Under New Ownership -- Corno

THE ABSURD TIMES

Corno di Bassetto

Mr. di Bassetto (pictured above) has just taken over this publication. However, he has imposed only one rule on us: "Always tell the truth, it's the funniest joke ever." We have decided to abide by this rule whenever he is watching.

He has an observation to pass on relevant to this year's primaries, especially Huckabee and the Religious Right: "The vilest abortionist is he who tries to mold a child's character."

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Personally, I am pained to announce that I just heard Obama praise Ronald Regean for ending the excesses of the 60s and 70s. He might as well throw in Grenada and most of central america as well as IranGate.

This leaves Edwards and Kucinich as the only two worth considering. How could Barak be so stupid??!!! He can not claim a lack of education.

And now and update about Iraq. Remember Iraq? Edwards is now the only one allowed on TV who has said ALL our troops out within a year.

This selection comes from Tomgram:

Tom Dispatch posted 2008-01-17 10:42:21 Tomgram: CSI Iraq The Corpse on the Gurney The "Success" Mantra in Iraq By Tom Engelhardt The other day, as we reached the first anniversary of the President's announcement of his "surge" strategy, his "new way forward" in Iraq, I found myself thinking about the earliest paid book-editing work I ever did. An editor at a San Francisco textbook publisher hired me to "doctor" god-awful texts designed for audiences of captive kids. Each of these "books" was not only in a woeful state of disrepair, but essentially D.O.A. I was nonetheless supposed to do a lively rewrite of the mess and add seductive "sidebars"; another technician was then simplified the language to "grade level" and a designer provided a flashy layout and look. Zap! Pow! Kebang! During the years that I freelanced for that company in the early 1970s, an image of what I was doing formed in my mind -- and it suddenly came back to me this week. I used to describe it this way: The little group of us -- rewriter, grade-level reducer, designer -- would be summoned to the publisher's office. There, our brave band of technicians would be ushered into a room in which there would be nothing but a gurney with a corpse on it in a state of advanced decomposition. The publisher's representative would then issue a simple request: Make it look like it can get up and walk away. And the truth was: that corpse of a book would be almost lifelike when we were done with it, but one thing was guaranteed -- it would never actually get up and walk away. That was in another century and a minor matter of bad books that no one wanted to call by their rightful name. But that image came to mind again more than three decades later because it's hard not to think of America's Iraq in similar terms. Only this week, Abdul Qadir, the Iraqi defense minister, announced that "his nation would not be able to take full responsibility for its internal security until 2012, nor be able on its own to defend Iraq's borders from external threat until at least 2018." Pentagon officials, reported Thom Shanker of the New York Times, expressed no surprise at these dismal post-surge projections, although they were "even less optimistic than those [Qadir] made last year." According to this guesstimate then, the U.S. military occupation of Iraq won't end for, minimally, another ten years. President Bush confirmed this on his recent Mideast jaunt when, in response to a journalist's question, he said that the U.S. stay in Iraq "could easily be" another decade or more. Folks, our media may be filled with discussions about just how "successful" the President's surge plan has been, but really, Iraq is the corpse in the room. "Success" as a Mantra Last January, after announcing his "surge strategy," the President called in his technicians. As it turned out, Gen. David Petraeus, surge commander in Iraq, has been quite impressive, as has new U.S. ambassador to that country, Ryan Crocker. Think of them as "the undertakers," since they've been the ones who, applying their skills, have managed to give that Iraqi corpse the faint glow of life. The President asked them to make Iraq look like it could get up and walk away -- and the last year of "success," widely trumpeted in the media, has been the result. But just think about what the defense minister and President Bush are promising: By 2018, the country will -- supposedly -- be able to control its own borders, one of the more basic acts of a sovereign state. That, by itself, tells you much of what you need to be know. In order to achieve an image of lifelike quiescence in Iraq, involving a radical lowering of "violence" in that country, the general and ambassador did have to give up the ghost on a number of previous Bush administration passions. Rebellious al-Anbar Province was, for instance, essentially turned over to members of the community (many of whom had, even according to the Department of Defense, been fighting Americans until recently). They were then armed and paid by the U.S. not to make too much trouble. In the Iraqi capital, on the other hand, the surging American military looked the other way as, in the first half of 2007, the Shiite "cleansing" of mixed Baghdad neighborhoods reached new heights, transforming it into a largely Shiite city. This may have been the real "surge" in Iraq and, if you look at new maps of the ethnic make-up of the capital, you can see the startling results -- from which a certain quiescence followed. Powerful Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, a longtime opponent of the Bush administration, called a "truce" during the surge months and went about purging and reorganizing his powerful militia, the Mahdi Army. In exchange, the U.S. has given up, at least temporarily, its goal of wresting control of some of those neighborhoods from the Sadrists. Despite hailing the recent passage of what might be called a modest re-Baathification law in the Iraqi Parliament (that may have little effect on actual government employment), the administration has also reportedly given up in large part on pushing its highly touted "benchmarks" for the Iraqis to accomplish. This was to be a crucial part of Iraqi political "reconciliation" (once described as the key to the success of the whole surge strategy). It has now been dumped for so-called Iraqi solutions. All of this, including the lack of U.S. patrolling in al-Anbar province, the heartland of the Sunni insurgency, plus the addition of almost 30,000 troops in Baghdad and environs, has indeed given Iraq a quieter look -- especially in the United States, where Iraqi news has largely disappeared from front pages and slipped deep into prime-time TV news coverage just as the presidential campaign of 2008 heats up. The surge was always, in a sense, a gamble for time, a pacification program directed at the "home front" in the President's Global War on Terror as well as at Iraq itself. And if this is what you mean by "success" in Iraq, Bush has indeed succeeded admirably. As in the Vietnam era, when President Richard Nixon began "Vietnamizing" that war, a reduction of American casualties has had the effect of turning media attention elsewhere. So another year has now passed in a country that we plunged into an unimaginable charnel-house state. Whether civilian dead between the invasion of 2003 and mid-2006 (before the worst year of civil-war level violence even hit) was in the range of 600,000 as a study in the British medical journal, The Lancet reported or 150,000 as a recent World Health Organization study suggests, whether two million or 2.5 million Iraqis have fled the country, whether 1.1 million or more than two million have been displaced internally, whether electricity blackouts and water shortages have marginally increased or decreased, whether the country's health-care system is beyond resuscitation or could still be revived, whether Iraqi oil production has nearly crept back to the low point of the Saddam Hussein-era or not, whether fields of opium poppies are, for the first time, spreading across the country's agricultural lands or still relatively localized, Iraq is a continuing disaster zone on a catastrophic scale hard to match in recent memory. What Bush has done with his surge, however, is buy himself that year-plus of free time, while he negotiates with Iraq's inside-the-Green-Zone government to cement in place an endless American presence there. In the process, he may create a sense of permanency that no future president will prove capable of tampering with -- not without being known as the man (or woman) who "lost" Iraq. Forget the Republican presidential candidates -- Sen. John McCain, for instance, has said that he doesn't care if the U.S. is in Iraq for the next hundred years -- and think about the leading Democratic candidates with their elongated (and partial) "withdrawal" plans. Barack Obama, for instance, is for guaranteeing a 16-month withdrawal schedule, and that's just for U.S. "combat troops," which are only perhaps half of all American forces in the country. Hillary Clinton's plan is no more promising. The President's gamble, so far "successful," has been that the look of returning life in Iraq will last at least long enough for him to turn a marginally "successful" war over to the next administration. If the Democrats sweep to power, he hopes to stick them with that war. As Michael Hirsh of Newsweek put the matter recently, while discussing the President's trip to the Middle East: "Far away in the Persian Gulf, Bush is creating facts on the ground that the next president may not be able to ignore." (Of course, this assumes that the Iraqis will comply.) In that case, here would be another piece of potential Bush "success": Nine months into any new presidential term and the Iraq War is yours. (Those of us old enough to remember have already lived through this scenario once with "Lyndon Johnson's war" in Vietnam, so how does "Barack Obama's war" sound?) Then, former Bush administration officials, Republicans of all stripes, neocons, and an array of pundits will turn on those uncelebratory Democrats who, they will claim, managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of "success," if not victory. Wait for it. Victory Laps and Other Celebrations But folks, let's face it, despite the cosmetic acts of the President and his undertakers, America's Iraq is still a corpse. And yet, in this "post-surge" moment, everybody is arguing over just how "successful" the surge has been. All agree it has "lowered violence" in Iraq. The Democrats insist that the plan's "success" is limited indeed, because its main goal, "political reconciliation," has not been reached. On the other hand, Republicans, assorted neocons, and some in the administration are already doing modest victory dances. The newest New York Times columnist, William Kristol, a man previously known for being endlessly wrong on his Iraqi war of choice, just last week chided the Democrats in his typical way: "It's apparently impermissible for leading Democrats to acknowledge -- let alone celebrate -- progress in Iraq." Let the celebrations begin! In the White House, anyway. After all, whatever Iraq news breaks out of the inside pages of the paper is now often framed by this ongoing dispute about the how much surge and post-surge success has happened, about how much to celebrate, and that is another sign of success for the President. No wonder, as Michael Abramowitz of the Washington Post put it, Bush's recent meeting in Kuwait with Gen. Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker, as well as his comments to a rally of 3,000 hoo-ahing U.S. troops, "had the air of a victory lap for a president whose decision to raise the troop levels in Iraq last year was questioned not only by Democrats but also by many Republicans and even generals at the Pentagon." But folks, George W. Bush can lap the Middle East, the planet, the solar system and America's Iraq is still never going to get up and walk away. Not even in 2018 or 2028. Don't forget, it's a corpse. (In fact, unlike the politicians and the media, recent opinion polls show that the American people generally have not forgotten this.) In the meantime, the military in Iraq is preparing for something other than a simple victory lap, just in case the President's surge luck doesn't quite extend to 2009. Former brigadier general and Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Middle Eastern Affairs Mark Kimmitt, for instance, recently suggested that there was "only a mild chance" that surge security gains would prove permanent: "[I]f I had to put a number to it, maybe it's three in 10, maybe it's 50-50, if we play our cards right." In fact, General Petraeus and the rest of the U.S. military are faced with a relatively simple calculus for their exhausted, overstretched, overused forces among whom the rate of post-traumatic stress syndrome has tripled. Although the President recently insisted that he would be happy to slow down or halt an expected drawdown of 30,000 surge troops by July, the fact is that present military manpower levels there are literally unsustainable -- especially since 3,200 Marines are now being committed to the ever less successful Afghan War. Drawdowns are a must and "successful" Iraq, already experiencing signs of another uptick in violence and death (including of American troops) in the new year, is likely to need a dose of something else soon, if that faint glow of life is to be sustained. One candidate for that, as American troop levels drop, is air power, a much underreported subject in both Iraq and Afghanistan. In Iraq, according to a recent study by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the use of air power took a striking leap forward in 2007. According to the study, the number of Close Air Support/Precision Strikes -- sorties that used a major munition -- in Iraq went up five-fold between 2006 and 2007 (not including December of that year), from 229 to 1,119 or, on average, from 19 per month to 102 per month. 2008 started with a literal bang, 40,000 pounds of explosives were dropped in ten minutes on 38 targets in a Sunni farming area on "the outskirts" of Baghdad. After 10 preceding days of intermittent air attacks, this was probably the largest display of air power since the 2003 invasion. It was also undoubtedly a harbinger of things to come and, of course, guaranteed to drive up the number of civilian dead. Similarly, between January and October 2007, according to the Associated Press, the U.S. military more than doubled its use of armed and unarmed drone aircraft, which clocked 500,000-plus hours in the air (mainly in Iraq). This is undoubtedly a taste of what "success" means in the year to come. Dancing on a Corpse So, here's a simple reality check: The whole discussion of, and argument about, "success" in Iraq is, in fact, obscene. Given what has already happened to that country -- and will continue to happen as long as the U.S. remains an occupying power there -- the very category of "success" is an obscenity. If violence actually does stay down there, that may be a modest godsend for Iraqis, but it can hardly be considered a sign of American "success." Every now and then, history comes in handy. In a previous moment, when the neocons and their allied pundits were feeling particularly triumphant, they began touting Bush's America as the planet's new Rome (only more so). That talk evaporated once Iraq went into full-scale insurgency mode (and Afghanistan followed). But perhaps Rome does remain a touchstone of a sort for administration Iraqi policies. What comes to mind is the Roman historian Tacitus' description of the Roman way of war. He put his version of it into the mouth of Calgacus, a British chieftain who opposed the Romans, and it went, in part, like this: "They have plundered the world, stripping naked the land in their hunger, they loot even the ocean: they are driven by greed, if their enemy be rich; by ambition, if poor; neither the wealth of the east nor the west can satisfy them: they are the only people who behold wealth and indigence with equal passion to dominate. They ravage, they slaughter, they seize by false pretenses, and all of this they hail as the construction of empire. And when in their wake nothing remains but a desert, they call that peace." Folks, it's obscene. We're doing victory laps around, and dancing upon, a corpse. Tom Engelhardt, who runs the Nation Institute's Tomdispatch.com, is the co-founder of the American Empire Project. His book, The End of Victory Culture (University of Massachusetts Press), has been thoroughly updated in a newly issued edition that deals with victory culture's crash-and-burn sequel in Iraq. [Note: I'd like to offer one of my periodic bows to the invaluable sites that give me special help in collecting information on Iraq, especially Juan Cole's Informed Comment, Paul Woodward's The War in Context, the daily Media Patrol summaries at Cursor.org, and the enormous range of pieces posted every day at Antiwar.com. In addition, thanks to Yasmin Madadi for research help and Michael Schwartz for advice. If you want to check out that CSIS airpower study yourself, click here (PDF file).] Copyright 2008 Tom Engelhardt

