemed to strike a chord (though a rich man, he hadn't even yet spent much campaign money).

Then, however, Perot self-destructed, starting with a speech implying racist sentiments and dropped out (though he later re-entered, weaker) suggesting that North Vietnamese snipers were on his lawn, and hinting that there was also some sinister plot to disrupt his daughter's wedding.

If a somewhat crazy man could come that close, it says something about US politics.

The whole thing may not be quite as tightly nailed-down as we think.

People and movements (beyond electoral matters) can, in the US, figuratively catch fire, today through TV -- which is big-corporate owned, but finds it hard to resist a circus -- and can, when given space by still-existing civil liberties, win change, as in the '60s and '70s.

That's yet to happen much in recent years, but the US social underpinnings are shaking slightly. Obama's smart enough to see that and imply promises he has no plans to keep.

If many other, more serious, less indebted-to-power people saw it, the shaking could grow stronger still.

But so far, tactically, the US establishment is still smarter than its' real opponents.

We'll now be talking 'Fry these Al Qaeda bastards or not?' instead of 'Why let a child die when you can save it?' and 'When are we going to get tough on crime and really start enforcing the murder laws?'

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The Shooting of Jose Ramos Horta.

Some news reports are now claiming that Jose Ramos Horta, Timor-Leste's president, is or was in a coma. If he goes, his soul will get a good laugh from the fact that he outlasted Suharto -- who killed a third of his people --, and an ironic laugh from the fact that the first bullets to ever hit him were fired by an East Timorese.

The man behind those bullets, the rebel soldier Alfredo Reinado, is reportedly dead, and if that's true the ridiculous crisis that has gripped East Timor may actually slowly dissipate.

In some countries, a two-year upheaval that kills several dozen and features a double-assassination try (Xanana Gusmao, the prime minister, was also attacked, but not hit) might rank as the biggest thing in recent memory, but in Timor it's not even close.

The Indonesian military occupiers -- armed and green-lighted by the United States government -- killed that many on many hundreds of mornings. Their winnowing of the population was so vast that it put them in Nazi-land (see posting of December 3, 2007, " Knowing Where the Bodies Are Buried. The Indonesian Generals -- and Putin -- Laugh," and also those of August 16 '05, November 13 '07, December 5 and 7 '07, and January 13 and 27 '08).

Occupied Timor was the most terrifying place I've ever seen. There was perpetual threat of execution.

But, as sometimes happens, the oppressed people actually won.

And with gradual independence, starting in 1999, the Timorese won the right to behave as pettily as everyone else, and their leaders have been exercising it.

The rebel Reinado stood for nothing that anyone could discern, and the older generation of leaders has been bickering even as there is still hunger in the countryside, side-by-side with newly-won oil money.

Compared to the Indonesian Occupation holocaust, all of this is -- amazingly enough -- small for Timor, but that proportional comparison is, in many senses, beside the point: Just one death ends the world for someone, and when it's preventable, it's inexcusable.

Poor people are now hungering unnecessarily in Timor-Leste, under a regime that is not bad or oppressive.

The country can do much better. It can be an example for the world, as its' political victory over terror was.

When Ramos Horta, hopefully, comes back, the independence leaders should sit down and reflect. Then bury their rivalries and feed the hungry, or step aside, and let younger survivors take over.

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Saturday, February 9, 2008

Murder Watch. Note to Readers Re. Even-Handed Enforcement of the Murder Laws.

News and Comment is looking for public and private documents and first-hand information that could develop into evidence regarding war crimes or crimes against humanity by officials. Please forward relevant material via the email link below.

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It's Not the Man, It's the Mission. The Whisperers of Death.

The other night a Mayan survivor remarked that there are Kaibiles in the Congo. They're a special unit of US-trained Guatemalan troops officially called "The Messengers of Death," but he noted that recently eight of them were ambushed and died themselves in that faraway land.

The poor Kaibil killers must not have known what hit them, since, on the road, away from home, they were in the Congo under actual legal constraint, as peacekeeping troops of the United Nations.

It's a similar story with Indonesian troops, now deployed as UN peacekeepers in Lebanon.

Back home, unbound by law, they kill civilians, but, away -- where that would cause problems -- such behavior is banned, and, generally, despite their past record, they don't go around murdering people (rape is another matter; its a problem of men in armies most everywhere, and UN troop assignments vary: In Haiti, it has included repression).

It's not the man, its the mission. Political killers are not killing machines.

They are human components of killing machines, and if the machine setting is switched from "kill" to "don't kill," as trained people, they do tend to comply.

While its true that some people are what these days are called psychopathic killers, such compulsive blood-spillers are rare in any society.

There aren't enough of them to stock a brigade, let alone a government or a Harvard institute.

In the Guatemala torture/ state terrorism/ genocide case now being tried in Spain (see postings of February 5 and 7, 2008), there is one such lunatic figure -- Col. German Chupina, the former national police chief and close ally of the American Chamber of Commerce in Guatemala, who, some of his old employees say, liked to cruise the city in a black-windowed van and point out women from the street for raping, and then cutting up and finishing off with his own literally bloody hands.

Gen. Rios Montt, one of the massacre dictators, is also often described as, in his way, crazy, but that is because he combined religious fanaticism with impolitic speaking bluntness (In his case, the fanaticism was Evangelical Christian. When he wasn't killing families he was lecturing them, on TV, on their sexual mores).

As he was helping him burn the Mayan highlands President Reagan said that Rios Montt was "totally dedicated to democracy" and getting a "bum rap" on human rights (New York Times, December 5, 1982). But Rios Montt spoiled the effect a bit when he explained to the press: "It is not true that I have a policy of scorched earth! I have a policy of scorched communists!"

