Mark Morford on torture and the state of AMERICAN EMPIRE

Tax my rich white torturer

Schools? Health care? As if. Your taxes pay for brutality and Wall St. bailouts. Feel better?

By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist

Wednesday, March 26, 2008

Just so we have this straight: You are not paying taxes merely to fund torture and bomb-dropping and the killing of countless innocents in Iraq in a futile and lost war that's not really a war and is far more of a massive fiscal, tactical and moral failure which will end up costing the nation an estimated $3 trillion, burn through any remaining sense of national dignity and leave repercussions that will last for generations.

Ha. You should be so lucky. Because your tax money is right now also funding the Fed's unprecedented and rather shocking multibillion-dollar bailout of rich bankers and fund managers who have, through their greed and excess and with the implied blessing of former Chairman Alan Greenspan (whom many consider the architect of the collapse in the first place), helped bring about what is shaping up to be the worst fiscal crisis since World War II.

There now. Don't you feel better? Isn't it a good time to be an American? And is it not, despite the notorious dishonesty of the players involved, still a bit hard to believe?

Yes, I know it's George W. Bush. I know its Dick "Satan Loves You" Cheney. I know it's Wall Street. Hence, I know expectations are at rock bottom. But as far as torture is concerned, it's still profoundly disturbing to watch the world's most powerful leader, the president of what was once considered the most reasoned, humanitarian nation on the planet and the one that ostensibly set the ethical bar for all nations, actually veto a bill that would've banned some of the most brutal forms of torture known to man, techniques we know for a fact do not work.

Repeat: Torture does not work. Waterboarding does not work. It merely coerces the tortured into telling you what you want to hear. The CIA knows it. Torturers know it. God knows it. No matter, because America is apparently still being run by inbred white collar thugs who would blind their own mothers for an uptick in Exxon share prices.

By the way, it has also come to pass that this same president, amid an appalling laundry list of scientific and environmental abuses, has actually worked firsthand to worsen the quality of the very air itself.

It's as true as it is disgusting. It turns out that Bush himself stepped in to force the already troubled Environmental Protection Agency to defy its own mandate, its own scientific recommendations, ordering it to raise the limits for allowable ozone (it was about to recommend the exact opposite), all for the benefit of his pals in Big Energy.

No president ever dared such a move before. In fact, Bush's action was so unprecedented, so galling, so against the very structure of government itself that an army of White House lawyers had to scramble to rewrite the legal justifications for the lower air standard. Do you smell that? That's the scent of the most shamelessly foul leader of the free world. Breathe deeply, because it ain't over yet.

So then, torture, pollution, more war, Wall Street megalomania, incompetence like some sort of satanic mantra. If you had any lingering doubt that Bush was an arrogant and petulant man-child with the mind of a violently overpampered 10-year-old, please abolish it now.

Ah, but wait. It's not all bad. After all, Congress — with the eager support of the infuriatingly mindless Democrats, by the way — just rushed through an economic stimulus package, costing even more billions of dollars we do not have just so the IRS can rush you a check for a few hundred bucks, presumably so you can race right out and make a down payment on that foreclosed three-bedroom two-bath hunk of shiny tract home hell in Antioch — "The Finest Slum this Side of Stockton" — with enough left over for a burrito and some vodka. Voila! Economy saved. Or maybe not.

Do you feel stimulated? Do you feel reassured? Oh wait, I'm sorry, gas is now $4 a gallon and therefore by the time you actually made it to your tract slum and back, well, your stimulus has evaporated into a gassy vapor, just like your shares in Bear Stearns. Whoops.

Maybe now is when the real dark period begins. Sure the last seven years of the inept Bush regime have been miserable and shameful, sure we've been humiliated, mortified a thousand ways from Sunday by an administration that would yank the legs off a dog if it meant a thank-you note from Dubai.

But now Bush is in his final year. This is both the good news, and also the very, very bad news. Because we are now in the death throes of the worst administration in modern history, entering the period of serious consequences, of economic collapse, environmental impact, record oil prices, international recoil, rashes, boils, inexplicable vomiting. Fun for the whole family.

Know this for a fact. Bush does not care. He is detached, supercilious, viciously ignorant of anything but how beautifully he has served his corporate masters, of how he has raked in billions of dollars for Halliburton and Lockheed Martin and Exxon and the coal industry, mercenary armies and military manufacturers and his dad's Saudi friends. He is on no one's side but theirs, and he always has been.

Some say this pain, this fiscal crisis, this enormous instability will last a few years. Some say no way, it will be at least a generation or two before we can right this ship of state again, so deep are the wounds and so insane is our national debt and so violent the damage to our reputation, our identity, our enfeebled infrastructure.

But I'm more with those who say, no, the truth is we will never truly recover, that America's former ranking as Gilded and Irreproachable Empire No. 1 is dead and gone. India and China are dramatically changing the game, peak oil is nigh, fresh water is the new gold, the planet itself is in paroxysm, Mother Nature is quickly revealing her hand — or rather, maybe just that one big, stormy middle finger.

But maybe this is the best news of all. Because the sort of gluttonous empire Bush so disgustingly represented was doomed to failure. The center could not hold. Dubya may not have hastened the apocalypse like the evangelicals desperately prayed he would, but he certainly is hastening the end of the bloviated American ego.

So maybe the real question is not can we return to our former ill-gotten superpower glory, insular and unparalleled and reckless and arrogant, or even peaceful and defensive and ironclad. The true question is, do we have the slightest clue what we want to become instead?

The Privateer UPDATE; LOOKING AT THE GRIM FACTS

GLOBAL REPORT
A DECEPTIVE LULL

After the many dramatic events over the past two weeks - we're all
saved! At least that is the message being preached in the US.

The Dow is above 12,000 again. The S&P 500 is above 1300. The US
Dollar even had a global rally in the lead-up to Easter. Its nemesis,
Gold, fell nearly $US 86 in three trading days and Oil went back to
$US 100.

That General Perception Is Entirely False:

In principle, not one economic or financial issue has been solved or
even addressed. All the fundamental US problems are still there. They
have been literally papered over. The Fed cut interest rates and
slammed still more new fresh money into the US financial system to
keep it liquid. The Fed is exposing its own balance sheet to an
amazing degree, offering up $US 400 Billion in Treasuries as short
duration "swaps" in return for unmarketable toxic sludge of US
mortgage paper.