The Primaries and Iran -- update

The Absurd Times

(Our newest editor, Jean)


Nausea

That really is about the only word for it. The first bit of sabotage was Colin Powell's, Bush's liar for hire, endorsing Obama and pointing out that "he is black enough." Who needs that kind of endorsement in racist Amerika?

Then what's with the polls? Well, I personally know no one without an answering machine to answer the phone for them and I haven't answered one in years. These people are bound to have certain other things in common and, besides, it eliminates the maxim that any person in the population has an equal chance of being questioned and that is what a representative sample is. Furthermore, even with this measurement error, those who do answer the phone and answer the questions are unlikely to admit that they would not vote for anyone who is black -- or female. Yet they will vote their predjudice. In addition, they do mention a plus or minus 4 percentage points "margin of error," meaning they could be as far as eight points off, (assuming a representative sample), and some networks were so inane as to report AVERAGE PERCENTAGES of polls! And yet, they usually are accurate enough. Did you know that, mathematically, the larger the polulation being measured, the smaller the sample needed for accuracy? I don't believe it, but I can prove it mathematically. In fact, I have.

Kucinich did us all a great favor in NH by calling for a recount. Some of the votes were hand counted and some computer counted. Fortunately, they used the scanner method which relies on a paper record and thus the recount is possible. In many other states, no paper record is kept. All that is needed is a taser, or a Blackberry, to change an election result.

Hillary's tears probably swung that election for her. The polls probably shut Edwards pretty much out as his debate performance was exceptional. In fact, winning a debate, that is by presenting your point and supporting it and refuting your opponents with facts is almost a certain way to loose the election.

Finally,the whole bit in the straits of Hormuz was faked with flase splicing, video mixed with audio from a different time period, etc. Even the Pentagon is backing off on that.

Well, at least I got to play with a few fonts.

Thanksgiving and what to be thankful for

Presidential Material

Illustration: We keep hearing that Kucinich does not have a chance, even though he ranked 4th recently in a New Hampshire poll. What we need to do is compare him with some of our past Presidents. Believe it or not, all of the above were past Presidents. I'm not even sure about the accomplishments of some of them, but I'll take a stab at a few. Harding was know for corruption and a big scandal. Fillmore was the best of the lot. He did nothing whatsoever except have indoor plumbing installed at the White House. We all know about Herbert Hoover. He is the Republican who promised a "chicken in every pot." He is also known for the Great Depression. None of them are ever quoted (I think they were all Republican, but I may be wrong" except Nixon, know for "I am not a crook."

Considering recent Presidents along with this crowd, the conventional wisdom seems correct. Kucinich will never be elected President.

Our first article gives a stellar example of this. We hear a great deal of talk about how to defend our country against terrorism and how we do not use torture. So, enclosed is an article by Robert Fisk about a Canadian citizen and what happened to him.

*ZNet | Repression*

*Rendition*

*by Robert Fisk; The Independent

; November

06, 2007*

At university, we male students used to say that it was

impossible to take a beautiful young woman to the cinema and

concentrate on the film. But in Canada, I've at last proved this

to be untrue. Familiar with the Middle East and its abuses - and

with the vicious policies of George Bush - we both sat absorbed

by Rendition, Gavin Hood's powerful, appalling testimony of the

torture of a "terrorist suspect" in an unidentified Arab capital

after he was shipped there by CIA thugs in Washington.

Why did an Arab "terrorist" telephone an Egyptian chemical

engineer - holder of a green card and living in Chicago with a

pregnant American wife while he was attending an international

conference in Johannesburg? Did he have knowledge of how to make

bombs? (Unfortunately, yes - he was a chemical engineer - but

the phone calls were mistakenly made to his number.)

He steps off his plane at Dulles International Airport and is

immediately shipped off on a CIA jet to what looks suspiciously

like Morocco - where, of course, the local cops don't pussyfoot

about Queensberry rules during interrogation. A CIA operative

from the local US embassy - played by a nervous Jake Gyllenhaal

- has to witness the captive's torture while his wife pleads

with congressmen in Washington to find him.

The Arab interrogator - who starts with muttered questions to

the naked Egyptian in an underground prison - works his way up

from beatings to a "black hole", to the notorious

"waterboarding" and then to electricity charges through the

captive's body. The senior Muhabarat questioner is, in fact,

played by an Israeli and was so good that when he demanded to

know how the al-Jazeera channel got exclusive footage of a

suicide bombing before his own cops, my companion and I burst

into laughter.

Well, suffice it to say that the CIA guy turns soft, rightly

believes the Egyptian is innocent, forces his release by the

local minister of interior, while the senior interrogator loses

his daughter in the suicide bombing - there is a mind-numbing

reversal of time sequences so that the bomb explodes both at the

start and at the end of the film - while Meryl Streep as the

catty, uncaring CIA boss is exposed for her wrong-doing. Not

very realistic?

Well, think again. For in Canada lives Maher Arar, a totally

harmless software engineer - originally from Damascus - who was

picked up at JFK airport in New York and underwent an almost

identical "rendition" to the fictional Egyptian in the movie.

Suspected of being a member of al-Qa'ida - the Canadian Mounties

had a hand in passing on this nonsense to the FBI - he was put

on a CIA plane to Syria where he was held in an underground

prison and tortured. The Canadian government later awarded Arar

$10m in compensation and he received a public apology from Prime

Minister Stephen Harper.

But Bush's thugs didn't get fazed like Streep's CIA boss. They

still claim that Arar is a "terrorist suspect"; which is why,

when he testified to a special US congressional meeting on 18

October, he had to appear on a giant video screen in Washington.

He's still, you see, not allowed to enter the US. Personally,

I'd stay in Canada - in case the FBI decided to ship him back to

Syria for another round of torture. But save for the US

congressmen - "let me personally give you what our government

has not: an apology," Democratic congressman Bill Delahunt said

humbly - there hasn't been a whimper from the Bush administration.

Even worse, it refused to reveal the "secret evidence" which it

claimed it had on Arar - until the Canadian press got its claws

on these "secret" papers and discovered they were hearsay

evidence of an Arar visit to Afghanistan from an Arab prisoner

in Minneapolis, Mohamed Elzahabi, whose brother, according to

Arar, once repaired Arar's car in Montreal.

There was a lovely quote from America's Homeland Security

secretary Michael Chertoff and Alberto Gonzales, the US attorney

general at the time, that the evidence again Arar was "supported

by information developed by US law enforcement agencies". Don't

you just love that word "developed"? Doesn't it smell rotten?

Doesn't it mean "fabricated"?

And what, one wonders, were Bush's toughs doing sending Arar off

to Syria, a country that they themselves claim to be a

"terrorist" state which supports "terrorist" organisations like

Hizbollah. President Bush, it seems, wants to threaten Damascus,

but is happy to rely on his brutal Syrian chums if they'll be

obliging enough to plug in the electricity and attach the wires

in an underground prison on Washington's behalf.

But then again, what can you expect of a president whose nominee

for Alberto Gonzales's old job of attorney general, Michael

Mukasey, tells senators that he doesn't "know what is involved"

in the near-drowning "waterboarding" torture used by US forces

during interrogations. "If waterboarding is torture, torture is

not constitutional," the luckless Mukasey bleated.

Yes, and I suppose if electric shocks to the body constitute

torture - if, mind you - that would be unconstitutional. Right?