But the crazies are exceptions.

Most top killers avoid the smell of burning flesh. They are calm bureaucrats, ideologues, politicians, academics. They kill with whispers, papers, and keyboard strokes.

And on the earthly -- implementation -- level, where sharp knives enter chests, the human adjustment is sometimes difficult for those who must do the actual killings.

Some of the people in Spain for the Mayan trial have occasionally cried, but the other day one man did it for a different reason than the others. He cried because he'd been made a killer.

As a teen he had been snatched into the Guatemalan army and that US counterinsurgency favorite, the "Civil Patrols," (The US has used them in dozens of countries, including, recently, Nepal, the Philippines, and Iraq. Gen. Rios Montt, a Fort Bragg trainee, was director of studies at the Pentagon's Washington, D.C. Inter-American Defense College), and when this man was brought for training he found that his imposed mission included becoming "one of the destroyers of everything, of our own people in Guatemala."

The old adage among murder trainers is that once you've killed you can't go back, especially if the person you've killed is a bound and screaming, unarmed captive.

It's fair that people should pay for their crimes. But the judgers should consider circumstances. Sentences should vary according to whether the killer was under coercion, or a coercer who whispered death from an office.

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Thursday, February 7, 2008

Give Me Back My Land. My Memories? That's Another Question.

Before the Spanish court the other day, one of the surviving Mayans ended his testimony by standing up at the judge's desk and asking for his land back.

(Re. this torture/ state terrorism/ genocide case against US-backed Guatemalan officials, see posting of Tuesday, February 5, 2008, "As US Votes on Who Will Hold the Trigger, Mayans Propagate Civilization.").

How much land was it?, I asked him last night. Less than five acres, corn land.

But after all these years, he still wants it back, and wants to leave it to a surviving son.

When the army of his homeland entered his village they burned the 3-room schoolhouse ("They stole the roof!") and cut and crushed the drinkable-water pipes. And as they raped, throat-sliced, and trigger-pulled their way through , they forced people onto the mountain -- dodging US-arranged Israeli Galil bullets as they clambered upward, toward life.

They left behind land -- which, in theory, is recoverable; the man was raising a fundamental point -- but also much that cannot be gotten back, like a life without tormenting memories.

There was the time, for example, a woman recounted just now, that she snuck down from the mountain and found that "All that was left were the dogs, barking in the houses."

Outside, elsewhere, there were fires, bad smells, smoke, some crying, still-living children, as well as her own mother, dead -- dead as a result of policy.

"There arrived a great sadness, a great pain," she said, "a pain that remains until this moment."

She said that she had carried that two-decade torment to Spain and that on this formal, legal, occasion, "This is the moment that we take out our pain," and seek justice from society.

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Tuesday, February 5, 2008

A Short Update on Civilization, and on Guatemalan and US Criminals

This morning, speaking publicly in Spain (see previous posting of today, February 5, 2008, "As US Votes on Who Will Hold the Trigger, Mayans Propagate Civilization"), a very brave man from the Mayan highlands remarked that when he returned to his mother's house once the US-backed Guatemalan army had gotten through with it, he found that his entire family had been "carbonized," i.e. burnt carbon-black and crispy.

Soon after, the US sent more money (and other things) to that very army, perhaps pioneering -- under Reagan -- the first known application of the "carbon credits" concept.

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As US Votes on Who Will Hold the Trigger, Mayans Propagate Civilization.

Today, as Americans decide who will get the power to kill or spare millions (see posting of Wednesday, December 05, 2007, "It Takes [Out] a Village: Illegitimate American Power"), a group of Guatemalan Mayan campesinos are in Madrid, on a civilizing mission.

They are here to testify about the US-sponsored Guatemalan officers who, in the '70s and '80s, murdered their families, and came out on top as rich men, drug dealers, US embassy consultants, and Harvard fellows.

It's not as if you can bring back the dead wives, missing kids, or shot-in-the cerebrum husbands, or even sufficiently punish the guilty, who now grin in elegant Zona Cinco pools and in MacLean, Virginia homes with lawns. They still twirl power and walk around, uncuffed, in polite society.

But you can, as one of the mountain corn farmers observed yesterday, "Capture them, imprison them. That's sufficient," which is generous of him, since they butchered his dear ones, friends, and animals, and burnt his gut till his intestines spilled out -- and it is to the great credit of Spain's judiciary that they are willing to let him try.

This is a case of torture, state terrorism, and genocide -- and international arrest warrants have been issued -- but the big, tough Generals who once could answer the question (posed by the conservative Guatemalan daily, El Grafico, [May 17, 1982]) "How is it possible to behead an 8- or 9-year-old child? How is it possible for a human adult to murder in cold blood a baby of less than a year and a half?" are now afraid to fly to Madrid and face the parents of the kids they consumed while pocketing cash from Langley. (Grafico referred to the massacre of Semeja II, Chichicastenango, but, in all, according to army records, 662 villages were destroyed, and perhaps 120,000 civilians were murdered in a place the population of New York City).

They're afraid because there's been something like a tear in the fabric of the political universe and, somehow, as in one of those anomalies of quantum physics, there has emerged -- in this world -- a stray particle of civilization: a legal forum perhaps willing to enforce the murder laws, even against high officials.

Not yet too high, mind you. There are not yet American names on the defendants list. But as we say in the sports which American guys love, its not over till its over.

The case is in Spain's Audiencia Nacional (National Court), which, operating on the principle 'We're all people here,' is exercising its right under international law to try atrocity cases involving non-Spaniards.

