PLEASE attempt to adjust your radio...

This is pretty frightening, but not absolutely 100% true here in Houston...



We DO have a great station here in town, KPFT at 90.1 FM in town and 89.5 FM down on the island of Galveston. They are listener supported, and worth every penny that they raise. From Amy and Juan every morning on Democracy Now! to great music programming on the weekends like The Lone Star Jukebox and The Bluegrass Zone to commentary on world events on The Monitor, the programming is diverse and well thought out. It's a refreshing alternative to the aural flamethrowers like Rush and BillO who dominate the AM airwaves.

Lock it in and rip the freakin' knob off!!!

Puppeters

Someone needs to get in there with a pair of sharp scissors...

Mumia Abu-Jamal:

Wherever we look in this world, we see the U. S. trying to install a network of puppets, who owe more to the us than to the people of their own countries. In simplistic terms, the corporate media pushes the idea of 'good guys' and 'bad guys'--silly symbols that take us back to mythic cowboy movies. In fact, any given leader can be a good guy and a bad guy depending on the time you're talking about. The late Saddam Hussein, now derided almost universally as a dictator, was an American ally just a brief time before--receiving a bounty of U. S. arms and, yes, weapons of mass destruction. As long as Saddam was using his weapons against Iran, all was well. Today, an Iraqi puppet sits on the national throne, a creation of us power, as surely as was the late Shah of Iran. Afghanistan presents an almost identical snapshot, a leader supported on a throne of U. S. bayonets--in a word, a puppet.

Why is it the business of the us to appoint the leaders of other nations? What's right about that? What's Democratic about that? We don't question it, because it's so deep in our national and international experience.

Why national?

Well, while many folks know about the FBI's harassment of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., how many of us know that the government planned to replace him as a black leader with someone who was more malleable, and less committed to civil rights? The FBI wanted to replace King with Samuel Pierce, the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development under Reagan, someone who Reagan incidentally greeted as a guest to the White House, not recognizing that he was a member of his own cabinet.

The imperial industry of placing puppets over other people didn't begin abroad, it didn't start when one crossed the border, it began in the U. S., in an attempt to control and channel a popular movement. That's because empires begin at home, in essence, they export the methods they use at home abroad.

Democracy Now!:

The United States yesterday has lifted its embargo on direct aid to the Palestinian government in an effort to support Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Fatah's struggle against Hamas. Last week Hamas seized control of the Gaza Strip. Abbas responded by dismissing the democratically-elected Hamas-led government and formed a new cabinet led by a prime minister who has the backing of Israel and the United States.

John Perkins, author of Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, in an interview with Amy Goodman:

Well, what we've done -- we use many techniques, but probably the most common is that we'll go to a country that has resources that our corporations covet, like oil, and we'll arrange a huge loan to that country from an organization like the World Bank or one of its sisters, but almost all of the money goes to the U.S. corporations, not to the country itself, corporations like Bechtel and Halliburton, General Motors, General Electric, these types of organizations, and they build huge infrastructure projects in that country: power plants, highways, ports, industrial parks, things that serve the very rich and seldom even reach the poor. In fact, the poor suffer, because the loans have to be repaid, and they're huge loans, and the repayment of them means that the poor won't get education, health, and other social services, and the country is left holding a huge debt, by intention. We go back, we economic hit men, to this country and say, “Look, you owe us a lot of money. You can't repay your debts, so give us a pound of flesh. Sell our oil companies your oil real cheap or vote with us at the next U.N. vote or send troops in support of ours to some place in the world such as Iraq.” And in that way, we've managed to build a world empire with very few people actually knowing that we've done this.

I started off as economist, became chief economist, and my job really – I had a staff of several dozen people. My job was to get them, and for me to convince these countries to accept these very large loans, to get the banks to make the loans, to set up the deal so that the money went to big U.S. corporations. The country was left holding a huge debt, and then I would go in or one of my people would go in and say, “Look, you know, you owe us all this money. You can't pay your debts. Give us that pound of flesh.”

The other thing we do, Amy, and what's going on right now in Latin America is that as soon as one of these anti-American presidents is elected, such as Evo Morales, who you mentioned, in Bolivia, one of us goes in and says, “Hey, congratulations, Mr. President. Now that you're president, I just want to tell you that I can make you very, very rich, you and your family. We have several hundred million dollars in this pocket if you play the game our way. If you decide not to, over in this pocket, I've got a gun with a bullet with your name on it, in case you decide to keep your campaign promises and throw us out.”