The Fed had held about $US 800 Billion in Treasury paper, paper that
it acquired by "monetising" the US Treasury's debts. This paper is at
the core of the Fed's financial holdings. It is the Fed's major
"asset". Now, by having sent $US 400 Billion out the door, the Fed has
in fact sold down its capital by half. Please note here that the Fed's
liabilities - the US Federal Reserve Notes (US Dollars) - have not
fallen in quantity.

If any private financial company had done what the Fed has done, most
people in finance would instantly recognise that its liability to
asset ratio had doubled. That alone would make holding its
liabilities, US Dollars, much more dangerous. What is certain is that
the Fed cannot repeat what it has just done. To do so would strip it
entirely of capital on its own balance sheet. If the Fed is not now
"done" - then it is done for!

General Notice To All Privateer Subscribers:

In The Privateer's judgement, this is the turning point around the
vast pivot which was the US economy. This pivot is now crumbling. The
most important centre point of the post WW II world has been undone.
After this false lull, there are tumultuous events ahead financially,
economically and geo-strategically.

Bomb, Bomb, Bomb, Bomb, Bomb, Iran: Margaret

by Margaret Kimberley

It is happening. The plans for the Bush administration to begin mass murder of the Iranian people have been put in motion. The plot was stalled temporarily by the National Intelligence Estimate report released last fall, a report which said that Iran did not have a nuclear weapons program. Bush and Cheney were thrown off their game, but not by much and not for long. They were inconvenienced but ultimately took the small set back in stride because they both knew they had nothing to worry about.

They know that the press will report what they say without criticism or analysis. They know that both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have said that all options are on the table with Iran. They know that European nations like France have publicly stated their allegiance to Bush vis a vis Iran. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown also bowed to Bushian bullying and declared that Iran must not be allowed to become a nuclear power. Now Germany has joined the hall of shame. German Chancellor Angela Merkel groveled before the Israeli Knesset and essentially promised not to protest when Israel assists America in creating an Iranian holocaust. Apparently German sins of genocide against the Jews can only be expiated by complicity with an Israeli genocide.

When historians write about the catastrophes that struck the world in 2008, events that have taken place in March of 2008 will surely loom large. The worldwide economic meltdown finally became impossible to deny, with the Federal Reserve using the workers’ dime to bail out a major investment banking firm, Bear Stearns. Dick Cheney traveled to Iraq, Israel, and Saudi Arabia, making sure his nefarious plans went off without a hitch. John McCain claimed that Iran was the home of al Qaeda, the bogeyman that sends already trigger happy Americans on blood thirsty rampages. Democrats who had the power to stop Bush in his tracks, once again pledged to do nothing.

In 2007 both the Senate and House passed resolutions that backed war with Iran. Impeachment, the one weapon Congress could use to stop further war making, is ignored and forgotten by John Conyers, Chairman of the House Judiciary committee.

In recent days Conyers said he would begin impeachment hearings, but only if Bush attacks Iran. Apparently not enough human beings have been killed by Bush and the body count needs to grow exponentially before Conyers will lift a finger. On the other hand, the two-faced Congressman says he fears impeachment because it will hurt the Democrats in the upcoming November election. So it seems he will do nothing, no matter how many people die because of the crimes committed under the Bush regime.

The attack on Iran is an open secret, but Americans, like a wronged spouse, are the last to know. Dick Cheney must have told the Saudi princes of his intended evil doing because Saudi Arabia is planning for "the probabilities of leaking nuclear and radiation hazards in case of any unexpected nuclear attacks in Iran. . . " Saudis know the deal, while John and Jane Q. Public are still in the dark.

What will the Democrats do when Iranians are nuked? When Israeli foreign minister Tzipi Livni recently visited the United States, Obama gave her a phone call and told her she shouldn’t worry about an Obama administration. He said all the right things, that Israel has a right to defend itself (kill Palestinians whenever it wants) and agreed that Iran was an evil nation that shouldn’t have the nuclear weapons that Israel has had for decades. So much for change.

The saber rattling and furtive Dick Cheney meetings are just the tip of the iceberg. The worldwide economic crisis is pushing the war agenda more than any other factor. Black Agenda Report said as much nearly one year ago.

“Ultimately, the parasitic class can only maintain its rule by force. Manufacturing nothing, creating no value except on paper, they must finally call upon the Armed Forces to impose their unearned advantage on the planet. Such was the logic of March, 2003. The Great Offensive failed, but the contradictions that compelled the captains of finance capital to order their political servants to wage war, remain - and are in fact more acute than four years ago. They must wage war, again, to fight their way out of the box.”

Every bail out of an investment bank is an omen of an oncoming worldwide financial calamity, but it is also an omen of more American aggression. The Obama/Clinton fight for the nomination is a sorry side show spectacle. In any case, the new war will help John McCain more than it will help the Democratic nominee. Even if the Democrat should win, both Obama and Clinton have stated that they too believe in maintaining America’s empire. Bush’s wars won’t end with a Democratic administration.

In the space of just five years, our nation will be waging another war of aggression and we will all be accessories after the fact. Our country may have also entered into a depression, so we will be poor criminals too. To use an expression coined by Poppy Bush, we will be in deep doo doo. Cheer up though. We won’t be in as much trouble as Iranians. Many of them will soon be dead.
_______

About author

Margaret Kimberley's Freedom Rider column appears weekly in BA R. Ms. Kimberley lives in New York City, and can be reached via e-Mail at Margaret.Kimberley@BlackAgandaReport.Com. Ms. Kimberley' maintains an edifying and frequently updated blog at freedomrider.blogspot.com. More of her work is also available at her Black Agenda Report archive page.

Vote Result

The aircraft carrier Abe Lincoln departed for the Middle East Mar 13th and picked up the rest of her attack group at Pearl Harbor a day or so ago, the Truman is already there and looking at her deployment she will be there for another two or three months, the Nimitz is in the western Pacific off China and the Kitty Hawk sailed from Japan about a week ago supposedly to Taiwan as a show of strength during the upcoming Presidential elections there. The Kitty Hawk is scheduled to be taken out of service later this year and a few months ago sailed to the Indian Ocean for joint exercises with Indian forces.

If either the Kitty Hawk or Nimitz head for the Middle East look out.