(Mayan survivors of things like crucifixion by hanging -- from the big log cross at Rio Negro -- will be testifying. I'll be testifying as well, on the army, the massacre policy, and the US. Lawyers and professionals advancing the case come from CJA [US], APDHE [Spain], RMTF [Guatemala], CALDH [Guatemala], Hastings Law School [US], Impunity Watch [The Netherlands], and the National Security Archive [US].)

Imagine if that precedent caught on. Today's US primary might be awkward, as candidates and advisers dodged the cops, were pressed to sign pledges to stop murdering, and were asked by the press to explain their own pasts -- vis a vis killing civilians, not trivia -- and to explain their bipartisan ideological softness on official crime.

In this particular US-killing matter, one of dozens from around the world, the Republicans' patron saint is Ronald Reagan, so beloved by the Guatemalan leaders who slaughtered the Mayans (and others) that they hung ten-foot portraits of him in their homes as he sent them CIA men, surveillance equipment, covert money and -- most importantly -- open political blessings. The US Democrats' dove is Barack Obama, whose chief foreign adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski, greenlighted Israel to deliver the actual killing rifles (Galils) to Guatemala, since his President -- Carter -- was a little embarrassed.

Is that the difference between the two big US parties on mass murder -- embarrassment versus pride? Maybe.

We shouldn't have to wrestle with such fine -- though, sometimes, bitterly consequential -- distinctions.

We should be able to vote effectively against, and prosecute, murder.

Maybe US politics needs a civilizing Mayan invasion.

(For background, and re. the US role see Jesus Tecu Osorio, "Memoria de las Masacres de Rio Negro," Guatemala, 2006, and my "The Guns of Guatemala: The Merciless Mission of Rios Montt's Army," The New Republic, April 11, 1983, "Guatemala Can't Take 2 Roads," The New York Times, op ed, July 20, 1982, "Choices on Guatemala," The New York Times, op ed, April 4, 1983, "Despite Ban, U.S. Captain Trains Guatemalan Military," The Washington Post, October 21, 1982, "The Guatemala Connection," The Progressive, May, 1986," "C.I.A. Death Squad," The Nation [US], April 17, 1995, "The Country Team," The Nation [US], June 5, 1995, letter exchange with US Ambassador Stroock, The Nation [US], May 29, 1995, and Allan Nairn and Jean-Marie Simon, "Bureaucracy of Death," The New Republic, June 30, 1986, and Jean-Marie Simon, "Guatemala," W.W. Norton, New York, 1987).

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Thursday, January 31, 2008

Eating Dirt for Lunch in Haiti. "Overwhelming Strength" in Florida.

At about 8:25 Wednesday morning, US Eastern time, AOL's internet welcome screen juxtaposed two AP news stories: "He (McCain) Jumps Ahead in Republican Race: What Will Rudy Giuliani Do Now?" and "Desperate Haitians Eat Dirt: 'One Day I'll Have Enough Food.'"

("Hungry people in the slums of Haiti are giving new meaning to the phrase 'dirt poor.' As food prices soar, many desperate people are eating mud cookies to stave off their hunger pangs...;" Jonathan M. Katz, AP, January 29, 2008, quote from AP photo gallery by Ariana Cubillos).

One thing Rudy Giuliani did after losing the Florida primary was give a speech with the line "The best way to achieve peace is through overwhelming strength."

That could have been said by the rulers of colonial France as they tore the gold from Haiti's mountains, or by Thomas Jefferson as he warned against tolerating Haiti's slave uprising. Or by the US rulers of the '50s through '80s as they backed the Duvaliers as Haiti's dictators, or of the '90s as they backed the FRAPH death squad and imposed a World Bank/IMF plan on Haiti that -- a decade before Wednesay's dirt- consumption update -- began making Haitians hungrier.

(Re. FRAPH and the World Bank/ IMF, respectively, see my "Our Man in FRAPH: Behind Haiti's Paramilitaries," October 24, 1994, "He's Our S.O.B.," October 31, 1994, and "Haiti Under the Gun," January 8 / 15, 1996, all in The Nation [US], and "Aristide Banks on Austerity," Multinational Monitor, July/August, 1994).

It might be true, in theory, that overwhelming strength could achieve peace, but only if wielded by a figure like, say, God, and the Bible, Torah, and Koran all agree that even that scenario makes massacres.

The US founders may not have followed their own stated principles -- few do -- but they were cynically insightful about people in general, so as rich men, some of them slave holders (like Jefferson), they sought to contain the popular "mob" but also to structurally, constitutionally constrain future rulers like themselves.

In stated principle, at least, the US founders feared overwhelming strength in the hands of humans.

But today, the stated principle has reversed.

Giuliani's statement was not peculiar. McCain says things like that all the time, and it was the Clinton administration, where Hillary worked, that produced the 20-year Pentagon plan for "Full-spectrum Dominance," i.e. the ability "to defeat any adversary and control any situation," anywhere, anytime (Jim Garamore, American Forces Press Service [US Department of Defense], "Joint Vision 2020 Emphasizes Full-spectrum Dominance," June 2, 2000).

But if you fully dominate the world, who's going to stop you if you murder, or if you cause people to hunger because of the way you move and concentrate scarce wealth?

Those are the murder and preventable death problems that Americans are free to raise in politics -- but usually don't, but there's also another, straight-power problem that may eventually have to get discussed.

The problem is that though militarily, in some senses, the US still overwhelms, economically the US is becoming one power-center among several.

In his State of the Union President Bush said he'd "make sure America remains the most dynamic nation on earth."

That was possible to do after World War II with the rest of the rich world ravaged, but with nodes of capitalism now having dispersed worldwide it is no longer possible.

The fastest growth will inevitably happen elsewhere and, before long, a number of others will equal the US as centers of capital, exchange, and even innovation (and, on the latter, sooner than later if the US sustains its anti-immigrant hysteria).