The New York Times readers at least spotted the immorality of

Mukasey's remarks. A former US assistant attorney asked "how the

United States could hope to regain its position as a respected

world leader on the great issues of human rights if its chief

law enforcement officer cannot even bring himself to acknowledge

the undeniable verity that waterboarding constitutes

torture...". As another reader pointed out, "Like pornography,

torture doesn't require a definition."

Yet all is not lost for the torture lovers in America. Here's

what Republican senator Arlen Spector - a firm friend of Israel

- had to say about Mukasey's shameful remarks: "We're glad to

see somebody who is strong, with a strong record, take over this

department."

So is truth stranger than fiction? Or is Hollywood waking up -

after Syriana and Munich - to the gross injustices of the Middle

East and the shameless and illegal policies of the US in the

region? Go and see Rendition - it will make you angry - and

remember Arar. And you can take a beautiful woman along to share

your fury.

Yes, good ol' protection.

Do you feel safer now? Well, then, we should remember that it is our troops that need to be supported. The following is an outline of some of the housing benefits these brave young men and women received as a result of their service. You can not say that Bush fails to meet the standards of some of our past Presidents pictured above:

*ZNet | Race*

*Back From the War... and Into Homelessness*

*by Bill Fletcher; The Black commentator,

;

November 16, 2007*

The report this past week confirmed what veterans' advocates

have been saying for some time: one quarter of the homeless are

veterans! While this came as a shock to many people, anyone of

age at the time of the Vietnam War would not have been surprised

at all. In the 1960s and 1970s we saw returning veterans

discarded by the government that had placed them in harm's way.

Many returned strung out on heroin and were completely unable to

adjust to life at home. As homelessness became a national

phenomenon in the 1980s, we often saw the face of the Vietnam

War veteran staring back at us on the streets of the USA.

Yet few of us stop and realize that the mistreatment of veterans

is not just peculiar to Iraq or Vietnam. After each major

military conflict, with the possible exception of World War II,

soldiers who were drafted or enlisted in the context of a

patriotic fervor, returned home to a society that rarely knew

what to do with them and, sometimes depending on the nature of

the conflict, found them to be an embarrassment. The years

following World War I are an example of this. Veterans,

including a great uncle of mine, returned from the war scarred

for life physically and/or psychologically, yet the government

was unwilling to step forward and assist them in achieving any

degree of normalcy.

This recurring situation is what infuriated me in the lead up to

the illegal and immoral US invasion of Iraq. At the same time

that the Bush administration was fanning the flames of war

hysteria with misinformation, half-truths, fear and calls to

patriotism, it was simultaneously cutting back on funds for the

Department of Veterans Affairs. At a moment when soldiers

needed assurance of US government support, should they return

injured or otherwise facing adjustment issues (including needing

assistance in finding housing, jobs and psychological/emotional

counseling), the Bush administration was quietly cutting back;

some would say, cutting the soon- to-be veterans adrift.

I have found myself wondering each time the US - and especially

the Bush administration - beats the drums of war, why and how we

so easily forget this history, and particularly the

disposability of the citizen soldiers after they have served the

objectives of whomever happened to have been in power.

Given the racist reality of the USA, it should come as no

surprise that the crisis of the veteran becomes the catastrophe

for Black and Latino veterans. I saw this after Vietnam and I

am seeing it again with Iraq. But even in Black America, there

are few voices speaking up for the veteran. Perhaps we simply

think that the issues they face are just another variant of

those which we all suffer. While there is a truth to this, such

a view is nevertheless unacceptable. Particularly in an

environment of dramatic Black opposition to the US aggression

against Iraq, we have to make sure that we do not transfer our

hostility to the war to hostility toward the veteran.

This totality necessitates a Black veterans' movement that

reaches out to other Black veterans, provides a leading voice

against the war and all future plans of aggression and also

becomes a means to help our community focus our collective

opposition to the war. It necessitates as well as advances the

demand that the government take care of those it was willing to

sacrifice for a lie.

Let's hear the voice of the Black veteran!

[BlackCommentator.com Editorial Board member, Bill Fletcher, Jr.

is a labor and international writer and activist, a Senior

Scholar with the Institute for Policy Studies and the immediate

past president of TransAfrica Forum.]

Assessing the "Field"

Click to find caption

Illustration: It's been awhile, but the above illustration is apt right now. Once Poll listed Kucinich as fourth in Hew Hampshire.

***********

I had been wondering whatever happened to Tom Hayden, below, as he evaluates the presidential candidates. He was one of the earliest in the SDS back in 1964-65 and played a supporting role in the Trail of the Chicago 8, er 7 after Bobby Seals, evn while handcuffed, and gagged, kept trying to represent himself in the absence of his attorney, Garry.

He later married Barberella who then married Ted Turner. She is better now.

*ZNet | U.S.*

*Rating The Presidential Candidates On Iraq

Another Agonizing Year Ahead*

*by Tom Hayden; November 06, 2007*

/TOM HAYDEN is the author of

Writings for a Democratic

Society, The Tom Hayden Reader, forthcoming from City L

ights Books. He has not

endorsed any candidate for president. /*

*

While most peace activists are evaluating the Democrats, I would

rank Rudolph *Giuliani as the most dangerous of all the

presidential candidates in a long while*, because his Iraq and

Iran policies are the work of the most hawkish

neo-conservatives who promoted the Iraq quagmire and now want to

bomb Iran as soon as possible. Though far better than Giuliani,

Sen. Joseph *Biden is the worst Democratic candidate because of

his demand that partition be imposed* on Iraq. The

front-running Democrat, Sen. Hillary *Clinton, is so ambiguous

on Iraq that she risks losing the general election by driving

enough of the progressive vote to inevitable third party

candidates. **

*Giuliani is advised by a network of neo-con hawks led by Norman

Podhoretz who call for a Cold War-type struggle against

"Islamofascism", the immediate bombing of Iran [_Commentary_,

June 2007], the right to assassinate the leaders of Iran and

North Korea, and the assumption that all American Muslims are

suspect. [NY Times]. They are a well-organized machine with

millions of dollars available to attack MoveOn and bankroll

campus campaigns against the new foreign enemy of Islamofascism,

which they believe can and must be militarily defeated.

Principled Democrats with single-digit support at present should

be considered as strong voices against the war, and possible

contributors to a long-term progressive movement, but not as

likely nominees. Among them, *Biden, who could become secretary

of state under a Democratic president, takes the most dangerous

position, favoring a de-facto breakup or partitioning of

Iraq, *with each religious group policing its own areas. That

would mean forced migration for millions of Iraqis from their

homes in Shi'a-dominated Basra, for example, to Sunni-dominated

Anbar province. *Sen. Chris Dodd*, while taking a strong

position against the confirmation of Bush's nominee for attorney

general, has been murky in his anti-war views during the

campaign. While supporting a 12-18 month pullout, he also wants

American troops redeployed away from major Iraqi cities to the

border regions and to Kurdistan, Kuwait, Qatar, and Afghanistan.

[speech Oct. 12, 2006]

*Bill Richardson, another candidate for a future cabinet

position, takes the cleanest position of all *on Iraq, promising

to remove all American troops within one year while launching

diplomatic efforts towards regional stability. And of

course, *Dennis Kucinich* is an anchor for the anti-war community.

*Among the current front-runners, John Edwards takes the

strongest anti-war position,* calling for an immediate troop

withdrawal of 40-50,000 US troops, a withdrawal of remaining

troops in 12-18 months, and diplomatic peace initiatives.

Edwards' position includes a significant loophole, however, for

"sufficient" US troops to remain in the region to prevent a

terrorist haven or ethnic genocide. Edwards also is on record

favoring the intensifying of training for Iraqi security forces.

[NYT, Feb. 26, 2007]

Sen. Barack *Obama's position has somewhat improved with its

latest nuances*. He favors a steady withdrawal taking 16 months.

[NYT, Nov. 2]. Backing away from open-ended support of American

trainers in the midst of a dirty sectarian war, Obama says he

would support trainers only if the Baghdad regime commits to

political reconciliation and reforms its sectarian police, an

almost impossible scenario to imagine. Further, Obama would not

allow American trainers to be placed "in harm's way." But he

also favors an unspecified number of American troops in the

region able to conduct "counter-terrorism" or return in the

"short term" to Iraq in the event of genocide against civilians.

Obama seems trapped between his tendency to build a "new center"

and the need to sharpen his differences over Iraq with Hillary

Clinton.

Obama correctly links a withdrawal plan with motivating other

countries to engage in regional stabilization: "Once it's clear

that we're not intending to stay there for 10 years or 20 years,

all these parties have an interest in figuring out how do we

adjust in a way that stabilizes the situation." And *Obama has

toughened his stand against escalating the conflict to

Iran.* Instead he would engage in "aggressive personal

diplomacy" including a promise to end bush's policy of regime

change in exchange for Iranian cooperation in regional stability.

Sen. Hillary *Clinton, the likely Democratic nominee at this

point, remains the most indecipherable of the candidates on

Iraq.* On the one hand, she pledges "to end the war" and has

voted against the Bush surge and in favor of a March 2008

withdrawal deadline for combat troops. She has suggested, but

not insisted on, cutting off funding for Iraqi security forces

and private contractors unless reforms by the Iraqi government

are guaranteed. [NYT, Feb. 26, 2007] On the other hand, she most

clearly favors leaving a large number of Americans, a "scaled

down force", in Iraq indefinitely to fight al-Qaeda, train the

Iraqi army, and resist Iranian encroachment. [NYT, Nov. 2,

2007]. She cast an unsettling hawkish vote to define the Iranian

Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist group, which may have

reflected her positioning for the November election, and has

telegraphed a message that Iraq is "right in the heart of the

oil region...[and] directly in opposition to our interests, to

the interests of the region, to Israel's interests." [NYT, Mar.

15, 2007]

*Clearly, anti-war opinion in the early primary states will be a

major factor determining the candidates' positioning*. Edwards

has put pressure on Obama and Clinton in Iowa and New Hampshire,

and Obama puts pressure on Clinton across the board. But Clinton

already is trending towards her general election platform

against another "vast right-wing conspiracy." In the short-term,

she wants to be positioned as sufficiently anti-war and leave

Edwards and Obama appearing more "extreme", which may be a

misreading of public opinion. The other Democratic candidates

will seek to appear more anti-war than Clinton because the issue

is their only way to gain traction with the multitudes of

anti-war voters in the primaries. Clinton depends on rallying

Democrats and independents to her side by contrasting herself

with Giuliani, Mitt Romney or John McCain. Whether that approach

can prevail, or seem too frustratingly evasive, remains to be

seen in the long campaign ahead.