I think that...

there were people who truly believed that the NIE report that Ms. Kimberley references in her story would stay the Ghoulish Gang's hands. I was not one of them. I'm not claiming any special insight or anything. I just truly believe that if there is true evil in present day USA it is embodied, first and foremost, by all members of the Bush regime and the oligarchs who are pulling the strings. The complicit Congress (including current members Clinton, Obama and McCain) runs a close second.
Tangent Alert: I don't think any country should have nuclear weapons. That being said, why do we and other Western nations, plus Israel, get to run around saying that Iran can't have any? Just curious...

The answer to your tangential question is quite simply......

....the Iranians would only use nuclear weapons to advance things like evil and islamofascism.

The USA would only use nuclear weapons to advance things like goodness and soft little puppies (see hiroshima/nagasaki circa 1945. Are there lots of puppies in japan? I rest my case).

Other western nations would only use nuclear weapons as a faux deterrent against similarly armed competitor nations, who may decide one day to beat them up and steal their lunch money.

Commander bunnypants would use nookyular weapons to cut brush in crawford, explode frogs asses, punish the stupid poor folks... you know, entitled fratboy kinda shit.

S

FOOL ME TWICE

This is the same stuff the Chimp was peddling about a year ago, and it scared me to DEATH at the time. I was considering accepting all the credit card offers I was getting in the mail, and maxing them out, just enjoying the 90 days or so I had to live.
THIS AIN'T GONNA HAPPEN. bush has lost has magic genie of "terra!", congress, even though unbelieveably WIMPY, is NOT neutered, and the rest of the WORLD would turn on us.
NOT EVEN THE SMIRKING CHIMP HIMSELF IS STUPID ENOUGH TO TRY THIS AT THIS STAGE IN THE GAME.

_______

"I am obviously wrong" Rush Limbaugh Oct 19, 2006

But

CHeney is not stoopid but he's evil enough!

_______

eclipsedpreboomer/RU Cognizant

Imbeciles on the War Path

Of course it is happening. It has been planned from the very beginning. Iran was always the target. Yet, what Americans don’t see, as this plot takes its course, is that America has also been set up. It has been baited and is now well on course towards taking itself out.

No one in this world will shed a tear when that happens.

In its arrogance and hubris, America has been carefully drawn towards that line, which it is about to cross when it attacks Iran with nuclear weapons, when the world will pull the plug on the last, remaining, failed superpower. America’s fate will not be far removed from what befell Bear Stearns this past week. But it will occur on a national, massive scale, as has never been seen before in the history of this world. America will go down at $0.50 a share.

And it will be well deserved. There is a price to pay for idiocy.

Perhaps this is the best way to end it all. Let the U.S. and Israel attack Iran with nuclear weapons. Watch it happen and then witness as the entire world turns its back on the perpetrators of the Iranian genocide. Stupid as the Americans are, they never even realised that they were being set up as fools.

What better way to take them down? Let them take themselves down.

As they discuss whether Hillary ducked in Bosnia or not.

Conyers

She should back off on Conyers. If he opposes impeachment it means that he has an honest tactical disagreement on the issue and cannot be two faced. He gave favorable interviews in both Fahrenheit 9-11 and Sicko.

Case in point

Oh, goody!

Let's all agree that Conyers was tactically honest and Hillary called for impeachment.

For the truth shall set you free...

Would somebody please tell

Would somebody please tell me?

At what point, if it hasn't been reached already, will the free countries of the world look at and fear the United States the way they once did Nazi Germany?

Or do I really not want to know?

The Fear

You really don’t want to know.

Let’s pretend you didn’t ask and I’ll pay for the next round.

Drowning the Sorrows

Listen to the music play, although it is a cabaret...

but

“We're catching bullets in our teeth
It's hard to do but they're so sweet
And if they take a couple out
We try to work things out

We catching bullets with our
Heads and hearts and all the darkest parts of us
It's strange to find such light
In such endless night”

“Bullets” - Tunng

Link to “Bullets”, Tunng: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AI1NgFYJCN4

Kind regards,

GR

well, GR, we got about 225

well, GR,

we got about 225 or so good years out of the old gal before she turned into a clunker and died on us. at least we've got our memories. let's be grateful for that.

didn't quite last as long as

didn't quite last as long as the Egyptians, Romans, or Brits, did it? But we did leave behind the eternal contribution to the global culture with our heart rendering "always low prices. always" and "mission accomplished"

Missiles flying into Saudi Oil Centers?

Missiles flying into Saudi Oil Centers?
Japan and Asia going into instant Depression?
Venezuela stopping oil shipments to protest?
Oil hitting $200 a barrel (at least ) and staying there for months?

Nope, I'd bet it doesn't happen. I wouldn't, however, bet too much.

Cheney"$200.00 a barrel for oil? BONUS!"

"Oil hitting $200 a barrel..."

What do you think Exxon/Mobil's profit from THAT would be?
CheneyBushCo and their buddies in the awl bidness are rock hard and dripping at the thought.

_______

I've got values but I don't know how or why.

Who's next?

"Venezuela stopping oil shipments to protest?"

They're next on the agenda. After all they're a (conveniently oil rich) "state sponsor of terrism" just like Iraq and Iran.

Merkel's "groveling" before the Knesset

Yes! Germany has a difficult relationship with Israel. Since, thanks to us, an Israel state had become necessary, since, thanks to us, hundreds of thousands of Israelites didn't feel safe anymore in countries they had, til then, called their homeland, Germany is the last country on earth to look on now, when somebody threatens - again - a Jewish homeland.

This might look strange to some, but that's called accepting responsibility for your deeds. How you act on this responsibility is open to discussion (in Germany as well. That's why Merkel got asked by German politicans to take the chance and mention Palistine too), but at least we try.

So that's mostly what Merkel's "groveling" had been about. Yes, she called the Iran nuclear program a threat. And yes, she said that if Israel should get threatened by war, Germany would act. However, she did not give a green light - hidden or openly - for Israel to just bomb away at Iran. Actually, she was mentioning her belief in diplomatic actions and, if necessary, sanctions against Iran. That's a far cry from telling someone to go ahead with nuking Iran!!!

