Year: 2009

Kala Dera, in Rajasthan, was declared a drought area by the Indian Government in September, following this year’s failed monsoons. But the situation has been worsened by Coca-Cola’s operations in the region. Their controversial bottling plant draws on the same groundwater sources as those used by the local community and farmers, with recent data revealing that groundwater levels plummeted by 5.83 meters in just one year between May 2007 and May 2008 – a huge drop never before witnessed in Kala Dera. Coca-Cola’s use of the groundwater reaches its peak in the summer months, exactly when water shortages in the community are at their worst.

‘The Coca-Cola Company is denying our fundamental human right to water by continuing to extract groundwater from a rapidly falling aquifer. Every drop of water that Coca-Cola extracts is water taken away from the children, women and men who are unable to meet their basic water needs, leave alone the farmers who are seeing their crops fail,’ explains Mahesh Yogi of the Kala Dera Sangharsh Samiti, a local community group that has been opposing the plant since 2002. ‘Coca-Cola has contributed significantly to the falling water tables and they must shut down and leave Kala Dera.’

Last year a Coca-Cola-funded study confirmed the concerns being raised by the community, showing that the company was a significant contributor to the water crisis. But Coke has refused to follow the study’s recommendations: to relocate the plant or bring in water from outside the area to meet its needs.

NewInt for more

In “the not-too-distant” future, where genetic engineering of humans is common and DNA plays the primary role in determining social class, Vincent (Ethan Hawke) is conceived and born without the aid of this technology. Suffering from the nearly eradicated physical dysfunctions of myopia and a congenital heart defect, as well as being given a life expectancy of 30.2 years, Vincent faces extreme genetic discrimination and prejudice. The only way he can achieve his life-long dream of becoming an astronaut is to break the law and impersonate a “valid”, a person with appropriate genetic advantage.[4]

He assumes the identity of Jerome Eugene Morrow (Jude Law), a former swimming star who, despite a genetic profile “second to none”, won only a silver medal in a high-profile competition. He then attempted to commit suicide by jumping in front of a car, but again fell short of his goal in that he only succeeded in paralyzing himself from the waist down. However, as the incident occurred outside the country, no one knows of his newly acquired disability. Thus, Vincent can “buy” his identity with no one the wiser. Though he requires orthopedic surgery to increase his height, persistant practice to favor his right hand instead of his left, and contact lenses to replace his glasses while matching Jerome’s eyes, he can use his “valid” DNA in blood, tissue and urine samples to pass any genetic test – as long as he takes extreme measures to leave no traces of his identity as an “in-valid”. But, where he was once an object of scorn and pity, he is now a perpetrator of an unspeakable fraud. Legally, exposure would only subject him to fines, but socially the consequences would be far more extreme – he is now a heretic against the new order of genetic determinism. Vincent is now a “borrowed ladder” (a reference to the ladder structure of an un-coiled DNA strand) or in harsher language, a de-gene-erate.

With Jerome’s impressive genetic profile he easily gains access to the Gattaca Aerospace Corporation (his interview consists entirely of a urine test), the most prestigious space-flight conglomerate of the day. With his own equally impressive determination, he quickly becomes the company’s ace celestial navigator. But a week before Vincent is scheduled to leave for Saturn’s moon Titan, the mission director is murdered, and evidence of Vincent’s own “in-valid” DNA is found in the building in the form of an eyelash. The presence of this unexpected DNA attracts the attention of the police, and Vincent must evade ever-increasing security as his mission launch date approaches and he pursues a relationship with his co-worker Irene Cassini (Uma Thurman).

After numerous close calls, the investigation eventually comes to a close as Director Josef (Gore Vidal) is arrested for the murder by the lead detective covering the investigation (Alan Arkin). The Director reveals that he murdered the mission director in order to buy time for the mission to launch, because the window of opportunity for the launch is only open once every seventy years, and that it is now too late to stop the launch. However, just as Vincent appears to be in the clear, he is confronted by one of the detectives, who is revealed as Vincent’s estranged brother, Anton (Loren Dean). Anton tries to convince Vincent to go with him for protection before Vincent is found out. However, it soon becomes apparent that Anton is acting more out of insecurity and is more concerned with how Vincent had managed to get the better of him, despite his supposed genetic superiority. Vincent and Anton settle their competition as they did when they were children, by seeing who could swim out into the ocean farthest. As he did once before when they were young, Vincent manages to beat his brother, and, once again, saves him from drowning. This is simply because he refused to save any strength to swim back – he is willing to risk everything to succeed. Conversely his brother worried about preserving enough strength to swim out and return again, and these fears kept him from testing his true limits.