What then? Elected US rulers always talk in supremacist, nationalist terms (though they personally and professionally invest globally). If they truly want the US to have/keep overwhelming dominance, their comparative advantage will have to be in gunpowder.

The sensible answer by non-rulers should be: who cares about attaining/keeping dominance? As a means of achieving peace it is discredited. As a means of feeding people, it hasn't produced.

It's more reasonable to search for other means, means toward good ends like ceasing death squad sponsorship, and shifting enough wealth so that people can sustain their strength by eating real food instead of dirt.

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Monday, January 28, 2008

State of the Union. Entitlement, Justice, and the War of All Against All.

President Bush just said "We will deliver justice to our enemies" (US State of the Union Address, January 28, 2008).

So does that mean that it's dependent on our enemies to deliver justice to us?

That's the way people like Bin Laden think, and Bush apparently shares his mindset.

A leader chooses his definition of justice and goes out and kills -- or does whatever -- to the culprit.

Thats the way things theoretically work by default in the absence of a strong society, in the condition of something like what Thomas Hobbes called "the war of all against all."

But if we didn't have a strong society, Bush wouldn't have a $2.8 trillion budget (FY 2007). He wouldn't have Secret Service bodyguards, so he'd have to wear a holster to the podium, as Arafat -- who had a smaller budget -- once did.

Without a strong society there wouldn't be any effective inheritance laws, so Bush would be out there scrambling for work and food like everybody else.

In other words, you can't have it both ways.

You can't luxuriate in huge social entitlements while ignoring society's most basic laws and taboos: the ones regarding killing other people, the ones that say that society defines justice on these matters -- not individual leaders, or even establishments -- and it defines it by consensus and law (i.e. murder laws), made laboriously over time.

So if Bush wants to go out and kill somebody with a sword, as he might in a Hobbesian world, that's up to him.

But he shouldn't be surprised -- or complain -- when he's arrested by society's law-enforcers.

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Sunday, January 27, 2008

Suharto Dead. Six Billion Alive. Time for a Little Reform.

To the Clinton White House, General Suharto was "our kind of guy," but to many Indonesian -- and other -- children he was the guy who killed their parents.

Now, General Suharto is dead, and in Heaven a million souls are beseeching God for permission to invade Hell and give him what he's got coming.

But even if they gave him a proper trial, it would be too late for their shot, starved bodies.

There are six billion people still above ground in this world.

Isn't it time for a little reform?

(See posting of January 13, 2008, "General Suharto of Indonesia. One Small Man Leaves a Million Corpses." For "our kind of guy" quote see David E. Sanger, "Real Politics: Why Suharto is In and Castro is Out," New York Times, October 31, 1995).

Link to Democracy Now! discussion re. Suharto and the US.

Link to tape of questioning of Richard Holbrooke and Bill Clinton re. their support for Suharto's killings.


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Saturday, January 26, 2008

The Breaking of the Gaza Wall. Wise, Justified Political Violence.

The breaking of the Gaza-Egypt wall is clearly a good thing, and a rare example of the moral -- and also wise -- use of violence in politics. (For the logic and effects of the Israeli cordon of Gaza see posting of December 7, 2007, "Imposed Hunger in Gaza, The Army in Indonesia. Questions of Logic and Activism").

Most all political violence consists of clear wrongs , like murder or unjustified war, but sometimes, sadly, disgustingly, some violence is justified as a last resort, and sometimes -- as a subcategory of that -- some of that justified violence is also wise, tactically.

Once you get far outside the murder and the crimes of war and those against humanity, some of the choices regarding whether or not to use some violence can be legitimately tough and debatable.

But the Gaza wall-breaking was an easy call: no people were killed, some may have been saved, and the spectacle of an exodus into Egypt effectively dramatized a gross injustice.

It's ironic that this was apparently done -- its not yet clear from what level -- by or with some Hamas people, since that's a movement that has, in its bombings of Israeli civilians, been immoral, criminal, and tactically stupid, turning the oppressed into oppressors, in many eyes, and turning some victims into actual murderers.

But this use of violence -- against mere bricks in a wall -- was right and a stroke of genius. The legend of all-knowing Israeli intelligence notwithstanding, some of the IDF (Israel Defense Forces)/ Shin Bet/ Mossad/ Cabinet killers must have been stunned, and temporarily shaken.

This was, after all, the first big, smart Palestinian move since the David and Goliath stone intifada, which pitted mere stone-throwing teenagers against Israeli tanks and body-armored soldiers, and exposed the Occupation, twenty years ago, putting Israel's regime on the defensive. (Not that it lasted long enough to produce results. The Peace Laureates Rabin and Arafat killed it; Rabin with knee-breaking -- "force, might, and beatings" was his order, which, for a while, made Israel look still worse, but then Arafat shut the teen Davids down since they were winning without his approval).

The poor Washington Post was clearly stunned and shaken by this wall breach in Gaza.

They were reduced to accusing Hamas of "exploit[ing] [Israel's] temporary shutdown of fuel supplies" -- i.e. by telling people about it (aren't newspapers supposed to encourage that?), and were cornered into the unfortunate position -- if one accepts their logic -- of seeming to support the denial of rights to Darfur refugees. ("As thousands stream across the border to Egypt, Hamas blockades the peace process," The Washington Post, January 24, 2008).

The Post asked rhetorically: "Would Mr. Mubarak allow tens of thousands of Darfur refugees to illegally enter Egypt from Sudan, where a real humanitarian crisis is underway?," the expected answer from the reader being a realistic, shameful (for Mubarak) "No," and then demanded that Mubarak apply exactly that shameful standard by likewise barring uninvited Gazans.