Merkel got a historical chance when she had been allowed to speak at the Knesset. She took that chance and danced on a tightrope. Her "groveling" included not just a call against Hamas' attacks, but a soft spoken plea for peace among Israel and Palastine as well, mentioning that for peace difficult compromises will be necessary - for everybody. Anybody, who expected Merkel to speak in front of the Knesset about Jewish wrongdoings or "war-mongering" has a strange idea where it comes to diplomatic relations of any kind, let alone those among Germany and Israel!!

Sorry, but if you consider such a diplomatic balance act as "groveling", you've watched too many cowboy movies!

_______

Iraq: it's not a "war", it's not a "fight", it's a WAR CRIME - and crimes cannot be won!

Mountains rather get eliminated by a single ant than by the rumor that they cannot be eliminated. (Bert Brecht)

I have a problem

With the lack of sane heads speaking out and getting heard regards attacking Iran. Fallon is gone and supposedly we are all supposed to believe that with his removal the evil forces of annihilation are back in control.
Are we to believe that Bush and company has removed the one impediment in Fallon so this administration can 'continue' a 'plan'?
Now I am just as much up on what PNAC is all about and all the signers of that document wanted. But am I supposed to think that there is a greater urgency to attack Iran? Perhaps because Democrats take power in a short number of months?
Do I have to read anguish in writers words that show the possibility that checks and balances are gone.
This is maybe justifiable panic talk. But I don't believe it completely to the point that I am with little chicken screaming the sky is falling.
We chimpsters had ho problem predicting the war on Iraq if Bush got in power. Spelled out in detail what will happen. It was all said here.
But now we are talking about having a whole lot of insane people going after Iran and there are no checks against them. Do you know what you are saying and further do you know what you are willing to admit to?
I gave the writer an 8 because I share her scare.
TJ