IMDB for more

Gattaca – Memorable Lines

March 29, 2006 By Maria Paez Victor

[A talk prepared for the “Walter Gordon/Massey Symposium”, Toronto March 15, 2006]

Throughout most of its history, there has been very little interest in North America about Venezuela except as a supplier of oil. With the election of Hugo Chávez in 1999, all this changed. He ushered in the Bolivarian Revolution, founded on ideas expounded in the 19th Century by Simón Bolívar, the great The Liberator of Venezuela, Colombia, Bolivia, Ecuador and Períº. Its basic principles are: that natural resources are for the benefit of all citizens, the state is guardian and promoter of civic and social human rights, and the citizens are fundamental protagonists in political life. Its foreign policy is based on Latin American and Caribbean integration and solidarity. With the Bolivarian Revolution, Venezuela has become the most exciting, innovative, and progressive developing country in the world.

What is the context of Venezuela’s Bolivarian Revolution? Why is Mr. Danger so opposed? What has been the role of the Venezuelan elites? What has the Chávez Government achieved? And, is there a cautionary tale for all democracies?

What is the context of Venezuela’s Bolivarian Revolution?

On June 1, 2002 in a speech at West Point, US President George Bush made an unprecedented assertion that the US has the right to overthrow any government in the world that is seen as a threat to its security. (1)

This may have been startling news to the world including Canada, but not to Latin Americans. Since 1846 the United States has carried out no fewer than 50 military invasions and destabilizing operations involving 12 different Latin American countries.(2)Yet, none of these countries has ever had the capacity to threaten US security in any significant way. (3)The US intervened because of perceived threats to its economic control and expansion. For this reason it has also supported some of the region’s most vicious dictators such as Batista, Somoza, Trujillo, and Pinochet. (4)

To this scenario, President Bush’s administration has added unprecedented militarization (5)plus arrogant political interference that surpasses historical precedents. Never has US – Latin America relations been more abysmal. As one analyst has stated, “Only under Bush has Latin America found itself as estranged from the US as it is today, a result of Bush’s… shrill regional policy which has brought alienation to unprecedented heights.” (6)

The Bush administration does not accept the democratically expressed will of the Venezuelan people. They have clearly chosen President Hugo Chávez and his government in nine free, transparent and internationally observed elections and referenda, during the seven years since he was first elected. President Bush supported the 2002 bloody coup against the government of President Chávez, financed and supported a devastating oil lockout that cost the country $14 billion in export revenues and numerous opposition maneuvers, disturbances and a recall referendum. (7)And they continue to finance the opposition there. (8)

Recently, his administration has stepped up its aggressive stance against Venezuelan democracy. US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has compared President Chávez with Hitler (9) and US Director for National Intelligence John Negroponte stated that Venezuela is the main security challenge in this Hemisphere (10).US Secretary of State Condolezza Rice told a Senate committee last February 16th that Venezuela is “a particular danger to the region” and that she is “working with others to try and make certain that there is a kind of united front ” against Venezuela. (11)To this President Chávez has responded by saying; “Mister Danger, you form your front and we will form ours.”

Why is Mr. Danger so opposed?

The main reason behind President Bush’s aggression towards this small country that has minimal armed capacity is quite obvious: oil. The United States has become increasingly dependent on oil imports and feels that its security is threatened. Venezuela is the 5th largest oil exporting country in the world and is sitting on the largest oil reserves in the hemisphere and perhaps, of the world. (12).It supplies the US with 1.2 million barrels daily; supply that has not been in any danger of stopping – until President Bush came along. Indeed, it has been a very convenient trading arrangement for both countries. The insecurity of the United States, real or imagined, has lead it into invasions and armed conflict in the Middle East to shore up its supply of oil. (13)Given the rhetoric and actions of its leaders, is it any wonder that President Chávez should question the intentions of the United States towards him and his government?

There is also another reason for the Bush administration’s aggressive stance towards Venezuela. President Chávez has made possible a new political and economic reality in his country that directly challenges globalization and neo-conservative policies (or neo-liberal as they are referred to in Latin America) pushed by the IMF, the World Bank, the WTO, and the profit drive of multinational corporations. The so-called Washington Consensus consisting of privatization of public services, deregulation, lifting of tariffs, unrestricted investment flows and free access of large corporations to public contracts and domestic markets, were measures foisted onto Latin American government by making them conditions of international loans and even by threats. (14)

ZMag for more

By Josh Kron, 7 December 2009

As the rape and death toll mount in military offensives against Hutu rebels in eastern Congo, a key leader of the military campaign is forming his own paramilitary group, the United Nations has said.

Nearly a year after being installed in a senior position in the Congolese armed forces, former rebel-general Bosco Ntaganda has teamed up with the Front for the Liberation and Emancipation of the Congo (FLEC).

The group is consolidating control over regions of eastern Congo, particularly Masisi territory in North Kivu province.

Unlike some other rebel groups in the Congo — including Ntaganda’s Tutsi-led National Congress for the People’s Defence (CNDP) who wreaked havoc in the country last year — FLEC does not appear to be built along ethnic lines.

It remains unclear whether FLEC will be an insurgency or just a way to make more money, but it is the latest sign that the CNDP is breaking up, and that Congo’s army is unravelling in its yearlong war against Rwandan Hutu rebels.

