POLITICAL HUMOUR:

WAR IN IRAQ ENDS AS US FORCES LEAVE UNDER COVER OF DARKNESS:

HUMOUR:

WESTERN "HELP" IN AFGHANISTAN:

Another hit from Kirktoons. Don't forget that the 'improved road' that can carry trucks now can carry tanks as well.

HUMOUR:

REALITY OUTSIDE THE TV SCREEN:

Molly continues with more from Kirktoons on what TV reality actually means.

HUMOUR ?:

AMERICAN "INTELLIGENCE":

Which leads to the question...is there evidence that one, just one single one, terrorist attack has been prevented by the American use of torture on their detainees ? Another incisive item from Kirktoons.

HUMOUR:

FLYING PIGS IN AFGHANISTAN:

Click on the graphic for better viewing.

AMERICAN POLITICS:

THE BRADLEY MANNING SUPPORT NETWORK:

Bradley Manning is the now world famous US soldier who leaked video of a US helicopter shooting unarmed civilians in Iraq to the Wikileaks site. Wikileaks has gone on to even bigger things since then, but Bradley manning still sits in military jail awaiting trial. Needless to say the perpetrators of the war crimes that he exposed have had no charges laid against them.

There has been widespread support for Manning, and one of the primary sources has been the Bradley Manning Support Network who are planning a week of actions on his behalf this week. Here's a brief segment of one of the articles on their site. Go there to see much more and how you can help Manning out.

BMBMBMBMBM
Bradley Manning: An American Hero
by Marjorie Cohn, Professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law

Army Pfc. Bradley Manning is accused of leaking military secrets to the public. This week, his supporters are holding rallies in 21 cities, seeking Manning’s release from military custody. Manning is in the brig for allegedly disclosing a classified video depicting U.S. troops shooting civilians from an Apache helicopter in Iraq in July 2007. The video, available at www.collateralmurder.com, was published by WikiLeaks on April 5, 2010. Manning faces 52 years in prison. No charges have been filed against the soldiers in the video.

In fact, the actions depicted in “Collateral Murder” contain evidence of three violations of the laws of war set forth in the Geneva Conventions, which amount to war crimes....

HUMOUR:

YES WE CAN ?

HUMOUR:

TIME TO QUIT ?

MEDIA:

THE VALUE OF WIKILEAKS:

It's a new and strange world we live in. In years past international empires could arrange an early and unpleasant end for those who released their secrets to the public. It was the old "poisoned umbrella" trick. But the action was more often than not simple revenge and terrorism to deter others (yes boys and girls, governments are the oldest, most experienced, most prolific and most noted practitioners of the fine art of 'terror' throughout human history, despite their strenuous propaganda to the contrary). In the new age in which we live all the secrets are not dumped at once. there is always an 'insurance policy' in reserve. To top it off the shear weight of the secrets that come to light are like nothing that existed in the pre-internet age. Never mind a few technical details. Now the public can be privy to full details of huge numbers of matters that empires would rather keep secret.

The recent controversy over the revelations of Wikileaks is a case in point. Lacking the good old option of 'executive action' empires are now reduced to the option of "counter-links" like the amazing appearing/disappearing accusation of rape against Wikileaks founder Julian Assange. This operation bears all the labels of the usual psy-ops action, intended to target a given audience with hot buttons related to their presumed ideology. The problem was that however well conceived it was in terms of psychology it was a miserable failure in terms of background preparation, and the Swedish warrant was withdrawn in less than 24 hours ad the fragility of the charges became clear. It all goes to show that no 'intelligent' intelligence agency should depend on the pseudo-science of "psychology' as one of its main props. it actually has to be backed up with proper planning.

One is left with the question of why the USA doesn't simply carry out a cyber attack on Wikileaks. They do, no doubt, employ perhaps hundreds of skilled hackers amongst others who have been caught and who have bought their freedom by selling their services to the Empire. No doubt this is the future, but for now the horse is out of the barn. It would do the Empire little good to strike back now. Look for this in the fullness of time.

Will the revelations about imperial actions in Afghanistan have any perceptible effect on public opinion ? That is also a question for the fullness of time. For now here is an opinion from Z Communications which says they will and which celebrates the value of Wikileaks.