Nations were communities may resist US military bases

Resisting the Empire Joseph Gerson | March 20, 2008 Editor: Emily Schwarz Greco
Foreign Policy In Focus www.fpif.org
Victories are within sight for people in a growing number of nations where communities that host U.S. foreign military bases have long fought to get rid of them. Ecuador’s decision not to renew the U.S. lease for the forward operating base at (see Yankees Head Home) is the culmination of just one of many long-term and recently initiated community-based and national struggles to remove these military installations that are often sources of crime and demeaning human rights violations. A growing alliance among anti-bases movements in countries around the world, including the United States, is preventing the creation of new foreign military bases, restricting the expansion of others, and in some cases may win the withdrawal of the military bases, installations and troops that are essential to U.S. wars of intervention and its preparations for first-strike nuclear attacks. The Challenge Of course, there is still plenty of bad news. The Bush Administration is currently negotiating what is, in essence, a security treaty with the Maliki puppet government in Baghdad to secure one of the principle Bush-Cheney war aims: permanent military bases for tens of thousands of U.S. troops. The goal is to transform Iraq into an U.S. unsinkable aircraft carrier in the heart of the oil-rich Middle East. Unfortunately, the plan for Iraq is only one part of the vast and expanding U.S. infrastructure of nearly 1,000 military bases and installations strategically scattered around the world. Across Asia, in Japan, another Marine has raped an Okinawan school girl, traumatizing yet another life and temporarily shaking the foundations of the U.S.-Japan military alliance. Under the guise of a “Visiting Force Agreement,” U.S. troops have returned to the Philippines where they are deployed from “temporary” and unconstitutional military bases. In the Indian Ocean, Chagossian people were removed from Diego Garcia to make way for massive U.S. military bases; they have won all of their legal appeals but still can’t return home. In Central Europe, the Bush Administration is pressing deployment of first strike-related “missile defense” bases in the Czech Republic and Poland. Russia has countered by threatening to target the bases with nuclear weapons, and opposition to “missile defense.” In response to this renewed Cold War, opposition to “missile defense” weaponry is building in public squares and in parliaments throughout the region. And, as he recently traveled across Africa, President George W. Bush was met with near universal opposition to his plans for further military colonization of the continent in the form of moving the Pentagon’s Africa Command headquarters from Europe to the oil and resource-rich continent. The Bush Administration and Pentagon are “reconfiguring” the U.S. global network of more than 750 foreign military bases to impose what Vice President Dick Cheney termed in a New Yorker interview as “the arrangement for the 21st century.” This imperial “arrangement” is increasingly being met with opposition in “host” nations and the United States alike, and victories by allied movements are within reach. How We Got Here For more than a century, the United States has been building an unrivaled global structure of nearly foreign fortresses. Located on every continent and at sea, these military bases and installations provide an infrastructure from which invasions and nuclear wars can be launched. They enforce an unjust and often violent status quo, influence the politics and diplomacy of “host” nations, secure privileged access to oil and other natural resources, encircle enemies, “show the flag,” and more recently have served as prisons operating outside the restrictions of U.S. and international law. These bases violate democratic values in other ways. When the United States was founded, the Declaration of Independence decried the “abuses and usurpations” caused by King George having “kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies.” Since then, “abuses and usurpations” inherent in the presence of foreign “Standing Armies” have become far more dangerous. Their demeaning and disruptive impacts include: Undermining the sovereignty of “host” nations Militarizing and colonizing the “host” nation’s culture Assaulting democracy and human rights Seizing people’s private property and damaging their homes Violently abusing and dehumanizing women and girls Causing life-endangering military accidents and crimes that are rarely punished Terrorizing low-altitude training flights and night-landing exercises Polluting with military toxics Since the Cold War ended, U.S. presidents and the Pentagon have worked to “reconfigure” the architecture of this military infrastructure to address changing geopolitical realities, technological “advances,” and growing resistance to the presence of foreign bases. With agility, flexibility and speed being given priority in U.S. military operations, bases are being transformed into hubs, forward operating bases, and “lily pads” for invasions and foreign military interventions. The other axis of reconfiguration is geographic. As U.S. forces have been forced out of Saudi Arabia, and with U.S. geostrategic priorities turning away from Europe and toward China, Washington has concentrated its military build up elsewhere in the Persian Gulf nations, Asia and the Pacific. Tipping Points In a number of countries, the reconfiguration has not proceeded as smoothly as anticipated: Iraq As Major General Robert Pollman explained in 2004, “It ma[de] a lot of sense” to “swap” U.S. bases in Saudi Arabia for new ones in Iraq. U.S. command and air bases located near the holy cities of Mecca and Medina incensed many Muslims and were among Osama Bin Laden’s professed reasons for the 9-11 attacks. In the lead up to the 2003 invasion, many of the functions of these bases were moved to Qatar and Kuwait, and after the conquest, 110 bases were established across Iraq. To limit their political and military vulnerability, the Pentagon has been spending more than a $1 billion a year to consolidate them into 14 “enduring” and massive Air Force, Army and Marine bases in Baghdad and other strategic locations, In addition to helping secure U.S. control over Iraq, these bases contribute to encircling Iran, and they can be used for attacks across the Persian Gulf region and into oil-rich Central Asia. The Bush administration’s plans to saddle its successor with these bases and the continuing occupation by negotiating an agreement with the Maliki government hit unexpected road block. In addition to popular Iraqi opposition, U.S. peace movement organizations joined Rep. Bill Delahunt (D-MA) to prevent the unconstitutional imposition of what is essentially a treaty. The Delahunt hearings about the proposed commitment to defend the Baghdad government from internal and external enemies, the bases which are permanent in all but name, and privileged access to investment opportunities (read oil) for U.S. corporations forced Secretary of Defense Robert Gates to rhetorically back away from the open-ended security commitment to Baghdad. But his promises that the bases are “not permanent” are less credible. Nothing is officially “permanent,” of course. Not even the bases in Japan and Korea, which have been there for more than six decades, and not the Great Wall of China, or the pyramids of Egypt, which are slowly decaying. With opposition to the treaty and the permanent military bases now a defining issue between Democrats and Republicans, the U.S. peace movement has an important opening to press its demands for the immediate and total withdrawal from Iraq. AFRICOM U.S. planners anticipate that by 2015 Africa will provide the U.S. with 25% of its imported oil. With Islamist political forces operating across northern Africa, the continent is also seen as an important front in the misconceived “war on terrorism.” So, to “promote peace and stability on the continent” the Bush Administration and the Pentagon want to augment the U.S. military presence in Africa, beginning with the transfer of the Africa Command, AFRICOM, from remote Germany to an accommodating African nation. As President Bush learned during his recent ill-fated African tour, the continent’s leaders are understandably reluctant to accept renewed military colonization. Ghana’s President John Kufuour put it bluntly when he met with Bush, saying, “You’re not going to build any bases in Ghana.” Africa is not free of bases. France and Britain still have bases scattered there. The U.S. has bases in Djibouti and Algeria, access agreements with Morocco and Egypt, and is in the process of creating a “family” of military bases in sub-Saharan Africa (Cameroon, Guinea, Mali, Sao Tome, Senegal and Uganda.) And, although Bush responded to African fears about AFRICOM’s possible relocation by saying that such rumors were “baloney” and “bull,” he also conceded that: “We haven’t made our minds up.” With a growing No AFRICOM movement in the United States that’s that is allied with anti-colonialist forces in Africa, this is one U.S. threat that can be contained. Diego Garcia In the mid-1960s, in a quintessential act of European colonialism, all of Diego Garcia’s 2,000 inhabitants were forcefully removed from their homeland by British authorities to make way for massive U.S. air and naval bases. In an act of legal fiction, the island was separated from Mauritius on the eve of that island nation’s independence. Located in the Indian Ocean, Diego Garcia’s two-mile long runways have since been used to launch B-1 and B-52 attacks against Iraq and Afghanistan. Its stealth bomber hangars have recently been upgraded for possible strikes against Iran, and its submarine base is being refitted to serve Ohio-class submarines that can be used for both missile attacks and to secretly deploy Navy SEALS in Iran and other Persian Gulf nations. The Chagos people of Diego Garcia want to return home, ending their exile in Mauritius’ slums, where up to 90% are unemployed and live desperate lives. The base rests on colonial constructions. With the help of allies in London and around the world they attempted to return, but have been halted on the high seas. But their plight and struggle has wide and sympathetic media attention, especially as they have won one challenge after another in the British courts. The British House of Lords is to make a “final ruling,” but an end run in which Diego Garcia would be returned to Mauritius’ authority and the “rented” to Washington remains possible. Education about the plight and struggle of the people of Diego Garcia, beginning with the spring speaking tour of Chagos leader Olivier Bancoult, is the best way to prepare for the next round of this compelling struggle. Okinawa Since its 1945 bloody conquest in 1945, Okinawa has served as the principle bastion of U.S. military power in East Asia – even after its 1972 reversion to Japan. Sixty years after the end of World War II, nearly 45,000 U.S. troops, civilian staff, and their families are based on Air Force, Navy, Marine and Army bases that occupy 27% of the island prefecture. Okinawans have suffered nearly every imaginable military abuse: One quarter of its people were killed during the 1945 battle, many by Japanese soldiers. U.S. nuclear weapons have fallen off ships and into coastal fishing grounds. Shells and bullets from live fire exercises have slammed into people’s homes. Children, their grandmothers, base and service workers have suffered rapes that are too numerous to count. Land has been seized, and military accidents – including helicopters and their parts falling into students’ schools – are not uncommon. To pacify the nationwide outrage that followed the 1995 kidnapping and rape of a 12-year-old Okinawan school girl in 1995, Washington and Tokyo agreed to reduce, not remove, the size of the U.S. footprint on Okinawa. With the U.S.-Japan alliance hanging in the balance, the Status of Forces Agreement was revised to accord the Japanese courts greater authority over crimes by G.I.s, and a plan was developed to move half of the 16,000 Marines – the greatest source of G.I. crime – to Guam largely at Japan’s expense. Several bases were consolidated and Washington agreed to move the Futemna Air Base, in Ginowan’s city center, to a more remote part of the island. This leaves the massive Air Force, Naval and Marine bases still occupying a quarter of the prefecture. Inspired by respected elders, the people of Henoko, the coastal site to which Futnema’s functions were to be transferred, have put up a stiff resistance. To prevent the militarization of their community and the destruction of the reef on which the new air base is to be built, they have built alliances with peace activists and environmentalists around the world. Their focus has been to prevent destruction feeding grounds for dugongs (large, gentle sea mammals similar to manatees) that became the symbol of their movement. They have also conducted months-long sit-ins and taken their case to court. A California appeal court recently confirmed their environmental claims, and the relocation process stalled. Within weeks of this court victory, Marines raped a 14-year-old Okinawan school girl and a Filipina woman sparking renewed outrage across Okinawa and Japan. In the “Message from the Women of Okinawa” that followed, the U.S. military and the world were notified that the days when “so many rape victims…told no one and wept silently in their beds…are now over.” Their message is clear, “Go back to America. Now.” With Washington and Tokyo focused on “containing” China, it will be years before the last G.I. returns from Okinawa. In the meantime, we can provide critical support to women and men who are courageously and nonviolently campaigning to defend their lives, their families, their communities, and nature itself. The base at Henoko must not be built. The base in Futenma must be closed. It is past time to bring all the Marines home. Guam Guam is not home. Located in the South Pacific and conquered by the United States from Spain in 1898, it has long served as a U.S. stepping stone to Asia. Nominally it is not a U.S. colony, but an “unincorporated territory” with a nonvoting delegate in Congress. Throughout the Cold War, U.S. air and naval bases occupied the island’s best agricultural lands, water sources and fishing grounds. Now the abuses and usurpations are becoming much worse. Since the nonviolent 1995 Okinawan uprising, the Pentagon has been preparing for the day when it is finally forced to withdraw from Okinawa and Japan. Thus Guam is being transformed in to a military “hub.” Already large enough to accommodate B-52 and stealth bombers, Andersen Air Force Base is being expanded to serve as “the most significant U.S. Air Force base in the Pacific region for this century.” More submarines are being homeported in its harbor, and the Navy is considering homeporting an aircraft carrier strike force there is well. Then, there are those Marines from Okinawa. Understandably, Guam’s tiny Chamorro population feels besieged. In the traditions of U.S., Israeli and South African settler colonialism, it is “cowboys and Indians all over again.” We have a responsibility to prevent this cultural genocide. Europe The Cold War never really ended in Europe. An estimated 380 U.S. nuclear weapons are still based in seven European nations, and most of the 100,000 troops deployed across Western Europe remain there. But Pentagon campaigns to deploy misnamed “missile defenses” in the Czech Republic and Poland and to expand the Aviano Air Base in Italy are leading hundreds of thousands of Europeans into the streets. The missile defense system is ostensibly modest. A missile tracking radar is to be installed in the Czech Republic, and ten interceptor missiles are to be sited in Poland, reportedly to defend Europe from Iranian missiles that have not been deployed. In fact, this is the tip of the iceberg. Russia properly fears that, once deployed, the missile defense system will be greatly expanded with the goal of neutralizing Moscow’s missile forces, leaving Russia vulnerable to U.S. first strike attacks. In response, President Vladimir Putin has menacingly threatened to target nuclear weapons against the Czechs and Poles. Opinion polls indicate that most Czechs oppose the missile defense deployments and want to hold a referendum to block them. Many NATO leaders are angry that the U.S. circumvented the European Union’s decision-making process, and protests spearheaded by the U.S. Campaign for Peace and Democracy greeted Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek when he recently visited the United States. With many leading congressional Democrats also opposed to these dangerous deployments, missile defenses can be stopped. Finally, there is Italy where, unexpectedly, hundreds of thousands of citizens turned out to protest the expansion of the U.S. Air Base at Aviano (which also hosts U.S. nuclear weapons.) Dissent over the base expansion nearly toppled the Prodi government in 2007, and it will remain the focus of European and U.S. anti-bases campaigns. Resistance In response to popularly based movements to win the withdrawal of unwanted U.S. foreign military bases, an incipient U.S. anti-bases movement is emerging. It includes organizations as diverse as the American Friends Service Committee, and the Southwest Workers Union, the United for Peace and Justice coalition, and scholars who are moving from studying military bases to working for their withdrawal. Four increasingly integrated U.S. anti-bases networks have developed in recent years, spurred in part by the development of the global “No Military Bases Network” in World Social Forums and the global Network’s formal inauguration in Quito, Ecuador at a conference last year that brought together four hundred activists from forty nations. The U.S. networks are currently organizing April speaking tours featuring Olivier Bancoult from Diego Garcia, Terri Keko’olani from Hawaii, Jan Tamas and the Czech Republic, and Andreas Licata from Italy. And a national U.S. “No Foreign Military Bases” conference is in its early planning stages. Joseph Gerson, a contributor to Foreign Policy In Focus (www.fpif.org), is director of programs of the American Friends Service Committee in New England. His books include The Sun Never Sets…Confronting the Network of U.S. Foreign Military Bases, (South End Press, 1991) and Empire and the Bomb: How the U.S. Uses Nuclear Weapons to Dominate the World (Pluto Press, 2007).