If Clinton gains the nomination on an Iraq platform that

disappoints enough independents and Obama or Edwards

supporters, *a two-percent space will open for Ralph Nader

and/or Cynthia McKinney *to possibly make the difference in the

November election. Recent polls show Clinton in a virtual dead

heat with Giuliani among independent voters who otherwise lean

Democratic. If she refuses to take a more forthright stand on

Iraq, she may try returning to her domestic strength by arguing

that unlimited and wasteful Republican spending on Iraq will

prevent her from achieving national health care, a priority

issue for a majority of Americans where Giuliani is clearly on

the wrong side. As president, she could describe her slow troop

withdrawals as a peace dividend, a transfer of resources from

war to health care for veterans and all Americans.

Or worst case, her appearance of wobbling on Iraq/Iran could

reinforce a voter perception of such principled and

unpredictable opportunism that the Democrats could lose a close

election once again. #

/

TOM HAYDEN is the author of _Ending the War in Iraq_ [Akashic,

2007]. He has not endorsed any candidate for president. He is a

national board member of Progressive Democrats of America, and

the editorial board of the _Nation_ magazine. /

Kucinich for President

Gonzo Answers Three Questions at Press Conference
Then Runs

DENNIS KUCINICH FOR PRESIDENT

Of course, he will not even be nominated, but he is the only really sane one in the bunch so far.

Illustration 1: The Absurd Times editorial staff has decided to endorse Dennis Kucinich for President, thus ending all speculation.

Illustration 2: Contest: The Artistic Staff has suggested a contest: Who will be the next to go? Gonzo? Rove? Rice? Cheney? Winner gets a free illustration of Olmert. In fact, everyone gets one right now, voting or not. We want to be fair, after all. It seems Bush has stopped supporting him.

Some of what happened this week defies comment. Years ago, Max Horkheimer wrote The Eclipse of Reason. I believe we have seen its hospitalization.

Gonzales was asked if he would resign, and he said “no”.

When asked why he would stay, he said “for the children.” I kid you not. And he did it with a straight face! Gonzo’s Assistant testified this week, someone named Monica (always a Monica), but she took the fifth. After all, this is the justice department.

The Senate wanted testimony from Gonzales, Rove, and Meyers about the firing of the prosecutors. Bush offered a compromise: He will pick who gets to ask questions, what questions, no oath, a secret room, no tape, no transcript, no notes. The Senate then issued subpoenas. The Decider called it partisan.

A bill passed to fund the war, but it also said to end it. The Decider called it partisan and says he will veto it. The Democrats who voted against it didn’t want any funding at all. If he vetos it, he is denying the money our troops need (he says).

The European Union recognized the democratically elected government of Palestine. Israel and the U.S. will not, the wall is still being built, and members of the Palestinian Parliament are still locked up in Israeli prisons. Contrary to what is on our media, Israel will not accept the proposal from Saudia Arabia offering full recognition by 22 Arab states and full guarantees if only Israel obeys U.N. Resolution 242, withdrawal from occupied territories.

Iran captured 15 British warriors. Iran will continue its violation of a nuclear free Middle East. Israel has between 200 and 300 nuclear bombs.

The Senate joined the House in putting a deadline for the end of the war on the war-money bill.

Meanwhile, Iran said they would return the female prisoner, but the British said it had proof it was in Iraqi waters and speculation is that they will invade or try to liberate them by force. That would be insane, but that is not sufficient, let alone necessary, reason to stop Blair.

Meanwhile, the US has 10 warships and 100 jets in the “Persian Gulf,” buzzing around and making all sorts of maneuvers. Speculation is that our administration is trying to “send a message.” What is it with these “messages”? Can they not find a more cost-effective way of sending messages? E-mail, perhaps? A phone call?

The British offerred “proof” that they were in Iraqi waters, a photo of co-ordinates and a boat taken from a plane. I found it aboust as convincing as Colin Powell’s proof offerred at the U.N. that was used to start this who thing.

Oh yes, Pat Tillman’s mother stated that the Arizona Cardinals Cornerback was against the move to Iraq when we killed him and kept it quiet. This did not make the major news – she was interviewed on ESPN Radio on the Dan Patrick show.

An interview with Kucinich (#1, below) explains why he voted against the bill and what is really meant by universal health care, among other things.

1) An Interview with Dennis Kucinich. In case you miss it, his site is http://www.Kucinich.us

“This Isn’t American Idol, We’re Choosing the President of the United States” - Kucinich on Corporate Media Campaign Coverage

2) A Release by an activist group on Health Care.

Many good things are happening

by Marilyn Clement; Portside; March 24, 2007

3) A very detailed summary of human right and how valued they are.

ZNet | Human Rights

Richard Holbrooke, Samantha Power, and the “Worthy-Genocide” Establishment (Kafka Era Studies Number 5)

by Edward S. Herman; March 24, 2007

1) “This Isn’t American Idol, We’re Choosing the President of the United States” - Kucinich on Corporate Media Campaign Coverage

Wednesday, March 28^th, 2007

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/03/28/1335231

Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D - OH) was one of eight Congressmembers to vote against the House war-spending bill last week that set a timetable for the withdrawal of troops from Iraq. We go to Capitol Hill to speak with Kucinich about the bill, why he thinks impeachment “should be on the table,” the corporate media’s coverage of the race for the Democratic presidential nomination and more. [rush transcript included]

---

On Capitol Hill the Democratic-led Senate has moved closer to passing a war-spending bill that will give President Bush $100 billion more for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and also require U.S. combat troops to begin withdrawing from Iraq.

On Tuesday Republican lawmakers attempted to pass an amendment removing the troop withdrawal plan from the bill. But the amendment was defeated by a 50 to 48 vote after Republican Senator Chuck Hagel of Nebraska voted with the Democrats on the measure.

President Bush has vowed to veto the legislation if it includes a timetable for withdrawal. Meanwhile, anti-war activists continue to pressure lawmakers to reject the bill as well because it allows for the war to continue for another year.

In Burlington Vermont, police arrested eight protesters yesterday after they refused to leave the offices of independent Sen. Bernie Sanders. Sanders has been a long-time opponent of the war but supports the spending bill.

Sanders said it would be counterproductive to vote against the spending bill. He said, “That would mean voting with the Bush Administration and congressional Republicans and handing a victory to those who want to continue and perhaps expand the war into neighboring countries.”

Last week eight anti-war Democrats voted against the supplemental spending bill when it came before the House. One of those lawmakers, Congressman Dennis Kucinich of Ohio, joins us from Capitol Hill. Congressman Kucinich is also running for the Democratic presidential nomination.

· Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D - OH)

---

RUSH TRANSCRIPT

This transcript is available free of charge. However, donations help us provide closed captioning for the deaf and hard of hearing on our TV broadcast. Thank you for your generous contribution.
Donate - $25, $50, $100, more...

AMY GOODMAN: Last week, eight anti-war Democrats voted against the supplemental spending bill when it came before the house. One of those lawmakers, Congress member Dennis Kucinich of Ohio, joins us from Capitol Hill. Congress member Kucinich is also running for the Democratic Presidential nomination. We welcome you to Democracy Now!, Congressman Kucinich.

REP. DENNIS KUCINICH: Good morning Amy.

AMY GOODMAN: Good to have you with us. First of all, as you stand overlooking the capitol, talk about your vote against the war funding bill.

REP. DENNIS KUCINICH: Well, we were given false choices. We were told that we either buy into president Bush’s plan, which is keep the war going indefinitely, or accept the Democratic version of the war in Iraq, which would keep the war going for another year or two. I say those choices weren’t sufficient.

The Democrats could have refused to send a bill forward. We didn’t have to fund this war. We’re not under any obligation to keep the war going. And yet our leaders took another path. Furthermore, Amy, you may be interested to know that the 2008 budget, which is before Congress today and will be voted on tomorrow, contains another $145 billion for the war, and on top of that, they’re putting another $50 billion for the war in fiscal year 2009.

So this talk about ending the war by March or by September belies the fact that the budget has money in it to keep the war going into 2009. And I think that’s wrong. I think the American people will reject that type of thinking, and I’m standing strong to say get out now. I put forth a plan embodied in HR 1234. To accomplish just that.

AMY GOODMAN: But what do you say to those make the argument that if president Bush has on his desk a bill that gives money, gives a fortune in continuing the war, and he has to veto it because he doesn’t like the timetable, that this puts him in a very difficult position?

REP. DENNIS KUCINICH: Our decisions have to be way above politics. We have the lives of our troops at stake here. There’s no military victory in Iraq. We’re there illegally. The occupation is fueling the insurgency. Democrats can still, after president Bush vetoes the bill, which he will, Democrats can still take the right position, which is refuse to fund the war, use money in the pipeline to bring the troops home.

AMY GOODMAN: What about the pressure from the leadership, the Democratic Party, from the House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, all of the stories going around of Congress members voting for the funding so that they could help out the spinach farmers, etc.?

REP. DENNIS KUCINICH: On matters of war and peace, I think people have to vote their conscience. I can say I wasn’t pressured.

AMY GOODMAN: But what about those that were, and what about the spending bill going way beyond funding wars?

REP. DENNIS KUCINICH: It’s a legitimate concern. I mean, if you’re for peace, you vote for peace. If you’re for peace, you don’t vote for war because somebody’s giving you a plum in a bill that’s designed to keep a war going. I think the American people want new leadership which understands that if you’re for peace, you vote for peace, you don’t fund wars.

And so I’m moving forward with a plan, it’s embodied in HR 1234 that would stop the funding and the occupation, close the bases, bring the troops home, and set in motion a parallel process that would stabilize Iraq with the help of the international community, which will only help, by the way, unless, you know, if the United States takes a new course and ends the occupation.

So my plan envisions that America will take a new direction. What’s happening right now, Amy, is we’re looking in this budget, and people, and Democrats that look at this budget today are going to be surprised to find out that our leaders are proposing keeping the war going into 2009.

AMY GOODMAN: Let me play a clip of you, of House Speaker—for you, of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi pushing for the passage of the supplemental spending bill. This was her comment after the bill passed.

HOUSE SPEAKER NANCY PELOSI: Proudly this new Congress voted to bring an end to the war in Iraq. It took one great, giant step in that direction. We voted “NO” to giving a blank check to an open-ended commitment, a war without end, to the President of the United States, and “Yes” to begin the end of the war and the redeployment of our troops.

AMY GOODMAN: I then want to play for you a clip of President Bush. President Bush’s comment after the House passed the spending bill last week.

PRESIDENT BUSH: This bill has too much pork, too many conditions, and an artificial timetable for withdrawal. As I made clear for weeks, I will veto if it comes to my desk. And because the vote in the House was so close, it is clear that my veto would be sustained. Today’s action in the House does only one thing, it delays the delivery of vital resources for our troops.