WLWLWLWLWL
Why Wikileaks Must Be Protected

----------------------

By John Pilger
Thursday, August 19, 2010
On 26 July, Wikileaks released thousands of secret US military files on the war in Afghanistan. Cover-ups, a secret assassination unit and the killing of civilians are documented. In file after file, the brutalities echo the colonial past. From Malaya and Vietnam to Bloody Sunday and Basra, little has changed. The difference is that today there is an extraordinary way of knowing how faraway societies are routinely ravaged in our name. Wikileaks has acquired records of six years of civilian killing for both Afghanistan and Iraq, of which those published in the Guardian, Der Spiegel and the New York Times are a fraction.

There is understandably hysteria on high, with demands that the Wikileaks founder Julian Assange is “hunted down” and “rendered”. In Washington, I interviewed a senior Defence Department official and asked, “Can you give a guarantee that the editors of Wikileaks and the editor in chief, who is not American, will not be subjected to the kind of manhunt that we read about in the media?” He replied, “It’s not my position to give guarantees on anything”. He referred me to the “ongoing criminal investigation” of a US soldier, Bradley Manning, an alleged whistleblower. In a nation that claims its constitution protects truth-tellers, the Obama administration is pursuing and prosecuting more whistleblowers than any of its modern predecessors. A Pentagon document states bluntly that US intelligence intends to “fatally marginalise” Wikileaks. The preferred tactic is smear, with corporate journalists ever ready to play their part.

On 31 July, the American celebrity reporter Christiane Amanapour interviewed Secretary of Defence Robert Gates on the ABC network. She invited Gates to describe to her viewers his “anger” at Wikileaks. She echoed the Pentagon line that “this leak has blood on its hands”, thereby cueing Gates to find Wikileaks “guilty” of “moral culpability”. Such hypocrisy coming from a regime drenched in the blood of the people of Afghanistan and Iraq – as its own files make clear – is apparently not for journalistic enquiry. This is hardly surprising now that a new and fearless form of public accountability, which Wikileaks represents, threatens not only the war-makers but their apologists.

Their current propaganda is that Wikileaks is “irresponsible”. Earlier this year, before it released the cockpit video of an American Apache gunship killing 19 civilians in Iraq, including journalists and children, Wikileaks sent people to Baghdad to find the families of the victims in order to prepare them. Prior to the release of last month’s Afghan War Logs, Wikileaks wrote to the White House asking that it identify names that might draw reprisals. There was no reply. More than 15,000 files were withheld and these, says Assange, will not be released until they have been scrutinised “line by line” so that names of those at risk can be deleted.

The pressure on Assange himself seems unrelenting. In his homeland, Australia, the shadow foreign minister, Julie Bishop, has said that if her right-wing coalition wins the general election on 21 August, “appropriate action” will be taken “if an Australian citizen has deliberately undertake an activity that could put at risk the lives of Australian forces in Afghanistan or undermine our operations in any way”. The Australian role in Afghanistan, effectively mercenary in the service of Washington, has produced two striking results: the massacre of five children in a village in Oruzgan province and the overwhelming disapproval of the majority of Australians.

Last May, following the release of the Apache footage, Assange had his Australian passport temporarily confiscated when he returned home. The Labor government in Canberra denies it has received requests from Washington to detain him and spy on the Wikileaks network. The Cameron government also denies this. They would, wouldn’t they? Assange, who came to London last month to work on exposing the war logs, has had to leave Britain hastily for, as puts it, “safer climes”.

On 16 August, the Guardian, citing Daniel Ellsberg, described the great Israeli whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu as “the pre-eminent hero of the nuclear age”. Vanunu, who alerted the world to Israel’s secret nuclear weapons, was kidnapped by the Israelis and incarcerated for 18 years after he was left unprotected by the London Sunday Times, which had published the documents he supplied. In 1983, another heroic whistleblower, Sarah Tisdall, a Foreign Office clerical officer, sent documents to the Guardian that disclosed how the Thatcher government planned to spin the arrival of American cruise missiles in Britain. The Guardian complied with a court order to hand over the documents, and Tisdall went to prison.