So in order to keep the Palestinians out (or, more precisely, keep them cooped-in), you seem willing to bar the Darfuris too?

When you reach for arguments like that, it's a sign that your side's case is in trouble.

So what would happen if some Palestinians decided to break the West Bank wall, too? Say, tens of thousands of teens one morning, at dawn, turning up with picks and crowbars?

Would the IDF destroy people to save concrete?

Quite possibly.

They feel entitled.

As then - Justice Minister Haim Ramon put it, "we are allowed to destroy everything" (Gideon Levy, Little Ahmadinejads, Haaretz, 10/06/2007), and though he was talking about Lebanon '06 (Final rough tallies: 1,000 Lebanese civilians killed, 40 Israeli civilians, and 4 million mainly-US cluster bomblets scattered by IDF in southern Lebanon) he could have been articulating the broad moral/criminal law philosophy of today's Israeli/US establishments, and -- when it comes to Israel -- much of today's Israeli/US society.

But if they did, if they opened fire, Israel-Palestine history would begin anew, and though many Palestinians would die, as usual, this time they might not die in vain, since many in the world -- including the US -- would see who's oppressing whom.

Incidentally, Israel's leading newspaper, Haaretz, recently carried an airtight critique of the security rationale behind the vast complex of barriers that seal-in West Bank villages -- a complex of which the wall is only the final, tallest, manifestation.

The stated reasons for these barriers, that divert and slow Palestinians, making them fade and die in ambulances, is that they keep suicide/homicide bombers from attacking, in-and-of-itself, a good objective.

But Haaretz reporters found that, incredibly, 475 of 572 roadblocks were unmanned, and then posed the logically clinching questions: What? Suicide bombers can't get through here? They're not willing to step over the unmanned barriers that stop ordinary people (and ambulances)?

The Haaretz analyst reached the reasonable conclusion that the sealing-in has a different function:

"Is it seriously contended by anyone that a mound of earth, a ditch or a series of concrete blocks can stop terrorists from moving around? Do these barriers serve any function other than embittering the lives of the Palestinians? The sick and the elderly, pregnant women and people carrying shopping baskets undoubtedly find it more difficult to get in and out of their barricaded towns and villages. Indeed both B'Tselem and the organization Physicians for Human Rights have documented cases of sick people being unable to receive treatment because they couldn't reach their doctors or clinics - while anybody planning a terrorist attack can easily clamber over the mounds, traverse the ditches or circumvent the blocks..."

"Nobody I've spoken with," continued the writer, Daniel Gavron, " has a convincing military explanation for the unmanned roadblocks. In fact, people familiar with Israeli military thinking have convinced me that the main object of these barriers is to fragment the territory, effectively preempting the 'contiguous Palestinian state' recently touted by U.S. President George Bush. Nothing I have heard has convinced me that the unmanned roadblocks increase the security of Israelis in Israel, or even of the Jewish settlers in the territories." (Daniel Gavron, "Start with the unmanned roadblocks!," Haaretz, December 23, 2007, which also refers to earlier Haaretz reporting ).

And as the veteran Israeli correspondent Amira Hass points out, there seem to be other, non-barrier/wall, factors behind the recent decline in bombings; that is, bombings by walking Palestinians; bombings by flying Israelis have increased (see Amira Hass, "Where are the suicide bombers?," December 2007 | Kibush.co.il , translated from Hebrew by George Malent. Hass notes that some Palestinians, desperate for work, slip the wall into Israel daily. If they can do it, so could suicide bombers, if they personally or politically wanted to).

And, at any rate, the settlers and the Occupation are illegal, as is the wall, according to the World Court -- and not surprisingly, the Palestinians are justly unhappy with them all -- , so the best security solution is to simply remove them.

But the Israeli regime seems to want perpetual war tension. It now sustains their political culture.

That's fine. They can want whatever they want.

But they don't have the right to impose it.

And neither do the Palestinians, of course. They just have the right to their rights.

And since one of them is to have that illegal wall breached, and Mr. Olmert doesn't want to do it, maybe some Palestinian teens can do it for him.

He can meet them at the wall, at dawn.

Tell him to bring a pick.

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Friday, January 25, 2008

Little Hands With Fever. Some Consequences of Poverty Death.

At an orphanage this morning, the ustad (Muslim cleric) in charge said they were taking care of 387 kids, and when I shook hands with twelve of them -- mainly little girls -- four of them clearly had fevers.

When I asked the ustad how the parents had died, he first answered "They were poor people." Asked to elaborate, he listed sickness, hunger, disaster (the tsunami), accident, and work (ie. on-the-job injury/ overwork) as being among the reasons the kids were now there, instead of in a family.

(We had just met. He prudently omitted murder, private and official).

He went on to explain that some of the kids were on loan, since one of their parents or relatives was living, but so poor that they had chosen to bring a kid or two to the orphanage -- securing them better nutrition, etc. -- until they found some money, food, or pick-up work and felt equipped to reclaim their children.

When the kids are sick, the ustad said, the orphanage takes them to the PUSKESMAS, the public health clinics for Indonesia's poor that stand in contradistinction to what poor people call "good doctors" (dokter bagus).

At a PUSKESMAS you're lucky if a. it's open b. they have real doctors, nurses or trained aides c. they dispense more than over-the-counter pain killers/ cough medicines and d. the bribe isn't too heavy.

Even if you borrow/pawn/sell something and go to a dokter bagus if you're poor you may still be in trouble, since favorite tactics include quite expensive, unnecessary X-rays and, for people with diabetes, walking into the doctor's office with a swollen foot and walking out with no foot.