AMY GOODMAN: Congress member Dennis Kucinich, your response.

REP. DENNIS KUCINICH: Well, the Democrats’ position should have been and can still be, that we refuse to fund the war, that we don’t give this president a dime to keep the war going, that we use money in the pipeline to bring the troops home and set in motion a parallel process that would secure Iraq. We’re under no obligation to keep this war going.

But I would say, Amy, that if you look at the budget, which is facing Congress tomorrow, it provides not only $145 billion for fiscal year ‘08 for the war, for all of it, but another $50 billion for fiscal year 2009. I wonder how that squares with Democratic leaders’ position that they want to bring the troops home in March or in September of next year. There’s something that’s contradictory here.

So I’m going to try to see if I can reconcile that today in Congress by talking to leadership and alerting my fellow members that money is in the budget to keep this war going past President Bush’s term. President Bush has been very clear. He’s going to keep this war going through the end of his term. I say that American should get out now, that it’s not a choice between President Bush or keeping the war going another year, year and a half. We need to get out now, and we need to let the troops know we truly support them, by bringing them home.

AMY GOODMAN: Congressman Kucinich, what would getting out now look like? I mean, do you mean, for example, today, you begin the process, and when would the soldiers be home if—well, if you were president, Dennis Kucinich?

REP. DENNIS KUCINICH: I crafted my plan with the help of the people at the UN, and I will tell you that they say that it would take about two months, three months to mobilize a sufficient force that would replace US Troops leaving. So I say two to three months we could have troops home and have an international force that would help stabilize Iraq. But the international community will not become involved as long as the United States intends to occupy Iraq and keep bases open. So we need to take a new direction.

My plan would be as follows: to put in place the provisions of HR 1234, which ends the occupation, closes the bases, sets in motion a plan to bring the troops home, bring in international peacekeepers, and stop the privatization of Iraq oil. One of the things in the bill that passed the House was a demand that the Iraq government pass a hydrocarbon act which sets the stage for broad privatization of trillions of dollars of Iraqi oil interests.

Now, think about it. If Democrats had told the American people last October that if you vote democrat in November, we’ll not only give you enough money to keep the war going through the end of President Bush’s term, but we’ll also privatize the oil of Iraq and then help the US oil companies win the prize that I think the war was all about from the very beginning. I don’t think the people would have voted Democrat. So Democrats have to keep faith with the American people.

My plan would do that, by returning full control of the Iraqi oil assets to the Iraqi people. Put in motion a plan for reconciliation between Shiites, Sunnis, and Kurds, which cannot happen as long as the United States occupies. Provide for honest reconstruction, you know, none of these contractors from the US can be there. They’ve stolen money from the Iraqi people and also from the US taxpayers.

We have to give the Iraqi people jobs with Iraqi contractors doing the work. We have to provide for reparations so that we can pay money to the Iraqi people who have lost their homes or lost the lives of loved ones. We have to stabilize energy and food prices. And when Iraq goes to the international community, make sure that Iraq doesn’t suffer from the structural readjustment provisions of the IMF or the World Bank.

AMY GOODMAN: Your response, Congress member Kucinich to Halliburton saying they’re moving to Dubai?

REP. DENNIS KUCINICH: Well, I think the honest thing would be to have a good Attorney General call Halliburton in and start the questioning of them about their conduct, and I think that they should not be immune from prosecution simply because they’re moving to Dubai.

AMY GOODMAN: We continue with Dennis Kucinich from Ohio, Democratic Presidential hopeful. He is standing right outside the Capitol right now. You mentioned Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. What do you think should happen to him?

REP. DENNIS KUCINICH: It’s very clear that the Justice Department has become so politicized that it cannot function in the interests of the American people. The honorable thing would be for Mr. Gonzales to resign.

AMY GOODMAN: And if he doesn’t resign, should he be fired? Should the President fire him?

REP. DENNIS KUCINICH: Well, I don’t think that’s going to happen. I think he’s doing what the President has asked him to do. The question here is what’s his sense of honor about his responsibility to the law and to the American people. That’s going to be his decision.

AMY GOODMAN: Speaking of the President, what do you think should happen to President Bush? Nancy Pelosi, the House Speaker, said that impeachment is off the table. What are your thoughts?

REP. DENNIS KUCINICH: I don’t think that it’s wise for the House and the Congress, for co-equal branches of government, to essentially give the President carte blanche in his decision making by saying no matter what you do, impeachment is off the table. I think that impeachment has to be on the table, and I also think that it’s time to have a national conversation in cities, in towns all over America about the appropriate conduct for a President and a Vice President, about whether it’s right for a President and Vice President to lie to the American people and take us into war. About the erosion of civil rights in America and how that’s come about as a result of this administration’s conduct of the war.

I think that it’s time to have that kind of a discussion, and I’ve urged that from my website at kucinich.us, and I’m asking to hear from people about what they think, and I think that we need to make sure that this President understands that he can’t do whatever he wants, that he is bound by the constitution, that he is bound by national and international law.

AMY GOODMAN: Congressman Kucinich, you’ve mentioned the word treason. What do you mean?

REP. DENNIS KUCINICH: I don’t think I mentioned the word treason.

AMY GOODMAN: Have you talked about President Bush and treason?

REP. DENNIS KUCINICH: No, I’ve never—I never mentioned the word treason. I do think that accountability is a key word here. And I think the President and the Vice President must be held accountable. That’s why I think it’s a mistake for anyone to say impeachment is off the table. At the same time, we have to take a responsibility as members of Congress to uphold the constitution of the United States. That’s our obligation as a co-equal branch of government.

So I’m waiting to hear from the American people. I would ask people who are listening or watching to go to my website at: www.kucinich.us. I’d like to hear from you. What do you think? Should the House move forward with a resolution of impeachment and what do you think the dimensions of it should be? I want to hear from the American people on this.

AMY GOODMAN: What do you think of the Center for Constitutional Rights going to Germany to file a complaint against former Congress member—or rather, former Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld? It’s not only against him, it’s against Alberto Gonzales, it’s against General Sanchez and Miller for torture, over the issue of torture.

REP. DENNIS KUCINICH: I think that all members of this administration, including the President, the Vice President, and all the other officials you mentioned, should be held accountable under international law, and that that accountability does not expire with the expiration of the term of this President. America at some point is going to have to restore its moral equilibrium, which has been lost, because this administration took us into a war based on lies. They all have to be held accountable. They must be held accountable, not only under national, but international law.

AMY GOODMAN: When you came to the National Conference for Media Reform in Memphis, you talked about holding hearings around the FCC, heading up a committee that is responsible for the FCC, I think it’s the Domestic Policy Subcommittee the House Oversight on Government Reform Committee. What do you plan to do?

REP. DENNIS KUCINICH: Well, our committee just started its work last week. The Domestic Policy Subcommittee has jurisdiction over the Federal Communications Commission. It’s been 20 years since we’ve had and hearings at all on the Fairness Doctrine. It’s been a long time since Congress has held hearings on the concentration in the electronic media.

And so I want to proceed with hearings sometime in the next few months that would review the—those animating principles of the FCC embodied in the Federal Communications Act of 1934, and that is that the electronic media shall serve in the public interest, convenience, and necessity. I want to hold that up and see if today’s conditions corresponds to what it was that gave the public the inclination to cause electronic media to be licensed and if the licensees have kept faith with the American people.

AMY GOODMAN: Congress member Kucinich, you also just returned from New York, where you held a news conference on universal healthcare. How does your plan differ from, for example, Hillary Rodham Clinton, the New York Senator, also Democratic hopeful – Presidential hopeful, also said she supports universal healthcare.

REP. DENNIS KUCINICH: Well, it differs in every way. Everyone in this campaign is for universal healthcare. But what Senator Clinton, Senator Edwards, and others are talking about is having the insurance companies still in charge of healthcare, of having the government subsidize the insurance companies or forcing people to buy insurance or have the government subsidize the purchase of insurance.

Look, the President of the United States shouldn’t be an insurance salesman. The President should stand for a position where everyone is covered, that’s what my bill does. The Conyers-Kucinich Bill, HR 676, Medicare for all, it ends for-profit medicine, it is a single-payer system which recognizes we’re spending $2.2 trillion a year on healthcare, but 31% of that, or $660 billion, goes for the activities of the for-profit system.

Take that money, put it into healthcare, and you have enough money to cover every medical need, including dental care, vision care, mental health, prescription drug, and long-term care. Healthcare is a right, it’s not a privilege. Senator Clinton’s plan helps the insurance companies, it keeps the for-profit system going, and my plan ends the for-profit system and uses the savings to provide healthcare for everyone.

AMY GOODMAN: What do you think of the media coverage of the Democratic Presidential race right now? A lot of attention on both Barack Obama and Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, Senator Obama and Clinton. Of course, last time you also ran for president, and there was a major issue the day after you took Ted Koppel to task at ABC for asking questions about polls and money as opposed to issues on your positions. The next day, the so-called embedded reporter in your campaign was pulled, the ABC reporter. What about the coverage now?

REP. DENNIS KUCINICH: My concern wasn’t so much whether reporters were embedded in my campaign, as much as it was the fact that mainstream media reports were embedded with the war. But as far as my own campaign, look, I’m bringing issues forth to the American people. We’re organizing in places like New Hampshire, where the Democratic Party just came out in favor of single-payer healthcare, not for profit. My campaign is about organizing door-to-door and grass roots fundraising, and people who want to get involved can go to kucinich.us and help us.

I’m not going to be on my knees begging for attention from the mainstream media. They have to realize that they have a responsibility as broadcast licensees to provide coverage to all the candidates. After all, this isn’t “American idol”, we’re choosing a President of the United States. The American people have a right to a substantive discussion about those issues that affect their lives, such as war and peace, such as poverty and prosperity, healthcare for all, or keep the insurance companies in business in healthcare.

We need a new discussion, and I appreciate the chance to be on Democracy Now!, because I know your audience is an audience of people with principle, of activism, and I’m confident that when they hear what I stand for, they’ll be interested in joining this campaign.

AMY GOODMAN: Finally, President Kucin—finally, Congress member Kucinich, the men and women who have gone AWOL, there have been thousands of them, some are being court-martialed, like Lieutenant Aaron Witada will be court-martialed again. It was a mistrial in his first trial, first Officer to say no to war, to deployment to Iraq. What do you think should happen to these men? Augustine Aguayo, an Army medic who applied for CO status, didn’t get it, and is now in prison in Germany. Do you support their saying “no”? Do you support their refusing to go to Iraq or redeploy to Iraq?