In one sense, the Wikileaks revelations shame the dominant section of journalism devoted merely to taking down what cynical and malign power tells it. This is state stenography, not journalism. Look on the Wikileaks site and read a Ministry of Defence document that describes the “threat” of real journalism. And so it should be a threat. Having published skilfully the Wikileaks expose of a fraudulent war, the Guardian should now give its most powerful and unreserved editorial support to the protection of Julian Assange and his colleagues, whose truth-telling is as important as any in my lifetime.

I like Julian Assange’s dust-dry wit. When I asked him if it was more difficult to publish secret information in Britain, he replied, “When we look at Official Secrets Act labelled documents we see that they state it is offence to retain the information and an offence to destroy the information. So the only possible outcome we have is to publish the information.”

WORLD NEWS AND POLITICS:
PAKISTAN FLOODS IN PERSPECTIVE:

The slow moving disaster in Pakistan changes its numbers every day. As I write today there are an estimated 20 million people affected. The reported death rate of 1,600 seems to have its meter stuck. The reason is that calculating those effected is simple. Simply take the pre-flood population of areas now underwater if you want a measure of the affected. Death rates are much harder to estimate in a country where the means of communication have basically been cut off in the flooded areas and huge numbers of people are on the move. The figure of 1,600 is undoubtedly far lower than the actual toll by at least an order of magnitude ie 16,000 is probably a low estimate while 160,000 is probably too high. While this is not of the same magnitude as the 1938, 1931, and 1887 floods in the Huang He (Yellow) river basin in China even the probable lower number easily earns this flood a place amongst the worst floods in history. For more info on the largest floods in history see here, here and here.

Still, this is certainly the largest recorded flood in the country of Pakistan. Members of Winnipeg's Pakistani community have been fund raising for disaster relief since the beginning. This has mostly been done through the Association of Pakistani Canadians, 348 Ross Ave., Winnipeg, MB R3E 0L4. Phone # 204-943-6928. Get in touch with them if you would like to donate. The funds raised will go via the Red Cross (forwarded to the Pakistani Red Crescent), and Human Concern International. You might also donate via these organizations. The latter is particularly interesting as they claim that 95% of funds donated go directly to relief work, something that might give some pause in the case of other charities.

All that being said there is something quite disturbing about the response or lack thereof of the international community to the Pakistani floods. Molly reproduces below one anarchist comment on this from the website of the Irish Workers' Solidarity Movement. In actial fact the glaring contrasts between the response of international governments and their spending on what they consider important is far more glaring than the following suggests. I'll speak more about this at the end of this post.
PAPAPAPAPA
Response to Pakistan floods shows barbarism of system
Date: Tue, 2010-08-17 14:31
Radio, television and newspaper reports of the recent devastating floods in Pakistan are at last beginning to refer to the sheer scale of the problems faced by the victims. Figures for the number of people affected vary widely. According to the Irish Minister of State for Overseas Development Peter Power, reported in today’s (Tuesday) Irish Times, “the United Nations estimated that 40 million people had been left homeless; that eight million of those were in urgent need of immediate food and shelter; and that the combination of rising water and humidity had made a cholera epidemic a real danger”. RTE’s website says “Aid agencies are saying that the world does not fully understand the scale of the flooding disaster ….. One fifth of the country has been hit by severe flooding, with more than 20m people affected…..The UN believes up to 3.5m children are now at risk of contracting water-borne diseases….”.

Whatever the numbers, it is clear that the devastation caused is unprecedented. Apart from the immediate short-term needs in terms of shelter, food and clean water, the Pakistani poor and working class are facing food shortages, higher food prices and increased poverty and deprivation for considerable time to come. Already the price of vegetables has increased by about 100%, sugar has gone up by over 20%, and the price of other staple foodstuffs has rocketed. Transport prices too have soared as operators exploit the desperation of those trying to flee the devastated areas.

Caught between the authoritarianism of a corrupt government which spends huge amounts annually on its military - the defence budget for 2010/11 increased by 17% to 442.2billion rupees (over 4billion Euros) – and the authoritarianism of the Taliban ‘rebels’, the ordinary people of Pakistan face a seemingly hopeless situation. Protests have broken out across the country demanding much-needed aid and support for the victims.