One good doctor who truly studied well and wants to help the poor once told of another class of kids-on-loan: kids rented out by their families as beggars, then run by preman (street thugs with army, police or big-shot backing) and, he said, sometimes sedated to be compliant and look still more pitiable.

(All in all, though, one still encounters fewer street beggars than one does in, say, New York City. For a reason why, having to do with extended families, see posting of January 14, 2008, "Economic Indicator").

Jakarta and other cities have now made it a crime to beg, or to give.

Another shakedown excuse for Indonesia's POLRI police.

The kids in the orphanage are actually lucky.

Lucky not in comparison to a decent world, where people don't die of poverty (or, more precisely, die of a failure to move excess wealth from people who merely want it to people whose bodies need it), but lucky in comparison to life on the streets.

No mom or dad is pretty awful.

But its good to be clean, and also to have roughly 386 friends.


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Thursday, January 24, 2008

Assassination Update

The activist threatened with "a Munir" -- assassination -- by Indonesian intelligence (BIN) has, people say, arrived on foreign soil, after fleeing his native country. (See posting of January 22, 2008, "Breaking News: Indonesian Intelligence (BIN) Threatens to Kill Activist").

But he shouldn't count his chickens prematurely.

The country he's in has been known to do its own assassinations -- some of them on foreign soil -- and, as is often the case among killer rulers, has an "intelligence" relationship with Jakarta.

Its just a question of who feels politically empowered/ compelled to ask whom to do what.

And what is this man supposed to do now? Live hiding in exile away from work and family and away from his efforts to stand up to certain powers and, as he's been heard to say, "help my country, Indonesia"?

It is said that the US Embassy in Jakarta is well aware of BIN threats against activists. Some hope that the Embassy may now make "representations," an old diplomatic practice, which entails using one hand/finger to make "human rights" admonishments to the regime you're sponsoring, while using the other to hand over fresh supplies of guns, bullets, and money to the admonishees.

And even if BIN -- ie. President Susilo, the General who runs Indonesia -- decided to call the whole thing off, what precisely would they do?

Send a note to the activist's family saying 'Come home. It's OK. We've decided not to kill you'?

Such a statement might indeed be enough to lure a brave man home, but the only thing that would be enough to really guarantee his -- and others' -- safety would be to oust murderers from power and have their decisions made for them by jailers.


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Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Breaking News: Indonesian Intelligence (BIN) Threatens to Kill Activist

Last night, local time, during a ceremony celebrating democracy, one of the most noted killers in Indonesia, Col. Chairawan of BIN intelligence (Badan Intelijen Negara, State Intelligence Body), waited quietly in plainclothes.

(Chairawan, a US-trained Kopassus veteran, has been publicly implicated in disappearances, and told me in 1998 that he reported to a US Colonel, who worked for the US Defense Intelligence Agency [DIA]; see my "Our Man In Jakarta," The Nation [US], June 15, 1998).

After the dancers and speeches had finished and the guests were gone from the Aceh governor's palace, Col. Chairawan slipped in and met the governor till midnight.

As this was happening, news from Jakarta was confirming again that BIN had assassinated the famous activist, Munir, and -- unreported -- another far less famous activist was fleeing Indonesia in fear of his life.

This man had been at a pool with his wife and kids one recent Saturday when he got an urgent SMS text message, from family, saying he'd better come to Jakarta.

There he was confronted by a senior BIN man whom he, luckily, knew through family, and who informed him sternly that BIN was -- as they now say in Indonesian security -- considering "doing a Munir on him" ("akan di Munirkan").

Munir was poisoned to death with arsenic as he traveled from Jakarta to Amsterdam, vomiting to death on the plane, reaching The Netherlands as a corpse (see posting of November 13, 2007, "Vomiting to Death on a Plane. Arsenic Democracy").

(The new public news was that a BIN functionary who had paid Munir's poisoner had now fingered one of his own bosses, Gen. Muchdi. This talking BIN man, though, was unavailable for court, overseas on "state duty," and is reportedly "believed to be involved in intelligence operations in Pakistan"; see Mark Forbes, "Jakarta Spy Agency Linked to Murder," The Age [Australia], January 17, 2008.)

The summoned activist, known to be a brave man, appeared to be shaken by the death threat since it followed two things: one, a detailed -- accurate -- recital of what he'd done in previous weeks ("You go to the store, we know it"), and, two, a reminder that BIN's orders come directly from Indonesia's President, Gen. Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.

This was relevant since the activist -- not from a poor family -- has a few connections himself, but since BIN is the instrument of the country's military president, "You can't do anything," he was told.

His offenses were severalfold. He was trying to oust a BIN agent from political office (his purported right, under democracy), and he had been seen meeting with people from watch-listed regions, including West Papua (likewise, a supposed right).

He already knew that BIN men had been watching his house, coming to his workplace looking for him. He had disconnected his phones, and, at the Jakarta death-threat meeting he learned that BIN was perusing his bank accounts.

So as they danced democracy in Banda Aceh, he got some things together and fled.

Several of the countries he's said to be considering going to now boast enhanced martial ties with Jakarta.

When told about the situation, one senior elected official tried to play down the danger. His theory: if they threaten you, you're OK. "The barking dog doesn't bite," he said.

That didn't work for Munir, the receiver of many threats, but some threatened are, indeed, still living.

When you live shadowed by killers in democratic plainclothes, you just have to count your blessings -- or, secure more of them.


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Monday, January 21, 2008

Action, Motive, Distraction, and Nukes in Politics. An Interview With the Iranian Press.

The following is the text of an e-mail interview with Iranian Press TV (http://www.presstv.ir/).

(UPDATE NOTE, Jan. 29, 2008: Contrary to my insistence that this e-mail interview be published in full, if at all, Iranian Press TV published a version that cut all my criticisms of the Iranian rulers.)