Quick review of the "coaltion of the willing", the greedy

List of 'Willing' U.S. Allies Shrinks Steadily in Iraq

Nations Still There Toil in Relative Obscurity

By Joshua Partlow

Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, December 8, 2007; Page A01

KUT, Iraq -- The commander of the Kazakh soldiers in Iraq, all 29 of them, keeps a stack of English-language instruction books on his desk inside Forward Operating Base Delta. He already speaks Russian, Turkish and Kazakh, and after English, he plans to learn Chinese. He has the time.

Kazakhstan has two main missions here on the geographic and strategic periphery of the war, and both of them could be going better. The Kazakh troops are sappers, trained to dispose of explosives. They were ordered by their government not to leave the base after one of those bombs, nearly three years ago, killed the first and only Kazakh soldier to die in Iraq. The soldiers also run a water purification system but find less use for that these days, too. "It's not necessary," said Capt. Samat Mukhanov. "There is bottled water here."

When asked how he felt about working in Iraq, the commander, Maj. Shaikh-Khasan Zazhykbayev, barked in his thick accent:

"Not so comfortable! . . . But we are military. Our government sends us to serve in Iraq, and we are serving in Iraq."

President Bush once called it the "coalition of the willing," the countries willing to fight alongside the United States in Iraq. The list topped off in mid-2004 at 32 countries; troop strength peaked in November that year at 25,595. The force has since shrunk to 26 countries and 11,755 troops, or about 7 percent of the 175,000-strong multinational force, according to mid-November figures provided by the U.S. military.

From 2003 to early 2007, the United States spent $1.5 billion to support the Iraq contingents of 20 countries, the Government Accountability Office reported this year, with about two-thirds of the money devoted to Polish forces. Many nations value the equipment they get from the United States in Iraq and hope their loyalty will be rewarded in the future through help in joining international organizations, for instance.