The United Nations Secretary General has announced its biggest ever relief effort and made an appeal for $460million (€358million). The response of the world’s governments has been pathetically slow with less than a quarter of this amount pledged.

It’s worth stopping for a moment and considering a couple of figures – Pakistani government military spending this year at €4billion will be over 10 times the total flood relief pledged by the United Nations. The Irish government meanwhile will throw €24billion (do the maths – that’s over 60 times the total flood relief pledged by the United Nations!) down the Anglo Irish Bank black hole and into the pockets of wealthy speculators.

And they tell us that capitalism works!
PAPAPAPAPA
Here are some facts that put what is happening in Pakistan and the world's response to it in perspective:
>>The article above mentions the yearly military budget for Pakistan. Right next door to this country the US military is waging what may turn out to be its longest war ever. In 2009 the USA spent $3.6 billion a month on this war. According to an article in USA Today the cost by February of this year had climbed to $6.7 billion a month, and by the end of 2010 the Afghan war will be costing $8.9 billion a month. The estimated cost in 2011 will be $9.75 billion a month. So far the USA has pledged (not delivered yet) $70 million. Take out your handy dandy calculators. That 70 million amounts to a little less than 4/5ths of one percent of what the US is presently spending per month on their operations in Pakistan's neighbour. I think this shows just how "seriously" the US takes the welfare of people in Pakistan.
>>To add injury to insult the USA has not even called at least a temporary halt to its remote controlled terrorism in Pakistan. Just last Saturday US missiles fired from a drone killed 12 people in the village of Issori in North Waziristan.
>>Meanwhile each and every US military helicopter that arrives in Pakistan is sure to get its own golden glowing press release. At the same time as its missiles were raining down on Issori last Saturday a "wonderful" total of 2 came to flood aid. On Monday this was doubled to an "astounding" total of four. I wonder how many US helicopters are in Afghanistan. Surely the US military could at least slow down on its attacks on wedding parties and other such things to divert a few more of them to Pakistan. There'll still be crowds of Afghans left over to attack later after all.
>>Finally, in perhaps the starkest light, the pledged US aid to Pakistan is almost exactly the same as another sum that was recently in the news. The 70 or 76 million dollars is about the same sum that Madonna recently paid in a divorce settlement to be able to ditch her latest husband. That says it all.

HUMOUR:

IN ONE EAR OUT THE OTHER:

INTERNATIONAL POLITICS COSTA RICA:

STATEMENT OF LA LIBERTAD:

Through much of the last century the country of Costa Rica stood as a beacon in the troubled region of Central America. Its early decision to refuse having any standing army and a succession of mildly social democratic governments insulated it against the 'thug politics' of military coups of much of the region. Its policies also guaranteed it a gradually increasing standard of living that was the envy of its neighbours and actually exceeded that of the communist dictatorship of Cuba. In sum Costa Rica was somewhat on its way to being the "Scandinavia of the South". In recent years this country has drawn away from its earlier wise policies, as the following article from the Anarkismo website lays bare. the original authors of the following are the Costa Rican anarchist group La Libertad, publishers of the (very) irregular anarchist magazine of the same name. Costa Rica is gradually abandoning its neutrality and anti-militarism in hopes of placating the Yankee giant to the north. The end result of this will not be increased prosperity but rather increased poverty and the end of freedom. Here's the story.

@@@@@@@
Costa Rica: No cheeks left to turn
Statement on the growing militarization of the Caribbean & Central America

Statement by the Colectivo La Libertad from Costa Rica on the increasing militarization of Central American-Caribbean area, the growing repression of the popular movement and of any form of social protest, and their position on the approval for the stationing of thousands of US Marines on Costa Rican territory.
----------------------
No cheeks left to turn

Since early July this year, plantation workers, peasants and indigenous people of the province of Changuinola in Bocas de Toro (Panama), have been on strike to defend basic labour rights threatened by the so-called "Jailhouse Law" and "Sausage Law" passed by Martinelli's militaristic right-wing government.