Dissatisfied elements

“It appears to incorporate other dissatisfied elements associated with some Mai-Mai armed groups,” said spokesperson Jean-Paul Dietrich.

“According to local sources, FLEC was established because of the reported refusal of pro-Nkunda elements and the former political leadership of the party to associate CNDP with the reported Coalition pour la protection et la promotion du Congo (CPPC).”

Ntaganda, who became military commander of the CNDP at the beginning of the year when its charismatic leader Laurent Nkunda was arrested by Rwanda, was supposed to lead the group into integration with the Congolese national army, along with an assortment of rebel groups and splinter factions.

In the United Nations-backed offensive against the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda — Hutu rebels accused of orchestrating the 1994 Rwandan genocide — Ntaganda is accused of playing a senior role.

In South Kivu, where the bulk of the fighting is focused, Ntaganda’s CNDP lieutenants are doing the finding and the killing.

But now, he and other CNDP officers are spending their time organising FLEC.

They already control some of North Kivu’s most fertile areas, including large swathes of Masisi territory.

“The people are forced to pay exorbitant taxes,” said the United Nations this week. “Officials justify them by the need to assist the war-wounded ex-CNDP.”

All Africa for more

December 9th, 2009
by William Blum
www.killinghope.org

Yeswecanistan

All the crying from the left about how Obama “the peace candidate” has now become “a war president” … Whatever are they talking about? Here’s what I wrote in this report in August 2008, during the election campaign:

We find Obama threatening, several times, to attack Iran if they don’t do what the United States wants them to do nuclear-wise; threatening more than once to attack Pakistan if their anti-terrorist policies are not tough enough or if there would be a regime change in the nuclear-armed country not to his liking; calling for a large increase in US troops and tougher policies for Afghanistan; wholly and unequivocally embracing Israel as if it were the 51st state.

Why should anyone be surprised at Obama’s foreign policy in the White House? He has not even banned torture, contrary to what his supporters would fervently have us believe. If further evidence were needed, we have the November 28 report in the Washington Post: “Two Afghan teenagers held in U.S. detention north of Kabul this year said they were beaten by American guards, photographed naked, deprived of sleep and held in solitary confinement in concrete cells for at least two weeks while undergoing daily interrogation about their alleged links to the Taliban.” This is but the latest example of the continuance of torture under the new administration.

But the shortcomings of Barack Obama and the naiveté of his fans is not the important issue. The important issue is the continuation and escalation of the American war in Afghanistan, based on the myth that the individuals we label “Taliban” are indistinguishable from those who attacked the United States on September 11, 2001, whom we usually label “al Qaeda”. “I am convinced,” the president said in his speech at the United States Military Academy (West Point) on December 1, “that our security is at stake in Afghanistan and Pakistan. This is the epicenter of violent extremism practiced by al Qaeda. It is from here that we were attacked on 9/11, and it is from here that new attacks are being plotted as I speak.”

Obama used one form or another of the word “extremist” eleven times in his half-hour talk. Young, impressionable minds must be carefully taught; a future generation of military leaders who will command America’s never-ending wars must have no doubts that the bad guys are “extremists”, that “extremists” are by definition bad guys, that “extremists” are beyond the pale and do not act from human, rational motivation like we do, that we — quintessential non-extremists, peace-loving moderates — are the good guys, forced into one war after another against our will. Sending robotic death machines flying over Afghanistan and Pakistan to drop powerful bombs on the top of wedding parties, funerals, and homes is of course not extremist behavior for human beings.

And the bad guys attacked the US “from here”, Afghanistan. That’s why the United States is “there”, Afghanistan. But in fact the 9-11 attack was planned in Germany, Spain and the United States as much as in Afghanistan. It could have been planned in a single small room in Panama City, Taiwan, or Bucharest. What is needed to plot to buy airline tickets and take flying lessons in the United States? And the attack was carried out entirely in the United States. But Barack Obama has to maintain the fiction that Afghanistan was, and is, vital and indispensable to any attack on the United States, past or future. That gives him the right to occupy the country and kill the citizens as he sees fit. Robert Baer, former CIA officer with long involvement in that part of the world has noted: “The people that want their country liberated from the West have nothing to do with Al Qaeda. They simply want us gone because we’re foreigners, and they’re rallying behind the Taliban because the Taliban are experienced, effective fighters.” ¹

The pretenses extend further. US leaders have fed the public a certain image of the insurgents (all labeled together under the name “Taliban”) and of the conflict to cover the true imperialistic motivation behind the war. The predominant image at the headlines/TV news level and beyond is that of the Taliban as an implacable and monolithic “enemy” which must be militarily defeated at all costs for America’s security, with a negotiated settlement or compromise not being an option. However, consider the following which have been reported at various times during the past two years about the actual behavior of the United States and its allies in Afghanistan vis-à-vis the Taliban, which can raise questions about Obama’s latest escalation: ²

The US military in Afghanistan has long been considering paying Taliban fighters who renounce violence against the government in Kabul, as the United States has done with Iraqi insurgents.