Questions by Press TV. Answers by Allan Nairn.


1- Press TV (Iran) : The US troops say they have resorted to ‘precision bombing’ in Iraq. What exactly is precision bombing? Could you please elaborate?


Allan Nairn: Precision bombing is more accurate bombing that purports to kill fewer civilians. The Washington Post (January 17, 2008) paraphrases US Air Force General Gary L. North as saying that US forces in Iraq are doing precision bombing, "using 250-pound GBU-39 small-diameter bombs to make blasts safer for civilians." But in fact, precision bombing probably ultimately increases the civilian death toll because by making each bomb-drop more legitimate back home (eg. some US human rights people defend it) it increases the likelihood that there will be more bomb-drops, and even the most ardent precision bombers admit that their 250-pound weapons do kill civilians.


2- Press TV (Iran): The so-called US war on terror has turned Iraq into a graveyard. Why is it that the international community has done nothing to stop quixotic Mr Bush?


Allan Nairn: The US government bears prime responsibility for the illegal invasion of Iraq and the mass killing that that invasion helped touch off, but the government of Iran has blood on its hands as well. By backing militias that kill civilians in Iraq, the Tehran regime is also committing murder.

I wouldn't call Bush quixotic. Don Quixote was an idealist who wanted to help people, but had delusions. Bush is a cynical ruler -- like so many -- who acts above the murder laws.

Today's world is still so lawless and uncivilized that the international community tends to only stop or punish minor and/or defeated murdering powers. The US, as the biggest power, is the least constrained, but many others also get away with murder. The International Criminal Court, for example, has had to start by going after isolated killer forces like the Lord's Resistance Army of Uganda. When they recently tried to do prosecutions re. Darfur -- and Sudan is hardly a major power -- they were stopped from doing so by Russia and China, which invest in Sudan.

There are many practical reasons for the world's failure to enforce the murder laws on high officials. One is that many regular people have yet to assimilate the idea that their rulers have no more right to commit murder than they do. Another, on a political-mechanical level is the UN Security Council. The original holders of the atom bomb have veto power, so, naturally, they block UN action against themselves and their clients. A more democratic UN structure -- based on criteria other than bomb-holding -- would be a step in the right direction


3- Press TV (Iran): What do you think is the main motivation of US troops to stay on in Iraq? Is it only because they intend to expropriate the Iraqi national wealth or is there some other grand plan?


Allan Nairn: In politics, motive is almost always a secondary or tertiary question. What matters most is what you do, not why you do it. Figuring out motivation can, in theory, be useful for planning effective political action, but it is often very difficult and speculative, and the US in Iraq is an example.

The different players in the US decision to invade and stay probably had a mix of motivations. I think that primary among them was that, after Afghanistan, Bush wanted to keep the war excitement going. His father, remember, lost his reelection bid after his politically popular victory in the so-called First Gulf War, but by the time the US election came around people had already essentially forgotten about it. (It is an ancient tactic for rulers to distract their people with war or war-talk; I think Ahmadinejad blusters and provokes so much in part to distract Iran's poor from economic suffering).

So I think Bush and Cheney wanted to invade somewhere new -- they just had to decide which country -- and since the broad rationale with the US public was still 9-11 revenge it essentially had to be a Muslim country. (See the posting on my blog , News and Comment, http://www.newsc.blogspot.com/, for Thomas L. Friedman's revealing comments on this; Wednesday, November 28, 2007, "Thomas L. Friedman and the Bali Bombers. Cold-Blooded Celebrity.").

Even before the Afghan invasion the US actually considered, at the highest level, small-scale, simultaneous invasions of Yemen, Somalia, Malaysia, the Philippines (presumably the southern, Muslim, part), and Indonesia ( See Bob Woodward's Bush At War, 2002, Simon & Schuster, p. 90). It was a bizarre proposal, advanced by White House Chief of Staff Andy Card, since Malaysia, the Philippines, and Indonesia -- particularly the latter two -- were US intelligence/ military associates, and it would have been impossible to choose even remotely plausible targets for attack in either Malaysia or Indonesia. But it just goes to show that some key US officialdom was, at that moment, itching to invade some Muslims. (Over time, US attack policy is cold-blooded and ecumenical, but in that historical moment bin Laden, who was in part apparently seeking to provoke a religious war, in part, temporarily, did have some success).

Why the US chose Iraq as the target is a complex, somewhat mysterious, question, and it was obviously a very bad choice, from the US establishment point of view, and the US establishment, led by figures like Gen. Brent Scowcroft -- Bush I's old right-hand-man, has been giving Bush II grief about it ever since. In choosing to invade Iraq they discarded the formula that the establishment had successfully developed post-Vietnam: if you're going to invade, choose only weak, defenseless targets (eg. Grenada, Panama), use a minimum of US ground troops, and be sure to get them out within weeks, before domestic and international opposition builds.

One factor seems to have been that Bush and Cheney were almost willfully misinformed and deluded about Iraq. They may have thought it would be quick and easy (easy in the ruler's terms, that is -- perhaps thousands dead, but power is seized quickly and the ruler wins), though many in Washington were thinking otherwise.

I don't think oil or expropriating the Iraqui national wealth was a primary factor in the decision to invade or to stay. There were people like Wolfowitz who were saying Iraqui oil will pay for the invasion , which he claimed would be quick and easy. And there were some old-fashioned strategists who thought: lets get the Iraqui oil in order to control it.

But the US oil companies were against the invasion -- they don't like instability in the oil region, and if the Wolfowitz claim of greatly increased Iraqui oil production had come true, that would have dropped the world oil price, which they wouldn't want.