More than 4,000 workers affiliated to the Confederación de Trabajadores de la República de Panamá and 700 workers from the Convergencia Sindical, demonstrated on 8 July against the cancellation of the right to strike, restrictions of the freedom of association, the criminalization of protest, punishable with prison, and the elimination of union dues, when they were brutally repressed by police forces whose violence and batons left at least seven people dead, over 100 hospitalized and about 30 arrested.

These actions sparked protests in every province and the convening, by a national meeting of leaders of popular organizations, syndicates and trade unions, of a national strike for Tuesday 13 July. The worker and peasant organizations, threatened with extinction after the establishment, by law, of a Trade Union Central loyal to the government, demanded the release of the imprisoned workers and investigation into political killings.

However, the violence of the State, the official pressure and the media circus have again, as so many times in the past in this region, permitted "negotiations" and gave birth to a "way out" of the conflict. But this case is yet another example of the ways in which today the capitalist system and the State commit murder in Central America; it is an example of the barbarism which the fascist right is capable of reaching in order to impose its plans for economic liberalization, the extraction of resources and the commodification of life.

This is a trend that has been developing for several years and has been taking shape under the aegis of militarist, neo-liberal States in the region, from Mexico and Honduras, through Costa Rica, to Panama and Colombia. There is no coincidence in the close relationship of the current president of Costa Rica with Martinelli's Panamanian government (which in its most vulgar form consists of Costa Rican police involvement in acts of repression across the border inside Panama), nor the role that this country has played in the international legitimization of the coup in Honduras and the unthinkable government of Porfirio Lobo.

Nor is it a coincidence that the home-grown military presence has increased in recent months, alongside the influence and military intervention of the USA. The permission to land more than 7,000 soldiers, 46 warships and 200 US Army helicopters by the ruling governmental, evangelical and freedom-killing alliance in the Costa Rican parliament, shows in all its harshness the absence of any national sovereignty in Costa Rica, and the clear willingness of the local oligarchy to follow the orders of the gringo government's geopolitical plans.

So the lie that every day we tell ourselves about this peaceful Costa Rica of ours and about our perpetual, sacrosanct neutrality is laid bare: the American soldiers will enjoy absolute immunity from Costa Rican justice, the Marines will be able to enter and leave the country at will and move throughout the country in uniform, carrying their weapons. Nobody is alarmed at the huge number of international reports of assaults, rapes and intimidation by US personnel against citizens of other occupied countries.

But do not think that this is new. The government's strategy of militarization could already be glimpsed in the exchange agreement with the Italian government to give the Costa Rican police military training in exchange for carbon credits for the European country. ( Think of this for a moment. Translated into realistic English this means that Costa Rica is trading "permission to pollute" to Italy via some mythical balancing act of its forests in exchange for "training to kill" from the Italians. One can only hope that the Italian military lives down to its historical reputation. Old joke..Q. What's the shortest book in the world. A.The list of Italian war heroes. )Not to mention the numerous occasions since 2007 when landings have been approved, similar to the above: 5 warships and 17 Coast Guard gunships 3 years ago, 13 warships with a crew of approximately 20 officers and 200 enlisted men each in 2009 (all with airplanes and helicopters), and many other aircraft landing permits for the US Coast Guard. All this supposedly in view of democratic security and the war on drugs.

The false war on drugs - whose main objectives are never the local and international mafia bosses, nor representatives of the narcopolitics of governments in the region - is just an illusion, a show of words to divert attention from the real interests: increasing US military presence in Central America and consolidating the hegemony of the neoliberal project. It comes as no surprise, then, that throughout the world those countries with the greatest US military presence are those with the largest increases in the production and marketing of drugs.

We are now seeing the consequences of these mechanisms almost daily: political repression, criminalization, the dismantling of the legal structure for rights, the criminalization of protest, media stigmatization of social struggle. This permanent war against the "other" (the immigrants, the criminal, the communist, gangs, but also the peasant, the indigenous, the poor), especially in its version known as the drug war, is actually, as we have said, a "war against the peoples" (see http://www.elpais.cr/articulos.php?id=28871), "a war that does not reach the affluent North America", or is interested in seriously addressing a resolution of any conflict.