President Obama has floated the idea of negotiating with moderate elements of the Taliban. ³

US envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, said last month that the United States would support any role Saudi Arabia chose to pursue in trying to engage Taliban officials. ⁴

Canadian troops are reaching out to the Taliban in various ways.

A top European Union official and a United Nations staff member were ordered by the Kabul government to leave the country after allegations that they had met Taliban insurgents without the administration’s knowledge. And two senior diplomats for the United Nations were expelled from the country, accused by the Afghan government of unauthorized dealings with insurgents. However, the Afghanistan government itself has had a series of secret talks with “moderate Taliban” since 2003 and President Hamid Karzai has called for peace talks with Taliban leader Mohammed Omar.

Organizations like the International Committee of the Red Cross as well as the United Nations have become increasingly open about their contacts with the Taliban leadership and other insurgent groups.

Gestures of openness are common practice among some of Washington’s allies in Afghanistan, notably the Dutch, who make negotiating with the Taliban an explicit part of their military policy.

The German government is officially against negotiations, but some members of the governing coalition have suggested Berlin host talks with the Taliban.

MI-6, Britain’s external security service, has held secret talks with the Taliban up to half a dozen times. At the local level, the British cut a deal, appointing a former Taliban leader as a district chief in Helmand province in exchange for security guarantees.

Senior British officers involved with the Afghan mission have confirmed that direct contact with the Taliban has led to insurgents changing sides as well as rivals in the Taliban movement providing intelligence which has led to leaders being killed or captured.

British authorities hold that there are distinct differences between different “tiers” of the Taliban and that it is essential to try to separate the doctrinaire extremists from others who are fighting for money or because they resent the presence of foreign forces in their country.

British contacts with the Taliban have occurred despite British Prime Minister Gordon Brown publicly ruling out such talks; on one occasion he told the House of Commons: “We will not enter into any negotiations with these people.”

For months there have been repeated reports of “good Taliban” forces being airlifted by Western helicopters from one part of Afghanistan to another to protect them from Afghan or Pakistani military forces. At an October 11 news conference in Kabul, President Hamid Karzai himself claimed that “some unidentified helicopters dropped armed men in the northern provinces at night.” ⁵

On November 2, IslamOnline.net (Qatar) reported: “The emboldened Taliban movement in Afghanistan turned down an American offer of power-sharing in exchange for accepting the presence of foreign troops, Afghan government sources confirmed. ‘US negotiators had offered the Taliban leadership through Mullah Wakil Ahmed Mutawakkil (former Taliban foreign minister) that if they accept the presence of NATO troops in Afghanistan, they would be given the governorship of six provinces in the south and northeast … America wants eight army and air force bases in different parts of Afghanistan in order to tackle the possible regrouping of [the] Al-Qaeda network,’ a senior Afghan Foreign Ministry official told IslamOnline.net.” ⁶

There has been no confirmation of this from American officials, but the New York Times on October 28 listed six provinces that were being considered to receive priority protection from the US military, five which are amongst the eight mentioned in the IslamOnline report as being planned for US military bases, although no mention is made in the Times of the above-mentioned offer. The next day, Asia Times reported: “The United States has withdrawn its troops from its four key bases in Nuristan [or Nooristan], on the border with Pakistan, leaving the northeastern province as a safe haven for the Taliban-led insurgency to orchestrate its regional battles.” Nuristan, where earlier in the month eight US soldiers were killed and three Apache helicopters hit by hostile fire, is one of the six provinces offered to the Taliban as reported in the IslamOnline.net story.

The part about al-Qaeda is ambiguous and questionable, not only because the term has long been loosely used as a catch-all for any group or individual in opposition to US foreign policy in this part of the world, but also because the president’s own national security adviser, former Marine Gen. James Jones, stated in early October: “I don’t foresee the return of the Taliban. Afghanistan is not in imminent danger of falling. The al-Qaeda presence is very diminished. The maximum estimate is less than 100 operating in the country, no bases, no ability to launch attacks on either us or our allies.” ⁷

Shortly after Jones’s remarks, we could read in the Wall Street Journal: “Hunted by U.S. drones, beset by money problems and finding it tougher to lure young Arabs to the bleak mountains of Pakistan, al-Qaida is seeing its role shrink there and in Afghanistan, according to intelligence reports and Pakistan and U.S. officials. … For Arab youths who are al-Qaida’s primary recruits, ‘it’s not romantic to be cold and hungry and hiding,’ said a senior U.S. official in South Asia.” ⁸

From all of the above is it not reasonable to conclude that the United States is willing and able to live with the Taliban, as repulsive as their social philosophy is? Perhaps even a Taliban state which would go across the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, which has been talked about in some quarters. What then is Washington fighting for? What moves the president of the United States to sacrifice so much American blood and treasure? In past years, US leaders have spoken of bringing democracy to Afghanistan, liberating Afghan women, or modernizing a backward country. President Obama made no mention of any of these previous supposed vital goals in his December 1 speech. He spoke only of the attacks of September 11, al Qaeda, the Taliban, terrorists, extremists, and such, symbols guaranteed to fire up an American audience. Yet, the president himself declared at one point: “Al Qaeda has not reemerged in Afghanistan in the same numbers as before 9/11, but they retain their safe havens along the border.” Ah yes, the terrorist danger … always, everywhere, forever, particularly when it seems the weakest.