REP. DENNIS KUCINICH: I support the troops who serve and also those who don’t feel it’s right to serve. I think we have to ask our troops to be able to reserve the right of their conscience, and if they feel it’s the right thing to go forward, then we support that. If they feel it’s not the right thing, we should support that, too. I think we’re in a point in the history of this country where many people have looked at the war and realized that it’s wrong. Some of those people are soldiers. Soldiers are put in an impossible situation, not only those who are committed to serving in Iraq, but also those who know that the war is wrong and who question the war. I think we have to love our troops, whatever situation they find themselves in. And the way to support them is to bring them home.

AMY GOODMAN: Do you think they should be court-martialed?

REP. DENNIS KUCINICH: You know, I don’t think that anyone who’s taken a principles and conscientious position should be subject to a court-martial. They should be permitted to leave the service if they so desire, but not be forced through that kind of a process. I think, you know, there has to be an underlying truth here, and the underlying truth is the war was wrong, period. The war is based on lies. We should support our troops by bringing them home, and we should support those who have challenged the war by giving them a chance to leave honorably.

AMY GOODMAN: Congress member Kucinich, I want to thank you for joining us from the Capitol. Ohio Congress member and Democratic Presidential hopeful.

REP. DENNIS KUCINICH: Thank you Amy.

www.democracynow.org

2)

ZNet | Social Policy

Many good things are happening

by Marilyn Clement; Portside; March 24, 2007

Many good things are happening across the nation as the single payer movement continues to develop. People ask the question, ‘How could this have happened? How is it that there is only one healthcare plan in the nation that has a huge constituency of support? And we know the answer. It is because of your work. Here are some of the exciting developments in the single payer movement:

1. We now have 62 co-sponsors of H.R. 676 in just two months following its reintroduction in this new Congress—as a result of your efforts.

2. The AFL-CIO has joined us as an endorser of single payer.

How did this happen? It happened because of the movement of

local unions from the bottom up who studied the bill, endorsed

it, and urged the AFL-CIO to join us over the past eighteen

months. One volunteer, Kay Tillow, has worked tirelessly to make

this happen.

3. Act-Up has joined us - one ofthe most militant organizations in the U.S. -the group that challenged Congress and the healthcare agencies to do the research and help to stem the tide of the AIDS epidemic in the 80’s and 90’s. Now they have made single payer, national healthcare their #1 issue.

4. The National Organization for Women has formally endorsed.

5. Newspapers all over the country are studying the issue, and many are endorsing. City councils are signing on. Two state democratic parties, New Hampshire and Washington State have endorsed single payer and will be pushing the national Democrats to move forward toward single payer in the coming election.

6. We met with the New York Times this week in a very good exchange on the issue.

7. And Congressman Conyers is planning a briefing for Congress members and the public on April 24^th in Washington, D.C. YOU ARE INVITED. Be in touch with joel.segal@mail.house.gov for more details.

One of the friends of single payer in the U.S. Congress is

Maurice Hinchey. In addition to being a strong endorser of H.R.

676, he has introduced legislation that has forced the FDA to

create new rules to protect us from the drug profiteers. When we

achieve a national single payer system in the United States, we

will have a system where the single payer (probably Medicare)

will negotiate the cost of all drugs for all of us and have a

strong mechanism for protecting our people.

We will have several elements of good business practices as a

part of our national healthcare program including ‘negotiating

prices,’ ‘eliminating the unnecessary middle man (the insurance

companies)’ and ‘purchasing in bulk’both durable medical

equipment and prescription drugs since there will be 300 million

of us in one large purchasing pool. This will be another of the

great savings that will provide us with a quality healthcare

system for all without spending any additional money.

Businesses, employees and employers will all save money. No more co-pays or deductibles and no more denials and out-of- pocket expenses for necessary medical care.

Hinchey’s legislation and the FDA’s response are described in

today’s story. F.D.A. Rule Limits Role of Advisers Tied to

Industry. The new rules would bar government advisers who

receive money from a drug or device maker from voting on that

company’s products.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/22/washington/22fda.html?th&emc=th

As the story notes, this is not the ultimate solution to the problem of FDA complicity with the drug profiteers,but it is a start.

H.R. 676, Conyers’ United States National Health Insurance Act,

is the only bill in Congress that pushes for a non-profit

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only bill among the many that have been introduced recently and

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programs such as Medicare and SCHIP (the child healthcare

program) and in the healthcare fund that will provide excellent

healthcare to all of us.

As a result of the elimination of the insurance companies’ role

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Under single payer, H.R. 676, we will eliminate the waiting

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billions of dollars on exacting payment for hundreds of

insurance, government and individual payers, mental healthcare,

drug and alcohol treatment for all who need it; payment for

prescription drugs; long-term care (how many of us have no

long-term care insurance now?) and more. Everybody in; nobody out!’

Here are some of the things that you can do immediately to push

forward real single payer legislation, H.R. 676. See more ideas

at our website www.healthcare-now.org

1. Visit the editorial board of your newspaper;

2. Send letters to the editors and to columnists and writers of newspapers nationwide including the New York Times editorial board;

3. Get on the list for newspaper articles on a daily basis (write joykal1@aol.com)

4. HOLD AN EVENT or HEARING this coming month (APRIL) or soon in your neighborhood or state (See guidelines for organizing on our website.

http://www.healthcare-now.org/action/how_to.htm.

INVITE YOUR CONGRESS MEMBER. But don’t wait on Congress. It is

the people’s movement rising up from the bottom that will get us

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healthcare system weneed without our massive efforts;

5. Call us for organizing suggestions. 1-800-453-1305 ; info@healthcare-now.org;

6. Make a contributionto Healthcare-NOW- now! Get a free book.

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7. Order beautiful Martin Luther King, Jr National Healthcare

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priority press@optonline.org;

8. Plan to VISIT YOUR MEMBER of CONGRESS in his/her local office during the first two weeks of April. Thank your members if they have signed onto H.R. 676. Insist that they do so if they have not;

9. Call or Fax Congressman Pete Stark’s office to be sure that

H.R. 676 is a part of the agenda for his healthcare hearings in

May. Phone: (202) 225-5065; Fax: (202) 226-3805;

10. Get your City Council, State Legislature, Democratic or

Republican State Committee, Union, Faith Community, Club,

Community Organization or Local Business to endorse H.R. 676.

See the growing list of endorsers at

http://www.healthcare-now.org/endorse676.php:

11. Get a copy of John Conyers’ inspirational 6 minute dvd

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12. See our homepage to read about or use the power point about the problems with all of the other proposals being offered www.Healthcare-now.org.

Remember ‘We are the Ones We Have Been Waiting For.’

Marilyn Clement, NationalCoordinator

Healthcare-NOW

www.healthcare-now.org

1-800-453-1305

info@healthcare-now.org

* * *

3.

ZNet | Human Rights

Richard Holbrooke, Samantha Power, and the “Worthy-Genocide” Establishment (Kafka Era Studies Number 5)

by Edward S. Herman; March 24, 2007

It may seem odd to speak of a worthy-genocide establishment, with Richard Holbrooke and Samantha Power as notable members, but we are living in the Kafka era, when major genocidists and their friends and allies can get very passionate and even win Pulitzer Prizes for their denunciation of some genocides and “problems from hell” while actually facilitating, ignoring and apologizing for others. [1] Worthy genocides are those mass killings carried out by bad people, notably U.S. enemies and targets, and they receive great attention and elicit much passion; the unworthy ones are carried out by the United States or one of its client states, and they receive little attention or indignation and are not labelled genocides, even where the scale of killings greatly exceeds those so designated, obviously based on political utility. As the United States is an aggressive superpower that has been “projecting power” and opposing popular and revolutionary movements on a global scale since World War II, a very good case can be made that the unworthy genocides that it has carried out or supported have been predominant over the past half century—that it has been the source of more “problems from hell” than any other state.

It follows that a man like Richard Holbrooke, who has been a part of the U.S. foreign policy establishment for over 40 years, is likely to have been a participant in the genocides that have taken place during that period. Thus, while Holbrooke regularly speaks and gets a warm welcome from the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard and from Human Rights Watch, [2] we should recall that he was an official of the U.S. government during the Vietnam war era, from 1962 through 1969; he was the Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs in charge of Indonesian relations during the Carter administration, and during the worst and most genocidal phase of Indonesia’s occupation of East Timor in 1977-1978. He was also an official of the Clinton administration, and eventually the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, in the years when the United States was enforcing the “sanctions of mass destruction” on Iraq.

If we measure “genocide” by the numbers deliberately and intentionally killed and the threat these actions pose to the survival of the target population, all three of these episodes in which Holbrooke was involved qualify for inclusion. In the case of Vietnam, as Noam Chomsky has pointed out, given the lack of U.S. establishment interest in Vietnamese casualties the actual number killed is uncertain within the range of millions, but serious estimates run up to three million or more dead, unknown millions more injured or traumatized, a land devastated and widely ruined by bombs and chemicals, and as late as 1997 an estimated 500,000 children mentally or physically deformed as a result of ruthless chemical warfare. [3] Indonesia’s invasion-occupation resulted in the death of an estimated 200,000 East Timorese out of a total population of approximately 800,000, or a quarter of the total. The sanctions of mass destruction imposed on Iraq by the UN under U.S. influence and pressure resulted in the deaths of probably a million or more people, only some 6 percent of the total, but an absolutely very large number—ten times the total killed in Bosnia in the years 1992-1995. The two most famous quotes regarding these Iraq sanctions are those of Holbrooke’s boss Madeleine Albright, telling Leslie Stahl on CBS in 1996 that the price of the sanctions, 500,000 dead children, was “worth it;” the other quote, by John and Karl Mueller, in Foreign Affairs in June 1999, was that the sanctions of mass destruction “may well have been a necessary cause of the deaths of more people in Iraq than have been slain by all so-called weapons of mass destruction throughout history.”