I can make sure that this man makes a great deal of money, he and his family, through contracts, through various quasi-legal means, and I can also – if he doesn't accept this, you know, the same thing is going to happen to him that happened to Jaime Roldos in Ecuador and Omar Torrijos in Panama and Allende in Chile, and we tried to do it to Chavez in Venezuela and are still trying – that we will send in the people to try to overthrow him, as, in fact, we recently did with the President of Ecuador, or if we don't overthrow him, we'll assassinate him. And these people all know the history. They know that this has happened many, many, many times in the past.

The degree to which this nefariousness goes is pretty remarkable. I guess one can't underestimate the power and allure of cold hard cash and the power and influence that comes with it, but one has to consider the ramifications to one's soul, as I talked about here and here.

More on the Iraqi Hydrocarbon Act...

Which should be called the "Multinational Oil Corporations stealing Iraqi Hydrocarbon Act".

DN! on Wednesday, June 6:

AMY GOODMAN: As the Iraqi parliament moves closer to a final vote on a controversial oil law, local opposition is growing. This week, oil workers in southern Iraq announced a strike to oppose the law and demand better wages. More than 600 workers are taking part, affecting two major pipelines. The workers want to be a part of the negotiation process from which they've been excluded. Critics say the law will expose Iraq's oil to major privatization and foreign takeover.

ANTONIA JUHASZ: Well, the strike is critical. It’s been a long time building. There had been some negotiations between the strike leaders and Prime Minister al-Maliki. There are a number of demands, basic working conditions, wages, as you say, but also a seat at the table and opposition to the attempt to turn over Iraq's oil to foreign oil corporations and the -- as more knowledge has been brought to Iraq, it’s been very difficult for Iraqis to even learn what this oil law was about, just like it’s been difficult here. As more information has spread, the opposition has spread, as well, and now the workers have taken the situation into their own hands and struck.

This is really quite amazing and tremendously heartening. The Iraqis are finally seeing through all the smoke (literally) and mirrors of the last five years and realizing what all the ruckus is really about. Hopefully they'll be allowed to continue and grow as a representative group looking out for their own interests, which just happen to be the natural resources of IRAQ, not...

ANTONIA JUHASZ:If the law passes, US corporations have the potential to own a true bonanza of oil and, if the US military stays, protection to get in and get it. Now --

AMY GOODMAN: Which companies, in particular?

ANTONIA JUHASZ: Chevron, Exxon, Conoco, BP, Shell, Marathon.

The key to this is that while the Iraqi Parliament can and most likely will pass a resolution ending the occupation of Iraq, it must also be passed by the Cabinet, which is where Al Maliki has his base of support, which is essentially in the role of lap dogs for the US and its corporate interests in the region.

ANTONIA JUHASZ: The United Nations mandate for the US occupation of Iraq gives ultimate authority to the Iraqi parliament and the Iraqi cabinet to determine if the occupation can continue. So, theoretically, if the Iraqi parliament, joined by the cabinet -- and that’s critical -- say that the occupation cannot continue, theoretically it would have to end. That stands in vast opposition to the plans of the Bush administration and now, apparently, the plans of the Democratic leadership, as well.

AMY GOODMAN: Couldn't it give Bush an out?

ANTONIA JUHASZ: It could give Bush an out, if he wanted an out. I don't think he wants an out.

AMY GOODMAN: Because?

ANTONIA JUHASZ: Well, I think there’s many ways in which the war is not going all bad for the President and for the administration. The only thing that’s truly going bad is the instability. But what has worked is a government in place that is more amenable to US interests than the last ten years of the Hussein regime, a government in place that is willing to negotiate in a dramatic fashion on the nature of Iraq's oil regime, and being on the precipice of a transfer of Iraq, a fundamental transfer, in its oil policy. We have US oil corporations engaging daily in negotiations with the Iraqi oil ministry, waiting on the sidelines.

AMY GOODMAN: And if they don't pass this law?

ANTONIA JUHASZ: If they don't pass the law, it’s a big strike at the heart of the agenda. I would say that the game wouldn't be over, and the fact that the administration is talking publicly about this Korea policy, the idea that the United States would maintain some sort of military presence similar to the US presence, quote/unquote, "keeping the peace between South and North Korea," that’s a permanent military engagement, which could last as long as fifty years. The thirty-year contracts, the length, the extended length of the occupation, leads me to believe that this is the idea that the administration wants to pursue.

AMY GOODMAN: And what do you think of this comparison?