How many of the West Point cadets, how many Americans, give thought to the fact that Afghanistan is surrounded by the immense oil reserves of the Persian Gulf and Caspian Sea regions? Or that Afghanistan is ideally situated for oil and gas pipelines to serve much of Europe and south Asia, lines that can deliberately bypass non-allies of the empire, Iran and Russia? If only the Taliban will not attack the lines. “One of our goals is to stabilize Afghanistan, so it can become a conduit and a hub between South and Central Asia so that energy can flow to the south …”, said Richard Boucher, Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs in 2007. ⁹

Afghanistan would also serve as the home of American military bases, the better to watch and pressure next-door Iran and the rest of Eurasia. And NATO … struggling to find a raison d’être since the end of the Cold War. If the alliance is forced to pull out of Afghanistan without clear accomplishments after eight years will its future be even more in doubt?

So, for the present at least, the American War on Terror in Afghanistan continues and regularly and routinely creates new anti-American terrorists, as it has done in Iraq. This is not in dispute even at the Pentagon or the CIA. God Bless America.

Although the “surge” failed as policy, it succeeded as propaganda.

They don’t always use the word “surge”, but that’s what they mean. Our admirable leaders and our mainstream media that love to interview them would like us to believe that escalation of the war in Afghanistan is in effect a “surge”, like the one in Iraq which, they believe, has proven so successful. But the reality of the surge in Iraq was nothing like its promotional campaign. To the extent that there has been a reduction in violence in Iraq (now down to a level that virtually any other society in the world would find horrible and intolerable, including Iraqi society before the US invasion and occupation), we must keep in mind the following summary of how and why it “succeeded”:

• Thanks to America’s lovely little war, there are many millions Iraqis either dead, wounded, crippled, homebound or otherwise physically limited, internally displaced, in foreign exile, or in bursting American and Iraqi prisons. Many others have been so traumatized that they are concerned simply for their own survival. Thus, a huge number of potential victims and killers has been markedly reduced.
• Extensive ethnic cleansing has taken place: Sunnis and Shiites are now living much more than before in their own special enclaves, with entire neighborhoods surrounded by high concrete walls and strict security checkpoints; violence of the sectarian type has accordingly gone down.
• In the face of numerous “improvised explosive devices” on the roads, US soldiers venture out a lot less, so the violence against them has been sharply down. It should be kept in mind that insurgent attacks on American forces following the invasion of 2003 is how the Iraqi violence all began in the first place.
• For a long period, the US military was paying insurgents (or “former insurgents”) to not attack occupation forces.
• The powerful Shiite leader Muqtada al-Sadr declared a unilateral cease-fire for his militia, including attacks against US troops, that was in effect for an extended period; this was totally unconnected to the surge.

We should never forget that Iraqi society has been destroyed. The people of that unhappy land have lost everything — their homes, their schools, their neighborhoods, their mosques, their jobs, their careers, their professionals, their health care, their legal system, their women’s rights, their religious tolerance, their security, their friends, their families, their past, their present, their future, their lives. But they do have their surge.

The War against Everything and Everyone, Endlessly

Nidal Malik Hasan, the US Army psychiatrist who killed 13 and wounded some 30 at Fort Hood, Texas in November reportedly regards the US War on Terror as a war aimed at Muslims. He told colleagues that “the US was battling not against security threats in Iraq and Afghanistan, but Islam itself.” ¹⁰ Hasan had long been in close contact with Anwar al-Awlaki, a US-born cleric and al Qaeda sympathizer now living in Yemen, who also called the US War on Terror a “war against Muslims”. Many, probably most, Muslims all over the world hold a similar view about American foreign policy.

I believe they’re mistaken. For many years, going back to at least the Korean war, it’s been fairly common for accusations to be made by activists opposed to US policies, in the United States and abroad, as well as by Muslims, that the United States chooses as its bombing targets only people of color, those of the Third World, or Muslims. But it must be remembered that in 1999 one of the most sustained and ferocious American bombing campaigns ever — 78 days in a row — was carried out against the Serbs of the former Yugoslavia: white, European, Christians. Indeed, we were told that the bombing was to rescue the people of Kosovo, who are largely Muslim. Earlier, the United States had come to the aid of the Muslims of Bosnia in their struggle against the Serbs. The United States is in fact an equal-opportunity bomber. The only qualifications for a country to become an American bombing target appear to be: (a) It poses a sufficient obstacle — real, imagined, or, as with Serbia, ideological — to the desires of the empire; (b) It is virtually defenseless against aerial attack.