Some officers here argue that the strength of the coalition cannot be measured simply by the number of boots on the ground. Canada, for example, has no contingent in Iraq but has committed up to $300 million in aid. Many foreign militaries, while not in Iraq for combat missions, perform a wide variety of supporting tasks, such as South Korea's 933 troops, who run a hospital and vocational technology programs in the Kurdish north and arrange for Iraqi university students to visit Korea, said Canadian Maj. Gen. Peter Devlin, who oversees issues relating to the coalition in Iraq.

"There are great strengths that come from multinationality. It brings different cultures, different equipment, different approaches, greater legitimacy to the effort here in Iraq," Devlin said.

But as the war stretches on, the non-American ranks grow thinner. The largest U.S. ally here, Britain, announced in October that it will withdraw half its remaining troops, leaving about 2,500 by spring. Sixteen nations in the coalition, more than half the total, have 100 or fewer troops in Iraq -- five have fewer than 10 people. Latvia has three soldiers deployed in Iraq, Slovakia two, Singapore one.

As with the U.S. contingent, the other countries that are still here often face domestic political pressure to withdraw. Unlike the Americans, they toil in relative obscurity: One platoon each from Macedonia and Estonia patrol the streets of Baghdad buried within American battalions; a few dozen Tongan marines guard the U.S. military headquarters at Camp Victory.

The most nationally diverse military bases, such as Delta and Echo, are in southern Iraq, the predominantly Shiite region that has experienced less violence than Baghdad or the largely Sunni areas to the west. Beyond the Kazakhs, Delta houses troops from Romania, Georgia, El Salvador and Poland. They do not take part in combat operations but man checkpoints, organize reconstruction projects, repair helicopters and distribute food.

But even if these troops never leave the base, they often feel they are carrying out their country's most important and dangerous military mission.

After five rotations in Iraq, the commander of the 13-man Romanian contingent at Delta, Liviu-Costelus Isache, said he has earned a respite and reward.

"I expect good position in city hall,"

he said.

The Romanian contingent at Delta, part of a force of nearly 500 Romanian troops in Iraq, works inside a narrow trailer papered with aerial maps, tracking the movements of its last functional surveillance drone -- two have crashed, one is missing parts -- on a black-and-white Sony monitor.

The Romanians have flown more than 500 surveillance missions since 2003, including over the Iranian border and in support of nearby Polish troops.

When not in the trailer, they sometimes attend services at a small Orthodox church outside the barracks. In the evening, they gather around the communal television to watch Romanian soccer matches. They miss their families and home towns but consider the assignment valuable for their careers. With reporters, they conspicuously avoid offering opinions about whether their country should leave Iraq.

"I'm not hoping to leave. I'm not dis-hoping. It's a job," said Florin Tudorache, 27. "I wanted to come here, because it's the best way to show that as a military man you're prepared for a fight in any country."

The commander, Isache, seemed convinced that a Romanian pullout is still far off. "Our opinion is this will take a very long time to solve the problems in Iraq. Until the Iraqi conception is changed," he said, "I think our work will be continuing."

Across the base, the commander of El Salvador's 280 troops in Iraq, Col. Jose Atilio Benetez, oversees a mission that frequently sends men off the base. In their U.S.-supplied Humvees, members of the Cuscatlan battalion distribute food and school supplies and coordinate small-scale reconstruction projects. On the way home from one mission to hand out wheelchairs and other goods last month, soldiers detoured on their way back to base after a rare roadside bomb exploded on their planned route.

"It is very dangerous here, it's a very big conflict,"

one Salvadoran soldier said, though Wasit province is one of the safer areas in Iraq. Over the course of the war, five Salvadoran soldiers have been killed.

"There are people who are against our presence here, and every time there is a casualty, those opponents find ammunition to cancel our mission,"

Ben¿tez said.

Several Salvadoran soldiers said they found meaning in their mission because they had experienced a 12-year civil war in their country in the 1980s -- during which the U.S.-supported military committed atrocities against civilians -- and wanted to help Iraq escape the same fate.

"Not everybody's going to leave, but they're going to size down," Ben¿tez said of the other coalition countries in Iraq. "But perhaps they haven't lived, in flesh and blood, terrorism like we have."

Some of the foreign countries' contingents at Delta have shrunk -- El Salvador's is about 100 soldiers smaller than its peak; Poland has sent home about 1,500 troops and today has about 900 left in southern Iraq.

But one country is increasing its responsibility. Georgia, a former Soviet republic that wants to join NATO, has sent about a quarter of its army, nearly 2,000 soldiers, to Iraq. The Georgians operate six checkpoints in Wasit, searching vehicles for explosives that they believe are being smuggled from Iran.

Some of the Georgian soldiers live in a small combat outpost near the Iranian border. On a recent trip from Delta to the outpost, a Georgian convoy drove aggressively along a straight, narrow desert road, firing machine guns into the air when the troops deemed oncoming cars were going to pass too closely. At least one Iraqi has died in a car accident with Georgian convoys, soldiers said.

The Georgians expressed pride in their new mission and concern for the poverty of the local Iraqi civilians. The soldiers distribute rice, beans, cooking oil and water, and meet with local leaders in Wasit.

"Every day they're coming to the camp, saying, 'Please help me, please help me,' "

Capt. Koba Sergia said.

"I'm surprised by how they live, because they live so very poorly. They drink water that kills people every day."

In their corner of Iraq, however, the soldiers see relatively little violence, and many are optimistic about the country's prospects.

"Everybody here is trying to help the Iraqi government and population to overcome this last couple of years, and it's being done, it's being done well, and while you are a part of it it feels very good,"

said Maj. Zaza Kvaraia, executive officer of the Georgian brigade.

But the politicians have also spoken in Georgia, and by next summer, they plan to cut their country's contingent to 300 people. Like many of the troops interviewed from a number of countries, Kvaraia was careful not to express his opinion about this decision, though his future was likely to be affected by it: "Military people don't talk about politics," he said.

Turks’ Effective Weapon (Genocide) Will be Upon Iraqi Kurds

American Chronicle - Rauf Naqishbendi

For two days, I have been sitting on my haunches resisting doing a Kurdistan update. Why? It would take 100% of my BRAIN power to do it, and my brain cells are adapting to autumn and I have SLOWED DOWN, plus I am fighting to move from my government-subsidized apartment as there are too many molds and there is some toxic carpeting in here that I need to escape from, and leave these armies of ants to enjoy without me screaming aloud 24/7. So, the required FOUR HOURS is being used elsewhere. But I shall get back to this tutorial very soon.