And the seize-the-oil strategists were working on assumptions from an older world. In today's world of global markets your worst enemy will sell you all the oil you want (remember, the whole point of the Bush I - Clinton sanctions against Iraq was that Saddam wanted to sell his oil on the world market, but the US wouldn't let him), at prices set by the world market. Actions like the old OPEC oil embargo would be nearly impossible today given the newer sources of production (eg., the North Sea, Russia -- which wasn't on the world market then, etc.). And the idea that the US could use seized Iraqui oil as leverage against Europe and Japan is also implausible. They could go elsewhere for supply, and the politico/economic disruption caused by such a move would likely outweigh imagined benefits. I think there are many US strategists who recognize these newer realities, so the advice coming up to Bush would have been mixed.

As it turns out, ironically, the invasion has been a boon for the oil companies, sending oil prices skyward. But thats not what they expected.

And, for the US government the invasion has been extremely costly. Whatever wealth they extract from Iraq is outweighed by the vast daily expenditure on the occupation.

I think that, as often, political, even whimsical emotional factors were paramount, not material ones. In fact, if you look back at the list of recent-era US-invaded countries they include some of the world's poorest places: Afghanistan, Haiti, Nicaragua, etc. And Vietnam was no treasure-trove.

So why do they stay in Iraq? My guess is because they're stuck there. It would be embarrassing to pull out, especially if the US-backed Iraqui regime then fell, and cynical rulers are frequently willing to keep on causing death -- even of their own people -- in order to avoid embarrassment.


4- Press TV (Iran): The US government has proved to be a threat to world peace by attacking Iraq and Afghanistan and exacting an inconceivable number of human casualties. Yet, they accuse Iran of jeopardising the security in the region. What is your opinion in this regard?


Allan Nairn: Both the US and Iran are ruled by murderers, its just that those of the US are more powerful and reach around the globe. So the US government is correct when it says Iran is a threat to security and the Iranian government is correct when it says the same re. the US (though both often lie and exaggerate about the details). Just because a person is a murderer, that doesn't mean everything they say is incorrect. Both the US and Iran should get out of Iraq militarily and stop backing foreign killer forces.


5- Press TV (Iran): Do you think there is any possibility of any US attack on Iran?


Allan Nairn: Who knows? I doubt that Bush himself has decided. But you probably can't completely rule out the possibility.

There are some in Washington openly agitating for an attack (and I suspect that Ahmadinejad and Khameni want it too), but the bulk of the US establishment is against it. They reasonably argue that it could trigger problems comparable to or worse than Iraq, but Bush isn't required to listen to them.

If it looks like Bush's party -- the US Republicans -- are heading for a bad defeat in November, 2008 -- ie. the election of a Democratic party president and Democratic House and Senate chambers with sufficient majorities to pass Democratic legislation and subpoena, investigate, and maybe even charge with corruption (charging them with murder is politically inconceivable) people from the Bush administration -- then I think Bush and Cheney could be cynical enough to consider invading some country at the last minute to salvage the election (since invasions are usually popular in their early stages).

But Iran would be a foolish target to choose. A tiny, weak, country would make more sense, by their standards. But they already made a foolish choice re. Iraq, so you never know.

I think Iran's leadership is being deeply cynical and irresponsible on the whole nuclear issue. If they are developing or keeping open the option of developing nuclear weapons they should stop. And even if they are merely developing nuclear energy, they should stop that too.

Each new nuclear weapon makes the world a more dangerous place. Nuclear deterrence theory -- developed by the US Dr. Strangeloves at MIT, the Rand Corporation, the Hudson Institute, and elsewhere -- says that having the bomb discourages other countries from attacking you, and though that is probably true in the short-term, micro sense, over time as the weapons build up and proliferate it becomes all but inevitable that control, discipline, and/or rational calculation will at some point fail (it almost happened in the Cuban Missile Crisis, back when only a few countries had the bomb) and nuclear bombs will start going off, including in countries that ostensibly were merely seeking protection.

Nuclear energy is also a bad idea. Iran's leadership is foolish -- or worse -- to follow in the footsteps of countries like the US -- and , especially, France -- which have developed complexes of nuclear plants that generate endless, eternal, toxic byproducts, expose citizens to the risk of catastrophic accident (see Chernobyl, Three Mile Island), to the risk of catastrophic military or terrorist attack (you're voluntarily, stupidly, creating devastating targets for your enemies to hit), which require totalitarian levels of security and secrecy that have a bad effect on politics, and that make energy production still more dependent on vast infusions of concentrated capital, often foreign.

If the reports that say Iran is doing nuclear energy for prestige are true, that is a pathetic reason. It would seem far better for the people and perhaps, in the long run, maybe even more prestigious, to invest the country's brainpower in developing safer, more rational alternative energy sources, especially since given oil prices and geological oil supply questions there's a fast-rising world market demand for such alternative technologies. How would Iran look -- and profit -- if it made breakthroughs in solar energy?

Even on a more mundane, immediate level, if Iran wants to address energy problems, it would seem to economically make more sense to address its gasoline refining bottlenecks rather than wastefully and dangerously diving into the nuclear morass.

But, of course, if Iran did that it would make it harder for Bush and Ahmadinejad to trade bluster, and that would be less fun for both rulers, though better for both peoples.

(Parenthetically, its worth noting that though the US still has a lot of nuclear energy, US nuclear plant expansion was essentially stopped in the 1970s [and has only recently started to revive] in part by a US popular movement that included mass demonstrations against government and corporate policy. Such freedom of speech and assembly [though some are now trying to cut it back] is a very good aspect of the current US system -- hard-won by centuries of popular struggle. I think Iranians will be better off when they succeed in winning similar rights, and Americans will be better off when they start using theirs more again.)
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