Notes

1. Video on Information Clearinghouse ^?
2. For the news items which follow if not otherwise sourced, see:
   • The Independent (London), December 14, 2007
   • Daily Telegraph (UK) December 26, 2007
   • The Globe and Mail (Toronto) May 1, 2008
   • BBC News, October 28, 2009 ^?
3. New York Times, March 11, 2009 ^?
4. Kuwait News Agency, November 24, 2009 ^?
5. Pakistan Observer (Islamabad daily), October 19, 2009; The Jamestown Foundation (conservative Washington, DC think tank), “Karzai claims mystery helicopters ferrying Taliban to north Afghanistan”, November 6, 2009; Institute for War and Peace Reporting (London), “Helicopter rumour refuses to die”, October 26, 2009 ^?
6. IslamOnline, “US Offers Taliban 6 Provinces for 8 Bases“, November 2, 2009^?
7. Washington Times, October 5, 2009, from a CNN interview ^?
8. Wall Street Journal, October 13, 2009 ^?
9. Talk at the Paul H. Nitze School for Advanced International Studies, Washington, DC, September 20, 2007. ^?
10. Christian Science Monitor, November 17, 2009 ^?

–

William Blum is the author of:

• Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions Since World War 2
• Rogue State: A Guide to the World’s Only Superpower
• West-Bloc Dissident: A Cold War Memoir
• Freeing the World to Death: Essays on the American Empire

Portions of the books can be read, and signed copies purchased, at www.killinghope.org

Previous Anti-Empire Reports can be read at this website.

To add yourself to this mailing list simply send an email to bblum6 [at] aol.com with “add” in the subject line. I’d like your name and city in the message, but that’s optional. I ask for your city only in case I’ll be speaking in your area.

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Any part of this report may be disseminated without permission. I’d appreciate it if the website were mentioned.

Two-years after she was beaten and raped by eight men, fourteen-year-old Samiya has yet to see justice.

Her story stands in contrast to Western claims that the lot of women in Afghanistan has improved since the US-led invasion.

Seven of the eight men who attacked Samiya were arrested, but her family believes their daughter’s rapists have powerful connections and are looking for revenge.

Samiya and he family live in fear and her father, whose story Al Jazeera reported on two years ago, has been imprisoned by a local leader after he sought justice for his daughter.

‘Nobody cares’

Eight years after the US-led invasion that was supposed to liberate Afghanistan, women are still living without the most basic rights, vulnerable to abuse and often deprived of education.

“Nobody cares about women,” Fatana Gailini, the chairperson of Afghanistan’s women’s council, told Al Jazeera.

“People are not well-educated about how to go to the police, or the courts [to report abuse]. The government is full of corruption. We need strong political and economic support in Afghanistan.”

She warned a lack of funds was threatening charities for women and called for greater support from the government and donors.

“So much money came to Afghanistan in the last five years, but there hasn’t been a positive change to women’s lives. We hope the new cabinet coming in will change that,” she said.

Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president who won re-election in November, is expected to announce his cabinet line up in the next few days.

Al-Jazeera for more

Submitted by Bay Area Solidarity on December 5, 2009 – 1:27pm.

This was released as a leaflet by the Oakland branch of Solidarity.
The Democratic health care bills are a massive bailout of the private health insurance industry. They are convoluted and complicated. They should be DEFEATED.

What happened?
1. They took single-payer completely off the table. ( Senator Baucus sought testimony from 41 ‘experts’ , not one of whom was a single-payer advocate.) Then they strung single-payer advocates along by allowing the Kucinich amendment (for state single-payer plans) and the Weiner amendment (for a complete replacement of the bill with a single-payer proposal) to linger in Congress until Kucinich and Weiner were pressured to drop their amendments.
2. They negotiated with the big hospital and pharmaceutical firms as well as the insurance industry, to craft ‘acceptable’ health care language.
3. They contually weakened the bills while seeking to appease the Republicans, in order to create a ‘bipartisan’ proposal. But they never got any Republican support.
4. The 2000 page bill is beyond comprehension and feeds paranoia about the governmental role in health insurance. HR 676, the main single-payer proposal, is about 30 pages-it is simple and it covers EVERYONE.
5. Proposing taxation of higher-cost (and more comprehensive) coverage has also helped feed the right populist frenzy and now even leads some pro-Obama unioins to oppose key features of the bill.
6. They limited the expected cost of these bills, which raised fears of healthcare rationing.
7. The core proposal is to make it mandatory for larger employers to offer health insurance and for people to buy health insurance (with some subsidies for lower-income people). This approach has already failed in Massachusetts.
8. They capitulated to anti-choice forces, both within and outside the Democratic Party, with language that would be the most restrictive ever regarding access to abortion services. In addition, non-citizens would be excluded, furthere undermining universality.
To summarize, the Democratic party leadership created a proposal which will further empower and enrich the insurance corporations and make a future fight for quality, equitable, universal health care that much harder.