So I am leaving you all with THIS to think about in the meanwhile.

The US is determined to HAVE ITS WAY in KURDISTAN, enjoying the oil that Hunt is lining up while deccimating Kurdistan by having it chopped up in to three (exploitable) little bits. The Turks are chomping at the bit to keep their piece of the resource pie, while not caring one whit who many Kurds they take out to do this. So just as in PAKISTAN, it's bankers, 10 points; Kurdistan citizens -10 points.

It's never as simple as JUST Political considerations or JUST economic considerations or JUST religious considerations, but it can be just as simple, and unjust and INHUMANE as GENOCIDE these days. Consider:

Turkey’s application to join the European Union has met with a lukewarm response. The relationship between Washington and Ankara has been going downhill since the commencement of the Iraq War. The United States Senate has passed two resolutions affecting this issue: one acknowledging the Turks’ genocide against Armenians, and the other, passed by an overwhelming majority with a vote of 75-23, calls for the partitioning of Iraq into three autonomous regions. The aggregate effect of all these events has been the spiteful reaction of Turkish leaders as they attempt to vindicate themselves by making Kurds their scapegoat. According to them, Kurds are to blame for everything, because if it weren’t for the Kurds none of this evil would have befallen them. In this manner, they energized their mighty army to wreak their Turkish wrath (genocide) upon Iraqi Kurds.



Let us examine the Turkish animosity toward Kurds. First and foremost, the Kurds have not been in a position of power since the inception of Islam, more than a thousand years ago. During this time Kurds have been at the mercy of their occupiers, of which Turks happen to be one. This implies that Kurds did not tear apart Turkish communities, they did not forcefully foist themselves on Turkish lands against their will, and they did not deprive Turks of their human and national rights. On the contrary, Turks imposed their draconian occupation on Kurdistan, they demonized, disenfranchised and marginalized Kurds and treated them as less than slaves. Kurds then sought decent and humane treatment from the Turks. Asking for humane treatment seems reasonable to civilized people, but not to Turks.



Turkey has embroiled itself in a doleful war against the Kurdish Workers Party (the PKK) for the past two decades, and there is no end in sight. While the PKK is fighting to enfranchise Kurds and free them from the fetters and shackles of human abuse, Turkey has embarked on a campaign to mute the Kurdish pleas for justice and equality and extirpate the PKK. The bloodshed took more than 30,000 lives, the majority of which were innocent Kurdish civilians. Turks wiped out more than 2,000 Kurdish villages and towns, forcing millions of Kurds to leave their homes and relocate in other parts of the country. During this time, Turkey has spent tens of billions of dollars which it didn’t have and had to borrow and finance at the cost of more destruction and human tragedy. The country was now polarized with Turks against Kurds. Given this background, it is amazing that Turkish authorities still have not pursued diplomacy, and instead continue to wield their iron fist and angry violence as the only remedy. The Turkish repulsion of dialogue with the PKK is a conspicuous reaffirmation of the Turkish government’s desire to continue the status quo suppression of the Kurds.



To clear the way for their atrocities against Kurds, Turkey is determined to block any inroads Kurds would make toward their freedom and statehood anywhere in the region. Since the Iraqi liberation, thanks to America, the Kurds in Iraq have been breathing freely, cherishing their opportunities and making their region shine as the bright spot of the American Iraqi liberation. Turkish authorities have been adamant about their hatred for Kurds and they have taken advantage of every chance they got to derail their achievements. The Turkish mindset is that anything good for Kurds is bad for Turks, while Kurds perceive it entirely differently.



In the Middle East, where vendettas are commonplace, and the revengeful “eye for an eye” mentality reigns, Kurds are practicing harmony and friendship even with their foes. Since the Iraqi liberation Kurds, as a gesture of good will, have granted many contracts to Turkish companies and entrepreneurs, and have engaged in every proper neighborly action to attempt to establish a good relationship with Turkey. It is telling to see how Kurds responded to Turkish intolerance with good deeds and forgiveness. This is a clear indication that a sovereign Kurdish state in north Iraq would by no means be harmful to Turkey, but on the contrary would be beneficial to Turkey given the Kurds’ peaceful sentiments. Turks should not scorn the idea of a sovereign Kurdish state; it is inevitable and they better get used to it.



So often people get caught up in nostalgia for their past in such a way that it taints their vision and judgment in the present. Turks must realize that the way of arbitration of the Ottoman Empire is a century old, and in the modern world the prevailing remedy for contention and clashes between nations is sound diplomacy not violence and bloodshed. Should Turkey continue in a path of hatred and violence, it will have much to lose, whereas genuine diplomacy would return an immense dividend of peace and prosperity. Resources they have devoted to destruction and bloodshed could be diverted toward reconstruction and social welfare. The division of Turkey into classes, where Turks are superior and everyone else inferior hinders social and economic advancement. Justice for all will invigorate the society to work for the good of the nation as a whole, and consequently enhance Turkey’s economic and political stand in the world. The enemy of Turkey isn’t Kurds but rather the members of the chauvinistic Turkish right wing who have never accepted the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and still aim at world domination.



Since the 1980s, the Turkish military has violently intruded into Iraqi Kurdistan several times and left thousands of their solders and heavy war machinery in Kurdistan to fight the PKK, yet the PKK have not by any stretch of imagination given up their struggle or ceased to exist. Since this is what happened in the past, Turks must realize that another bloody tour into Kurdistan will fail as miserably as their previous tours. Thus, they now insist that American troops fight their battle for them, as if America is a Turkish colony. Thankfully, Washington has refused their demands. If the Turkish government were to hearken to the voice of reason, it would have peacefully resolved this problem long ago. That being said, time is neutral and it is never too late to do what is right.

Turks have suffered the consequences of their own present and past crimes. Due to their lack of courage to face reality, they found in Iraqi Kurds a scapegoat to take the edge off their misery. Iraqi Kurds must beware for Turks have at their disposal a lethal and fatal weapon. They used it effectively against Kurds in their own country as well as Armenians, Assyrians and others of the Christian faith - this weapon is called GENOCIDE.