Holbrooke was only a lesser official during the Vietnam war era, but on the basis of principles laid down by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) whereby participants in a “joint criminal enterprise” (JCE) will be found guilty if they pursued a military-political end in common with other criminals, [4] Holbrooke would easily qualify. His role as a genocidist is far clearer in the East Timor case where he was the highest State Department official dealing with Indonesia and its East Timor occupation, visiting with Suharto and other Indonesian leaders while the fields were being strewn with dead bodies, and helping implement a policy that aided the genocide. During his tenure Indonesian terror and killings reached their peaks, in the years 1977 and 1978, and during that time the United States continued its support of Indonesia and did nothing to curb the violence. In testimony before Congress on December 4, 1979, Holbrooke lied about the origins of the war and Indonesian responsibility for the deaths, telling Congress that the “welfare of the Timorese people is the major objective of our policy toward East Timor”—a blatant falsehood—and he gave congress a highly favorable portrayal of the genocidal state. [5] U.N. Security Council resolutions condemned Jakarta’s invasion and occupation, but the Carter-Holbrooke team provided Jakarta with advanced counter-insurgency aircraft, which the Indonesian military employed to bomb and napalm the East Timorese, as well as diplomatic protection and steady apologetics for a genocidal pacification progam. No UN Security Council resolution was adopted regarding East Timor after April 22, 1976, through the rest of the Carter administration, despite the escalated killings in the years after 1976. An Australian parliamentary report later described the period as one of “indiscriminate killing on a scale unprecedented in post-World War II history.” [6]

Holbrooke’s role in the initiation and management of the further burst of U.S. organized and supported genocide with the sanctions of mass destruction in Iraq is less clear than in the East Timor case, but he was a high official in the Clinton administration from 1993 onward, and from 1999-2001 was the U.S. Ambassador to the UN. At the least he would qualify as a member of a JCE helping inflict a genocide on Iraq.

It is of course revealing that Richard Holbrooke is a favorite at the Carr Center (see the photo below, with Samantha Power, a former Carr official, and Sarah Sewell, its current Executive Director, casting admiring glances at this notable genocidist) as well as with Human Right Watch. After all, there is the record just noted, and Holbrooke being a former official with continuing political aspirations, may not tell the truth, so that he is someone a human rights group should keep at arms length in order to maintain its independence and integrity. But in the United States, self-righeousness is so great that such principles are unrecognized in the mainstream. Back in the 1980s when the alleged (but false) Bulgarian-KGB link to the shooting of Pope John Paul II was a big issue, Paul Henze, a 30-year CIA veteran and former CIA station chief in Turkey was a major “expert” tapped by the media, who never once suggested any doubts about Henze’s possible bias and compromised credentials as a source. We are so good and right that our high officials and spooks can be trusted to speak unbiased truth, at least for the mainstream media and the Carr Center and HRW.

But in reality, what the warm and collegial Holbrooke link suggests is that the Carr Center and HRW are members of the establishment and will surely speak only partial truths at best. As its name suggests the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy is policy oriented. But it is certainly not oriented to policy assistance for groups and countries under U.S. attack. A dead giveaway is the fact that its current Executive Director, Sarah Sewall, has been a consultant to the Pentagon and is a specialist in counter-insurgency warfare (see her “Modernizing U.S. Counterinsurgency Practice,” Military Review, Sept./Oct., 2006). As a Pentagon consultant, and with other Carr linkages to the government and military establishment, there is no way that Sewall and her associates are going to look objectively at U.S. human rights violations and criticize them in no uncertain terms. They premise the U.S. right to intervene across the globe, their function being to bring it into line with humanitarian principles! (As regards one of its major program areas a Carr description states that: “Ultimately, the project aims to affect the way nations intervene militarily, making the use of military power more consistent with humanitarian principles.”) By the nature of their linkages and rule Carr is going to gloss over U.S. violations of the UN Charter and human rights abuses. It cannot bring in Richard Holbrooke as an honored guest, Samantha Power cannot hold a joint seminar with him at Carr, and Carr cannot attract guest speakers like Central Command General Abizaid, while maintaining any kind of less-than-collegial relationship with government.

In fact, the Carr Center has a relationship with the government very similar to that of various institutes that have dealt with “terrorism.” In a study of the “terrorism industry” in which I engaged some years back, some of the clearest findings were the extent to which that industry’s definitions of terrorism and policy focus coincided with those of the government, and the regularity with which its members served the state and private parties in need of “security” protection from retail terrorists—who were often under siege by state (wholesale) terrorists. [7] It was very clear that Guatemalan peasants being murdered by the genocidal Guatemalan state or members of the African National Congress (ANC) or Angolans under attack by the South African apartheid government were never going to be advised by members of the industry. But the governments attacking them were advised, and those governments were also being serviced at the same time by the U.S. government. The peasants under attack were the “terrorists” and the governments engaging in very serious state terror were, in the Western establishment lexicon, engaging in “counter-terror.” [8] The South African “Terrorism Research Centre” had collegial relations with U.S. and British terrorism research groups and with the CIA, Mossad, and M-16, and the latter three were also closely aligned. The Pentagon defined the ANC as one of “the more notorious terrorism groups,” and terrorism analysts such as Clair Sterling, Paul Wilkinson, Robert Kupperman, Brian Crozier, and Walter Laqueur all worked with the same system of definitions and toward the same ends. Sewall, Power, Holbrooke and General Abizaid are also using similar definitions and working toward the same ends.

One test of the integrity of a human rights group is how it treats aggression by its own government. Given that the U.S. government has carried out major attacks against three countries in the past decade in violation of the UN Charter—the “supreme international crime” according to the Nuremberg Tribunal—the Carr Center and its leaders, like the ICTY and Human Rights Watch, have failed this test by simply ignoring the matter. Similarly, with their government openly engaged in systematic torture at multiple sites across the globe, and using “extraordinary rendition” as a means of supplementary torture, this awkward circumstance has also been dealt with by virtual silence. Carr’s former Director Michael Ignatieff was notorious for positively supporting all three supreme crimes, the first with great enthusiasm, and he was also fairly understanding on the demand for torture in the face of the terrorist threat. [9] Writing on Iraq, and as discussed further below, Carr Center head Sewall and Samantha Power never mention that the United States is an aggressor and that its invasion-occupation of Iraq was a “supreme international crime” in violation of the UN Charter. As with Ignatieff, for Sewall and Power this country has aggression rights.

Another key test of institutional integrity is whether an institution’s leaders are able to maintain some objectivity on official goals or simply premise good intentions. Ignatieff wrote the classic here, asserting that the United States was in Iraq simply to bring democracy and liberate its people, without offering any evidence but the fact that Bush made this claim. [10] Any materialistic or political objective he ruled out in an act of faith. Sara Sewall also simply postulates without any evidence that the Iraq aggression is the “grandest of democratic experiments,” a “liberation from dictatorship by a foreign intervention” that “looks astonishingly humane” in the light of the “hundreds of thousands in Vietnam and Korea,” etc. [11] As with Ignatieff, Sewall never hints at any possible non-benevolent objective in the invasion, never suggests that Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and company, constructing huge bases in Iraq and with early plans for opening up Iraq’s oil resources to private investors, might have been planning for a less-than-fully-democratic successor regime in Iraq.

Sewall as well as Power also fails the test of integrity in her use of numbers. There were far more than “hundreds of thousands” killed in the U.S. wars in Vietnam and Korea, and they were hardly attempts to liberate those countries from dictatorship—in fact the regime in southern Vietnam was a brutal U.S.-imposed dictatorship that matched that of Saddam Hussein for savagery. Her claim that only 30,000 Iraqi deaths would make the invasion-occupation “astonishingly humane” rests in part on her assumption that the Iraq venture is truly liberating Iraqis, an unconscionable and untenable apologetic premise; it also rests on the assumptions that removal of a distant dictatorship by violence in violation of the UN Charter is not only acceptable but is the only way in which such political change could be brought about. Sewall also criticizes both the Lancet study that found 100,000 Iraqi civilian deaths by December 2004 and the Iraq Body Count estimates, stressing the alleged methodological inadequacy of the former and the finding by IBC that the United States may have been responsible for fewer than 40 percent of the deaths; so that “maybe the number isn’t so overwhelming after all.” For Sewall, “the numbers suggest a different character” [than Americans as “trigger-happy cowboys”]. Sewall hasn’t commented as yet on the later findings of perhaps 650,000 to a million civilian deaths in Iraq, [12] and she steers clear of the multi-leveled evidence that her leaders have brought a catastrophe to that country, [13] but I have no doubt she will find the larger numbers and evidence of a major disaster, if not showing astonishing humanity, surely not any basis for harsh criticism of a noble effort.

Samantha Power’s A Problem From Hell: America in the Age of Genocide, is notable for its intense focus and great indignation at the killings by Serbs in Bosnia and Kosovo, where she came in touch with Holbrooke who, Power tells us, “was transformed by firsthand exposure to a crime scene,” in Bosnia [14]--but oddly enough not in East Timor, where no doubt coincidentally the killers were being protected by U.S. leaders, including Holbrooke himself. Power gives the figure of 200,000 dead in Bosnia, 1992-1995, and she uses the word “genocide” for those killings. She doesn’t break down the Bosnian deaths between the various ethnic groups and soldiers versus civilians, and the later finding by two establishment research groups that total deaths on all sides, civilian and military, was about 100,000, suggests further questions about her preoccupation with this area. Sewall of course could find 30,000 Iraqi deaths and 300,000 U.S. deaths under analogous circumstances a triumph of humanity, given the nobility of the aims of the responsible party (in the Iraq case, her government); well under 100,000 can be a “problem from hell” for Power, given her (extremely biased and lightweight) analysis that finds the villain to be her government’s target.

As regards numbers in Kosovo, Samantha Power tells us that:

As high as the death toll turned out [in Kosovo in 1999], it was far lower than if NATO had not acted at all. After years of avoiding confrontation, the United States and its allies likely saved hundreds of thousands of lives. In addition, although prospective and retrospective critics of U.S. intervention have long cited the negative side effects likely to result, the NATO campaign ushered in some very positive unintended consequences. Indicted by the UN war crimes tribunal for Serbia’s atrocities in Operation Horseshoe and defeated in battle, Slobodan Milosevic became even more vulnerable at home. [15]

There isn’t an honest or undeceptive sentence in this paragraph. The death toll from the war in Kosovo was not high—it was under 8,000 on all sides, and Power fails to mention that during the war NATO officials claimed a Kosovo Albanian death toll of up to 500,000. Her statement that it would have been higher if NATO hadn’t acted has no basis in any evidence, as the death toll in the year before the war was an estimated 2,000, and Operation Horseshoe has been proven to be an intelligence agency fraud that Power swallowed. She also fails to mention that George Robertson, the NATO Secretary -General, admitted that the KLA was responsible for more deaths in Kosovo in the year before the bombing war than the Yugoslav army (that is, more than half of the estimated 2,000); [16] nor does she mention that the CIA was training and advising the KLA in that prewar period and giving it reason to believe that its provocations of the Serbs might help bring about a NATO attack. On unintended consequences, Power fails to mention that while Clinton claimed that the war objective was to create a ”tolerant and multi-ethnic Kosovo,” it had the opposite effect—it stimulated intolerance, resulted in the “largest ethnic cleansing [in proportionate terms] in the Balkan wars,” and left a fear-ridden, mafia-dominated Kosovo that is the drug and women-trade capital of Europe.