ANTONIA JUHASZ: It’s incredibly disturbing. First of all, the conditions are completely dissimilar, except for the desire of the United States to maintain a presence and to use the misunderstanding, I think, of the American public as to the role of the US military in Korea, to say, “Well, we’ve created peace for fifty years in one situation. We can create peace for fifty years in this other situation. Oh, and by the way, our military will be really well situated to move forward across the region to spread peace across the Middle East, where, oh, by the way, there also happens to be two-thirds of the world's remaining oil.” It’s a terrifying proposition.

I'll say. Let's hope the Iraqis stick to their guns (of principle, mind you) and "Throw the Bums Out!"

By no means do I mean to refer to any of our military personnel as the bums in question. That particular moniker is reserved for anyone in Iraq solely for the purpose of making a fast buck on the destruction of a country, culture, and people-- from contractors all the way up to CEOs.

Border control to prevent... what, exactly?

The cover story of last weeks' Houston Press focused on the environmental impact of a proposed border fence/barricade plan surrounding the Laredo area of the Texas-Mexico border area. The potential impact on the indigenous wildlife as well as the local human population on both sides of the border is great, but a few other interesting tidbits were slipped in the piece as well, like this one:

Local officials also got ahold of an eight-page "request for proposal" from DHS that sets out a plan for border fencing near Laredo, including the statement that "The total value of contract...will not exceed $172 million." Under "proposed corporate structure," it lists Houston-based Kellogg Brown & Root.

Peter continues to pay Paul, it would seem...

And then there's this, concerning the ability of the local officials and population to question the plan and its feasibility (based on the amount and accuracy of the information on the plan for the barricades):

Initially, federal officials debated the authenticity of the map. That seems to have passed, and the proposed fencing has been accepted as more than just some errant agent's doodling.

At the same time, DHS tightened its control over information. The U.S. Border Patrol, which had been commenting on the border fence, was told to shut up.

"We have an order from headquarters. We can't comment on the fence," Camilo Garcia, public affairs officer of the Rio Grande Valley sector of the U.S. Border Patrol, said last week. "They gave us guidelines earlier on what we could talk about, and now they say those don't apply."

Agricultural impacts? What agricultural impacts? I get all my strawberries from California, anyway...

Two issues seem likely to be dominant for the farmers and shippers.

One has to do with water access. Almost all irrigation is done with water out of the Rio Grande. "If we can't get access to that water, then we have a huge problem. Because almost all fruit and vegetable crops are irrigated. Most places in the country, a lot of the irrigation is done with well water. That's not the case here," McClung says.

"I heard one plan from one Border Patrol guy, a low-level guy, well, he said we'll put gates in the fence, we'll open them at 8:30 in the morning for an hour or two. Well, jeez, Louise, all that reflects is a wanton lack of understanding of how agriculture works."

And everyone's favorite Golden Oldie, Eminent Domain:

The other issue is land condemnation. Most of the land in South Texas, even down to the river, is privately owned.

"There is a deep emotional resentment at the notion of land condemnation. Secondly, there's questions about fair value, about how it would be done, and there's many people who simply do not want to part with their land under any circumstances," McClung says.

And then there's just plain common sense, unless the reason that DHS and their masters want the barriers put in isn't consistent with the stated reasons:

By profession, Steve Ahlenius, president and CEO of the McAllen Chamber of Commerce, is a pretty upbeat kind of guy. The fence really bothers him, though, and like a dog with a bone, he can't let it go, even as his wife cautions him not to come across like some kind of radical.

"We keep hearing DHS talk about possible terrorists' attacks coming from the southern border, and I finally went back and said, ‘Okay, I'm going to look [at] historically since 1999 what's been the things that happened in the United States. Did we have someone coming in from the southern border and planning a terrorist attack?'"

What his research shows, he says, is that since 1999, all known terrorist activity has involved U.S. citizens, naturalized citizens or citizens who are here on visas or alien residents — or who have come in from Canada.

Reflecting on the burgeoning Muslim population in Canada, Ahlenius thinks the greater threat for terrorist attacks on the United States is going to come from the northern border.

A great film came out last year that highlights the impact of an international border drawn haphazardly in the middle of a region that shares many characteristics, The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada. From the Director's statement:

...a study of the emotional, psychological, spiritual, and social implications of having an international border running through the middle of a culture.

-Tommy Lee Jones

The impacts of such a barrier, which most people interviewed in this article are resigned to see happen, go far beyond all the impacts listed here and in the article. It will make the commerce and transit of everything and everyone that crosses the border both ways right now more difficult, but it will not reduce the need and desire of that transit and commerce to continue. The only thing that will increase is the number of injuries and deaths resulting from attempts to circumvent the barrier and the economic impact of the compromise of the aforementioned commerce across the border.