As Dr.Marcia Angell, former editor-in-chief of the New England Journal of Medicine, has stated: “Is the House bill better than nothing? I don’t think so. It simply throws more money into a dysfunctional and unsustainable system, with only a few improvements on the edges, and it augments the central role of the investor-owned insurance industry. The danger is that as costs continue to rise and coverage becomes less comprehensive, people will conclude that we’ve tried health care reform and it didn’t work. But the real problem will be that we didn’t try it. I would rather see us do nothing now, and have a better chance of trying again later and then doing it right.”

We must contact not only our Congressional representatives, but other political, labor, community and faith-based organizations and leaders, as well as the press, and send a clear message.

“Reject this Insurance Industry Bailout! Defeat the Democrats’ Health Care Bills”

Solidarity for more

By Kevin Zeese 03 December, 2009 Countercurrents.org

If I ever get cancer, I want Barack Obama to tell me I’m dying. He could probably convince someone like me who does not believe in the supernatural that death is life.

He certainly did his best on Tuesday night to convince the American public that war means peace, and escalation means withdrawal.

President Obama is not President Bush. He is a much more effective and eloquent advocate for American militarism who makes his case in ways that will challenge people who oppose war. He does not seek to merely energize his base, as President Bush did, but more to nullify and confuse it, something he is not only doing on war but on health care, banking, climate change . . . seemingly every issue he touches.

In his new Afghanistan war plan he tried to give everyone something. He gave General McChrystal and the war hawks what they want – tens of thousands of more troops. He gave the majority of Americans who oppose the war what they want – a promise, however vague, to begin withdrawal in 18 months. He told Pakistan that the U.S. will be there for them and escalated the war in Pakistan without clearly saying so. He gave the corrupt President Karzai the protection he needs to stay in office. Everybody’s happy, right?

Well, not exactly. In fact, promising all things to all people seems likely to make no one happy. But, it may confuse people enough so that Obama gets the war funding he needs to escalate the wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

From the perspective of a peace voter, I can say, I’m not happy. It makes no sense to send more troops to Afghanistan. U.S. intelligence estimates that there are 100 al Qaeda left in Afghanistan. Do we need 100,000 troops to defeat them? Obama is concerned about the momentum of the Taliban. Aren’t more air strikes, killings of civilians and a larger presence of U.S. forces going to be a recruiting tool for the Taliban? And, with more than 10% unemployment, nearly 20% underemployment, record foreclosures, rising bankruptcies and record debt – how does it make economic sense to borrow more money to pay the $1 million per troop cost of escalation? Wouldn’t it be better to come home, America?

As to the promise to begin withdrawing troops in 18 months, this was the only thing different from what President Bush would have done in Afghanistan. It is consistent with Obama’s style of trying to give all sides something and he coupled it with the escalation:
“And, as Commander-in-Chief, I have determined that it is in our vital national interest to send an additional 30,000 U.S. troops to Afghanistan. After 18 months, our troops will begin to come home.”

No doubt the unpopularity of the Afghanistan War and people persistently pushing Congress to end the war made Obama include the withdrawal plan. But, he did not provide any details and only discussed beginning the withdrawal not completing the withdrawal. And, he made it clear that things could change depending on the situation saying “we will execute this transition responsibly, taking into account conditions on the ground.” Does that mean if the escalation is failing that the troops will stay? Or, does that mean if the escalation is succeeding the troops will stay?

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By Yi Xianrong

China should learn lessons from the Dubai crisis and take concrete measures to prevent a similar crisis from happening in its speculation-ridden real estate sector, which could undermine the national economy.

The announcement by the Dubai government of the United Arab Emirates last week that it was seeking a rescheduling on debt owed by Dubai World, the emirate’s flagship conglomerate, and its real estate subsidiary Nakheel, threw the global financial markets into panic. Worldwide, foreign exchange, gold and stock prices suffered a drastic drop upon the announcement of the news.

The debt crisis in the oil-rich Arab country that has witnessed stunning real estate development in recent years has triggered widespread concern over the magnitude of the negative impact it will have on the global financial markets and on the fledgling recovery in the world economy. Unlike the US mortgage crisis, which was triggered by the bursting of the property bubble and whose negative impact led to the collapse of the US financial system and extended to the world’s real economy, the Dubai crisis is more about a credit dealing between borrowers and lenders. Defaults or credit violations will mainly cause losses to creditors alone and risks are not expected to extend to the whole financial market. Due to its comparatively smaller scale and confinement to the region, the Dubai crisis is expected to end soon with the assistance of other countries and will not cause much ripples across the global financial markets, in particular after the government of the United Arab Emirates pledged to lend money to the banks operating in Dubai.