In short, Samantha Power can identify with Holbrooke because they both follow the U.S. party line on worthy and unworthy genocides. As the United States was directly involved in the great Vietnam genocide, as its leaders were part of the “joint criminal enterprise” with Indonesia in East Timor, and as they were mainly responsible for the “sanctions of mass destruction” and those 500,000 dead children whose deaths were “worth it” for Albright, Samantha Power evades these cases. Thus the Vietnam war, in which millions were directly killed by U.S. forces, does not show up in Power’s index or text. Guatemala, where there was a mass killing of as many as 100,000 Mayan Indians between 1978 and 1985, in what Amnesty International called “A Government Program of Political Murder,” but by a government installed and supported by the United States, also does not show up in Power’s index. Cambodia is of course included, but only for the second phase of the genocide—the first phase, from 1969-1975, in which the United States dropped some 500,000 tons of bombs on the Cambodian countryside and killed vast numbers, she fails to mention. On the Khmer Rouge genocide, Power says they killed 2 million, a figure widely cited after Jean Lacouture gave that number; his subsequent admission that this number was invented had no affect on its use, and it suits Power’s purpose.

A major U.S.-encouraged and supported genocide occurred in Indonesia in 1965-66 in which over 700,000 people were murdered. This genocide is not mentioned by Samantha Power and the names Indonesia and Suharto do not appear in her book’s index. She also fails to mention West Papua, where Indonesia’s 40 years of murderous occupation would constitute genocide under her criteria, if carried out under different auspices. Power does refer to East Timor, with extreme brevity, saying that “In 1975, when its ally, the oil-producing, anti-Communist Indonesia, invaded East Timor, killing between 100,000 and 200,000 civilians, the United States looked away.” [17] That exhausts her treatment of the subject, although the killings in East Timor involved a larger fraction of the population than in Cambodia, and the numbers killed were far larger than the grand total for Bosnia and Kosovo, to which she devotes almost a third of her book

She also misrepresents the U.S. role in East Timor—it did not “look away,” it gave its approval, protected the aggression from any effective UN response (in his autobiography, then U.S. Ambassador to the UN Daniel Patrick Moynihan bragged about his effectiveness in protecting Indonesia from any UN action), [18] and greatly increased its arms aid to Indonesia, thereby facilitating the genocide. And her pal Richard Holbrooke was also on the front line in servicing this genocide.

Power engages in a similar suppression and failure to recognize the U.S. role in her treatment of genocide in Iraq. She attends carefully and at length to Saddam Hussein’s use of chemical warfare and killing of Kurds at Halabja and elsewhere, and she does discuss the U.S. failure to oppose and take any action against Saddam Hussein at this juncture. But she does not mention the diplomatic rapproachement with Saddam in the midst of his war with Iran in 1983, the active U.S. logistical support of Saddam during that war, and the U.S. approval of sales and transfers of chemical and biological weapons during the period in which he was using chemical weapons against the Kurds. She also doesn’t mention the active efforts by the United States and Britain to block UN actions that might have obstructed Saddam’s killings.

The killing of over a million Iraqis via the “sanctions of mass destruction” is unmentioned by Samantha Power. Again, the correlation between exclusion, U.S. responsibility, and the view that such killings were “worth it” from the standpoint of U.S. interests, is clear. There is a similar political basis for Power’s failure to include Israel’s low-intensity genocide of the Palestinians and South Africa’s “destructive engagement” with the frontline states in the 1980s, the latter with a death toll greatly exceeding all the deaths in the Balkan wars of the 1990s. [19] Neither Israel nor South Africa, both “constructively engaged” by the United States, show up in Power’s index.

Power is concerned about genocide in Iraq today and wrote recently on how to bring it to a halt (“How to stop genocide in Iraq,” Los Angeles Times, March 5, 2007). But nowhere does she mention that the mass killing that has taken place in Iraq traces back to the U.S. invasion in violation of the UN Charter; nowhere does she mention that the killing has grown in parallel with the occupation and occupation policies; nowhere does she mention Fallujah and other cases of mass killing for which her leaders are responsible; and nowhere does she hint at the possibility that the United States has stimulated ethnic conflict as part of a divide and rule strategy. When Bush claims to be “surging” in the interest of stability and to reduce conflict, Power never contests this or suggests some alternative explanation. Somebody better informed on Iraq like the exile Sami Ramadani writes that “It is hard not to presume that what he [Bush] means by an exit strategy is to install a client regime in Baghdad, backed by US bases. The Iraqi people will not accept this, and the west should be alerted to the fact that US policy objectives will only lead to wider regional conflicts, rather than to full withdrawal.” [20] Samantha Power cannot formulate or admit such a critical analysis.

When Power talks about “atrocities” it is always indigenous forces that engage in them, not the U.S. occupation. She has always been gung-ho on bringing people responsible for atrocities to justice, and here in Iraq too she says that if the United States is serious about ending sectarian horrors, it “must send a clear signal to the militias and political leaders who carry out or order atrocities that they will be brought to justice for their crimes” In a 2003 article Power even asserts that although the rationale for the invasion had proven to be in error, it might still be justified because it would ensure that bad men would be brought to “justice” (“How to Try Saddam Hussein,” New Republic, Dec. 29, 2003). But she didn’t mean the U.S. officials who had colluded with and supported Saddam Hussein when he carried out his worst crimes in the 1980s; nor the U.S. officials who invaded Iraq in the “supreme international crime,” who destroyed Falluja and have surely killed many more civilians than her favorite Serb targets did in Kosovo and Bosnia taken together. Again, her country has aggression rights, and she tells us that what is happening in Iraq is taking place “on our watch.” Milosevic in Kosovo was operating in his own country, but he didn’t have “his own watch” there—but Power’s country has its “own watch” anywhere it chooses to invade and kill.

Samantha Power’s conclusion is that the U.S. policy toward genocide has been very imperfect and needs reorientation, less opportunism, and greater vigor. For Power, the United States is the solution, not the problem. These conclusions and policy recommendations rest heavily on her spectacular bias in case selection: She simply bypasses those that are ideologically inconvenient, where the United States has arguably committed genocide (Vietnam, Cambodia 1969-75, Iraq 1991-2003), or has given genocidal processes positive support (Indonesia, West Papua, East Timor, Guatemala, Israel, Angola, Mozambique, and South Africa). Looking at these cases, and at the “problem from hell” produced by the United States in Iraq right now, one would quickly conclude that the United States is the problem, not the solution, that it has been the leading source of hellishness, and that the real challenge for the world is to contain the United States and terminate its genocidal actions and support.

What is astounding is that Power’s book could win a Pulitzer Prize and that a thinker of this caliber and with these biases would become an icon in great demand, even welcomed in The Nation and Le Monde Diplomatique. But then we must recall that Thomas Friedman and George Will have won Pulitzers; Claire Sterling and Paul Henze were media stars commenting on terrorism; Joan Peters’ fraudulent From Time Immemorial received raves in the mainstream and Alan Dershowitz, literally plagiarizing the Peters fraud in his The Case for Israel, is still treated with respect; and Henry Kissinger, Bill Clinton and Richard Holbrooke are celebrated speakers, with Holbrooke honored by both the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy and Human Rights Watch.

End Notes:

1. Samantha Power, A Problem from Hell: America in the Age of Genocide (New York: Basic Books, 2002). This book won the Pulitzer Prize for nonfiction in 2003.

2. On Holbrooke’s treatment at HRW, see Edward S. Herman, David Peterson, and George Szamuely, Human Rights Watch in Service to the War Party, Including A Review of “Weighing the Evidence: Lessons from the Slobodan Milosevic Trial” (Human Rights Watch, December, 2006), ZNet, February 25, 2007.

3. Peter Waldman, “Body Count: In Vietnam, the Agony of Birth Defects Calls an Old War to Mind,” Wall Street Journal, Dec. 12, 1997.

4. “Joint criminal enterprise” is described in John Laughland’s chapter 6, “Just Convict Everyone,” in Travesty: The Trial of Slobodan Milosevic and the Corruption of International Justice (London: Pluto, 2007).

5. See Noam Chomsky, Toward A New Cold War (Pantheon, 1982), p. 350 and p. 471.

6. See Joseph Nevins, “First the Butchery, Then the Flowers: Clinton and Holbrooke in East Timor,” CounterPunch, May 16 - 31, 2002 (as posted to the ETAN website).

7. See Edward S. Herman and Gerry O’Sullivan, The “Terrorism” Industry: The Experts and Institutions That Shape Our View of Terror (New York: Pantheon, 1989).

8. Even the murderous government of El Salvador received funds from the United States in 1983 under an “Anti-Terrorism Assistance Act.” See ibid., p. xiii.

9. E.g., “Sticking too firmly to the rule of law simply allows terrorists too much leeway to exploit our freedoms. Abandoning the rule of law altogether betrays our most valued institutions. To defeat evil, we may have to traffic in evils: indefinite detention of suspects, coercive interrogations, targeted assassinations, even pre-emptive war.” Michael Ignatieff, “Lesser Evils,” New York Times, May 2, 2004.

10. See his New York Times Magazine article of June 26, 2005 (“Who Are Americans to Think That Freedom Is Theirs to Spread?”).

11. Sarah Sewall, “What’s the Story Behind 30,000 Iraqi Deaths?,” Washington Post, Dec. 18, 2005.

12. The 655,000 is the most recent Lancet study estimate. More recently, Gideon Polya has given a larger estimate in “Four Years: One Million Iraqi Deaths,” CounterCurrents.org, March 22, 2007.

13. See for example Anthony Arnove’s “Four Years Later..and Counting: Billboarding the Iraqi Disaster,” TomDispatch.com, March 18, 2007.

14. A Problem from Hell, pp. 514-5.

15. Ibid., p. 472.

16. Cited in Laughland, Travesty, p. 22.

17. A Problem from Hell, pp. 146-7.

18. “The Department of State desired that the United Nations prove utterly ineffective in whatever measures it undertook [to deal with the Indonesian invasion of East Timor]. This task was given to me, and I carried it forward with no inconsiderable success.” Quoted in Noam Chomsky, Towards A New Cold War, (New York: Pantheon, 1982, p. 339).

19. P. Johnson and D. Martin, eds., Destructive Engagement: South Africa at War (Harare: Zimbabwe Publishing House, 1986).

20. Sami Ramadami, “In Iraq, public anger is at last translating into unity,” The Guardian, March 20, 2007.