In Their Memory

Jim over at Nitpicker put up a nice post yesterday honoring our men and women in the armed services which has motivated me to do the same (albeit a day late...):

Casualty Lists:
Operation Iraqi (Liberation) Freedom
Operation Enduring Freedom (Afghanistan)
Desert Shield/Desert Storm

Memorials:

Vietnam War
Korean War
World War II
World War I
Spanish-American War
American Civil War
Mexican-American War
War of 1812

Not a memorial per se:

American Revolution

This is a nice video Ava Lowery of Peace Takes Courage did as well. The quote from Douglas McArthur at the end of the video is worth repeating:

"The soldier above all others prays for peace, for it is the soldier who must suffer and bear the deepest wounds and scars of War."

Sweet...

No introduction or commentary needed...

Housecleaning

I just found this draft from the end of February while cleaning off my desktop. Not sure why I didn't post it at the time, but the current turn of events, restrictions on modes of communication with the outside world and continuing trends in Iraq make it just as poignant now as back then. I haven't spoken with my friend about his brother's current status, but if nothing has changed, he'll be going back in October sometime after arriving at Fort Hood early last December. However, I have my doubts based on the fudging of the numbers that's been going on where the surge is concerned.

I was out with a few friends earlier tonight and the subject of one of their brothers came up. The individual in question is active duty Army home on leave from Iraq. Several interesting facts came up that are worth noting:

He was due to be home (Fort Hood in central Texas) in mid November in time for Thanksgiving but did not get back until mid December. My friend spent Thanksgiving up there with his brother's wife and newborn baby on Thanksgiving just to keep her mind off of the fact that her husband hadn't made it back for the holiday. I'm pretty sure they had pizza for Thanksgiving Dinner...

He hasn't been back for three months and he already knows that he is going to be redeployed in October of theis year, making his leave time only ten months, if that.

He is already training for his return, giving his body and mind no down time to decompress and try to get over what he saw and did during his time there.

One of his jobs was on the Fire Brigade, which essentially means that he was the first to respond to attacks on patrols in his sector. He found himself having to respond to attacks and put out burning Humvees with guys that he knew and may have been hanging out with a few days before inside. Then after the fire was out, it was his job to haul the burnt out vehicles with the charred corpses of his comrades back to the base.

Another job he did was to resupply the personnel in an active combat zone with ammunition. This meant that he was driving a truck loaded to the gills with explosives into a live fire zone on a daily basis. He saw and knew plenty of people killed while doing that as well as on patrols.

To blow off steam, he and his buddies would hunt the packs of wild dogs which roam the streets of Baghdad with M16s, sometimes emptying an entire magazine of rounds into one animal.

He saw and photographed on a regular basis (for a few weeks until he couldn't take it any more) scenes of utter carnage: the bodies of Iraqi and American soldiers in the streets rotting, animals foraging, stuff that my friend described to me as "World War II scenes of devastation in living, vivid color".

By all accounts that I've been observing, things are worse and getting more so every day. No amount of surging or supplementing is going to turn things around. The only way things are going to even begin to appear to improve is when we get all our forces out of there and let the situation play itself out.

This sucks the big one, but we have to realize that whatever our stated motives are or our physical presence is, if we remain in Iraq, WE WILL BE PERCEIVED AS AN OCCUPYING IMPERIALIST FORCE BENT ON STRIPPING IRAQ OF IT'S GREATEST NATIONAL RESOURCE.

Yes, the civil war will get worse.

Yes, there will continue to be sectarian killings.

No, the Iraq Hydrocarbon Act will not be able to be enforced (sorry, chums)

Our standing in the world as a nation and culture is at stake as well as the lives of countless people--soldiers, contractors, civilians, insurgents, you name it. After a while, who they are and which side they're on matters less and less. They are all casualties of an inane and senseless conflict that they have no interest in. There comes a point in any conflict where all that matters to one is simple survival.

Additionally, the stability of the entire region and possibly the fate of the world as we know it is hanging in the balance. It might take just one more nudge (such as action against Iran) to push matters past the control of anyone or any country. Scarily, this is looking like it will be a reality before the Christmas shopping season gets into full swing more and more.

Scott Ritter discussing his book Target Iran with Sy Hersh last October:

And because this condition exists, there will be war with Iran, unless a little miracle occurs, called the Democrats winning Congress, creating enough friction to stop the war, in the November elections. But even if that occurs, as you pointed out, there is no separation between the Democratic Party and the Republican Party on the issue of Iran. Everybody sits there and says. “Wait a minute, we’re losing the war in Iraq, and there’s 65% of the population that’s turned against this war. Certainly we’re not going to go to war with Iran.”