According to predictions by some analysts, the market is going to digest the negative impact engendered by Dubai World quickly. The underlying reason why a crisis of such relatively smaller magnitude caused such a panic across the world financial markets should be attributed to fragile investor confidence in the wake of the outbreak of the global financial tsunami. Severely battered by the unprecedented global financial crisis in decades, any financial ripples plunge investors into fear and force them to flee the market for capital security. Also, the quick and timely dissemination of information in a well-developed information society has contributed much to stoke up investors’ fears over any negative news.

As the world’s third-largest economy that has expanded overseas investment in recent years, China is greatly concerned over the negative effects the Dubai crisis might have on its economy.

China Daily for more

The Brazilian government has once again reiterated its position of not recognizing the new president of Honduras who was just chosen this past Sunday in a popular election in that country. The Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva administration has also stated that Manuel Zelaya, the ousted president, can stay in the Brazilian embassy in Tegucigalpa the time he deems necessary.

“The elections have no legitimacy, I don’t see why Brazil should recognize a procedure that wasn’t legitimate,” announced Brazil’s Foreign Affairs minister, Celso Amorim, after keeping silence since the weekend.

Brazil has cut off its relations with Honduras on June 28, the day a coup d’état overthrew Zelaya putting Roberto Micheletti in his place. While not accepting the new regime the Lula administration kept its embassy in Tegucigalpa and the new Honduras government continued to respect it as if relations still existed between both countries.
Brazil had demanded that Zelaya be restored to power before Sunday elections which gave victory to Porfirio Lobo.

The Organization of American States (OAS) is expected to announce this Friday their position on the Honduras election and also on the decision by the Honduran National Congress to reject Zelaya’s return to the presidency.

According to Brazilian negotiators, the decision taken Wednesday by Congress – 111 house representatives were favorable to Zelaya’s ousting while 14 voted for his return – will shape the discussions.
Brazil argues that there was an agreement signed in October in which Zelaya was promised to get the presidency back. The accord, however, had to be approved by Congress, which rejected it now.

Honduras’ Congress overwhelmingly voted Wednesday against the reinstatement of ousted President Manuel Zelaya, a move that closes the door on his return to power after he was toppled in a June coup.
The congressional vote was part of a United States-OAS (Organization of American States) brokered deal between the deposed leader and the country’s de-facto government that took over following the coup land headed by Roberto Micheletti.

A majority of the 126 members of Congress in session voted against Zelaya’s return to power, throwing his future into question. Zelaya has been holed up in the Brazilian Embassy since he sneaked back into Honduras in September.

Opposition conservative candidate Porfirio Lobo (who had lost to Zelaya by a slim margin in 2005) won Sunday’s presidential election in Honduras. The United States quickly recognized the results but said the vote was only a partial step toward restoring democracy.

The stance has split the hemisphere with United States and a few countries such as Panama, Costa Rica, Peru and Colombia recognizing Sunday’s results and the rest of Latin America headed by Brazil and Argentina that say it is impossible to accept an election organized by a de-facto government.

On June 28 during the so called “pajama coup” Zelaya was taken from his bed by the military and sent into exile to neighboring Costa Rica on a military plane. Critics say he was aiming at a constitutional overhaul in an attempt to stay in power, a charge he denies.

As elected president from the Liberal (conservative) party he also angered business leaders and members of his own grouping by moving closer to Venezuela’s president, Hugo Chavez who begun supplying Honduras energy-short with oil in long term conditions.

The Supreme Court ordered his arrest, charging him with violating the constitution and Congress then voted to strip him of his powers.

Lobo’s conservative National Party took a firm stance against Zelaya in Wednesday’s session. “If we reinstate Zelaya, it will be worse for the country, the crisis would continue, and democracy would once again be in danger,” National Party congressman Victor Barnica said.

All candidates participating in Sunday’s election including Elvin Santos from Zelaya’s Liberal party accepted victory from Lobo and insist the scheduled elections (unrelated to the coup) were legitimate and according to Honduran political calendar.

Earlier in the afternoon the European Union reiterated its condemnation of the violation of constitutional order in Honduras that took place on 28 June 2009, but also accepts that Sunday elections are a significant step forward in solving the crisis.

“The EU has since the beginning of the crisis called for a peaceful negotiated solution to the political crisis and has taken steps with other international partners to bring this about”.

“The EU regrets that the Tegucigalpa/San José Accord has not been fully implemented ahead of the elections on 29 November, leading to an electoral process under abnormal circumstances”.

“However, the European Union sees the elections as a significant step forward in solving the crisis in Honduras. In this regard, the European Union awaits the outcome of the deliberations of the Honduran Congress scheduled for 2 December 2009”.

Finally the EU calls upon all actors to seek a dialogue in order to reach national reconciliation and to re-establish constitutional and democratic order in the country, and expects them to assume their full responsibility in this regard. The EU demands that all actors promote and respect the rule of law, good governance and human rights.

Honduras is considered the third poorest country of the Latin America and the Caribbean behind Haiti and Nicaragua . Almost half of its national budget is met with international grants and the country has preferential trade agreements with the United States.

Brazzil for more