This so-called war is a systematic and calculated attack on the region. It is the explicit expression of implicit momentum: the control and dominion over the population and the resources. Business strategies serve to hide strategies for looting, cooperation initiatives serve to hide interests for control, regional security policies serve to hide policies for geopolitical domination. Examples of these forms are the free trade agreements, the Mérida Initiative ("Plan Mexico"), Plan Colombia, but also more specific signs such as the Obama-Uribe Treaty for the use of seven Colombian military bases by the United States, the recent reactivation of the Fourth Fleet, the coup d'état in Honduras, the military occupation of Haiti and the granting of new military bases in Panama.

In Central America, the rule of law begins only with its negation. Security begins only with its negation. Peace begins only with its negation. Our people live under assault from the law, unsafe, amidst constant violence. The only promise that the powers make us is that they will never tire of beating us, striking that "other cheek" that we tirelessly offer them. Thus, the only promise we can make to ourselves is to arm ourselves with dignity and ensure that no more cheeks are offered.


Colectivo La Libertad
San José, Costa Rica
July 2010

INTERNATIONAL POLITICS PANAMA:

PANAMA - THE GOVERNMENT VERSUS THE PEOPLE:

A little more than two weeks ago the government of Panama introduced what might be the grandmother of all omnibus bills, Bill 30, the so-called "sausage law" (maybe because it slices Panamanian society into a thousand pieces). The overall intent of the bill is to make any opposition to the business interests that the government hopes will flood in with a US/Panama free trade deal difficult to impossible. To add to this the government expects the people to pay for this giveaway of their country by a 40% increase in consumer taxes. This is both insult to injury and further injury to injury.


The reaction was swift. Labour unions called a national strike. Ordinary people demonstrated in the street. The government's reaction was equally swift and much more brutal as a wave of oppression swept across the country, killing six so far and imprisoning many more. The people refused to back down, and as we speak the Panamanian government is at least partially backtracking. Here's an explanation of what is happening down canal way. I originally saw this item on the Libcom website, but I've later learned it was originally published in The Examiner.
PPPPPPPPPP
Panamanian pandemonium
U.S. Interventionism has helped shape the Republic of Panama. With the recent bloodshed at a banana workers strike, will "push-back" result in socialist unrest amongst the Panamanian people and will President Martinelli and his corporate-interest minions close Pandora's Box? History shall be our guide.

The history of collective bargaining and the formation of organized labor movements in the United States was a knock-down, drag-out fight, where corporate America ultimately proved unsuccessful in its bid to prevent the “unionization” of workers in several industrial sectors. While the U.S. federal government denounced meetings and rallies, a “popular uprising” shook the very foundations of capitalism’s strangle-hold over the impoverished working lower-class. Mass demonstrations of co-workers exploited by corporate overlords were able to channel their voices, combining tactical action with strategic inaction, so that the oppressive profiteers were forced to ameliorate protested grievances. After years of bloodshed and picket-lines, the rise of America's unionized labor force was rivaled only by the formation of a "middle-class" it is credited with helping .

What the purveyors of America's global economic dominance failed to realize was that during their full-throttled pursuit to denounce socialist propaganda in the early half of the 1900’s, by surrendering to the collective will that birthed the “organized labor movement”, the pressurized steam of popular socialism was released, so that the kettle of the working class wouldn’t boil over. The “red scare” was alleviated more by this domestic suppression of oppression, with its internally stabilizing increase in worker compensation and family-sustaining benefits previously not offered to the “average working stiff”. This “steam valve” method of appeasing the building-up of “subversive elements” preserved the American capitalist “free market” economic model, but investors continued to reap windfall profits by reacting with a shift toward import markets, “capitalizing” from the sweat and tears of “third-world” citizens.

Although the full story involves further complexities than this brief synopsis allows for, it directly correlates to the recent popular disturbances in the Republic of Panama. The U.S. government steadily subverted Panamanian "labor-force activism" for decades, unwilling to endorse the "unionization" that Americans had ultimately adopted for themselves. These “strong-arm”, state-sponsored business practices helped inflate the affluent elitist Wall Street moguls who have steered the “interests” of U.S. empire ever since.

The so-called “Banana Republics” of Central and South America are one regional example (of many) where American imperialism allowed U.S.-based corporations to wield unquestioned power and authority over entire populations, systematically backed by the U.S. State Department. American military might helped countless regimes gain, re-gain or maintain control over citizens that were democratically opting for new leadership; all this despite relentless U.S. rhetoric advocating the worldwide spread of democracy.