Again, I mean to correct the American public here. 65% of the American public aren’t antiwar. They’re just anti-losing. You see, if we were winning the war in Iraq, they’d all be for it. If we had brought democracy, they’d be cheering the President. It wouldn’t matter that we violated international law. It wouldn’t even matter that we lied about weapons of mass destruction. We’d be winning. God bless America. Ain’t we good? USA, USA! But we’re losing, so they’re against Iraq.

But what happens when you get your butt kicked in one game? You're looking for the next game, where you can win. And right now, we’re looking for Iran for a victory. We’re going to go to war with Iran. When? Not in October, I’ll tell you that.

There’s a couple things that have to happen before we go to war with Iran. There has to be a serious diplomatic offensive to secure the military basing required to support the aerial forces necessary for sustained bombardment and the logistic apparatus that goes along with that -- the fuel, the bombs, the support personnel, the maintenance. We haven’t done that. We’re doing it. There has to be political preparation here at home. The Bush administration is not a dictatorship yet. They still have to go to Congress, and they still have to get a degree of congressional approval for military operations against Iran. Not that much, though. I mean, everybody is aware that after 9/11, Congress pretty much gave the Bush administration a blank check to wage war anyway they saw fit, so long as it dealt with the global war on terror.

Well, the "little miracle" did occur, but it doesn't seem to be working out as well as some of us thought now, is it? I guess we'll have to keep sending messages like the one delivered last fall until someone is under the dome who doesn't worry about how something looks politically and is more concerned with what the people of the country have mandated. Taking action like Hal suggests here might better serve the interests of the American and Iraqi people:

Now that we’ve unleashed a 120 billion dollars for Bush to grab and distribute to his friends – yes, some of it will go to Halliburton and Bechtel, you can bet on it – how do we get Congress to extract our troops from this insidious civil war in Iraq? They won’t step up.

I’ll tell you what we do. It was mentioned off-handedly on my blog yesterday. Today I woke up and said “Hey . . . ”

We have to get someone in Congress, one of the 140, to file a resolution for a National Referendum on the War in Iraq. A National Referendum to be voted on November 6th 2007. The resolution should be funded because it’s going to take some money to put this on every ballot in the country. The resolution should specifically state that the referendum before the voters is binding. My suggested wording:

“Resolved, the President of the United States is hereby ordered by the Citizens of the United States of America to implement a plan to withdraw all US troops from Iraq by March 31st 2008.”

It’s an up or down vote and if it receives a simple majority, the President must acquiesce.

But if the ruling elites and the big corporations have their way, the train will just keep on rolling, and it'll just get uglier. More of the Hersh/Ritter conversation:

SEYMOUR HERSH: But anyway, so the question then is -- we go to war -- tell us what happens next, in your view.

SCOTT RITTER: Well, it’s, you know -- it’s almost impossible to be 100% correct, but I’ll give you my best analysis. The Iranians will use the weapon that is the most effective weapon, because the key for Iran -- you know, Iran can’t afford, if this -- remember, the regime wants to stay in power, so they can’t afford a strategy that gets the American people to recognize three years in that, oops, we made a mistake. I mean, if that was Saddam’s strategy, it failed for him, because he’s out of power. Yeah, we realize we made a mistake now in Iraq, but the regime is gone. So the Iranians realize that they have to inflict pain upfront. The pain is not going to be inflicted militarily, because we're not going to commit numbers of ground forces on the ground that can cause that pain. The pain will come economically.

And it’s not just Iranian oil that will go off the market. Why do you think we sent minesweepers up there? We’ve got to keep the Straits of Hormuz open. The Iranians will shut it down that quick. They’ll also shut down oil production in the western oil fields of Saudi Arabia. They’ll shut down Kuwaiti oil production. They’ll shut down oil production in the United Arab Emirates. They’ll shut down whatever remaining oil production there is in Iraq. They’ll launch a massive attack using their Shia proxies in Iraq against American forces. That will cause bloodshed.

The bottom line is, within two days of our decision to initiate an attack on Iran, every single one of you is going to be feeling the consequences of that in your pocketbook. And it’s only going to get worse. This is not something that only I recognize. Ask Dick Lugar what information he’s getting from big business, who are saying, “We can’t afford to go to war with Iran.”

SEYMOUR HERSH: Final question: given all this, are we going to do it?

SCOTT RITTER: Yes, we're going to do it.

They're irrevocably disconnected from reality. The only thing that is to be done (if it's not too late), is to somehow disconnect them from their perches of power.