The history of U.S. interventionist policies in the southern hemisphere poetically served to produce the current uptick in regional socialism. One by one, each of these nations have struggled for self-determination; each in its own way, with its own unique brand of political, social-democratic evolution.

Panama has experienced the benefits and consequences of its geographical significance, located at the smallest pinch of the Americas, where the Atlantic and Pacific oceans are joined by this relegated “short-cut”. As Panamanians struggled for independence, this intrinsic “value” was seized upon by former President Teddy Roosevelt. (Speaking softly, but carrying a big stick) Roosevelt opted to establish a ten-mile-wide “zone” spanning the country by strategically “weaponizing”, then supporting, a dictatorial regime that would allow for this annexation. In stark contrast to the democratic wishes of the mass-majority of Panamanians at the time, a new day of domination for American trade relations had dawned, and U.S. sovereign control of the Panama Canal Zone would endure for nearly a century.

By the 1980's, CIA-influenced narco-traffickers infiltrating the ranks and ideologies of the historically corruptible Panamanian military resulted in the Reagan-endorsed dictator, Manuel Noriega, rising to a blood-stained throne of power. When Noriega declined to assist Oliver North with military support of the Nicaraguan Contras. Suddenly, his exploits of human-trafficking and money laundering became a bone of contention with the U.S. Justice Department. Once Reagan changed course with Noriega, the U.S. moved ahead with sanctions (serving only to further impoverish one of the poorest nations in the world), and eventually military assault when President G.H.W. Bush (formerly Reagan’s V.P.) launched Operation Just Cause.

Since the smoke has cleared from Reagan-era “interventionism”, Panama has undergone positive growth, acceptable to the current War Council in Washington. Former President Clinton would oversee the transition of sovereignty of the Panama Canal Zone back into the rightful owning hands of Panamanians. This has given the country a running start at becoming a viable, self-governing democratic Republic.

Last year, sweeping into presidential victory on a media-blitzing platform of “hope” and “change”: No, not Barack Obama, but Ricardo Martinelli, the newly-elected President of Panama. This American-educated business-giant (still chairman of the Super 99 supermarket chain) maintains investing interests in several corporations both in, and outside of, Panama. He swept into victory with 60% of the vote, and saw his popularity rise steadily since taking office. Along with having the healthiest growing economy in Central America, Martinelli’s short reign prepares to oversee full implementation of the $5.25 billion Canal Zone Expansion Project, passed by the previous (Martin) Torrijos administration. This improvement project looks to create 7,000 to 9,000 new jobs through 2011.

Then, Martinelli, an ultra-conservative politician for traditional Panamanian standards, pressed for passage of his business-friendly, legislative super bill, notoriously known as “the sausage law” for its eclectic design affecting multiple, unrelated tiers of governance. What can only be viewed as a “sweetening” of Panamanian economic conditions, Martinelli and his Democratic Change party may be attempting to finalize the stalled-out U.S./Panama Free Trade Agreement (FTA) that never received the final nod from the U.S. Senate after being passed by the House of Representatives in ’07.

The “sausage law”, officially dubbed “Law 30”, is a nine-part reversal on many young Panamanian laws. It side-steps environmental impact studies for agribusiness developers to tread more heavily in pursuit of profitability. It removes the federal mandate for union employees, so that paying applicable dues becomes voluntary. It contains “anti-strike” provisions that remove employment protection for striking workers, and does not render the business “closed” due to the strike (an expectation traditionally providing the only leverage strikers had against corporate improprieties). It overturns a 13-year-old law regarding “preventive incarceration” for police officers accused of brutality and/or excessive force. It forces anyone in opposition to “public bids” to initially lay down 15% of said bid in before legal proceedings can advance questioning the legitimacy of the contract. It also rewrites code enforcement for fraudulent passport production and use; undeniably all over the place with regards to customary law-making practices in Panamanian parliament.

And with that, banana growers went on strike in the city of Changuinola, province of Bocas del Toro. These were employees of Chiquita, formerly known as the United Fruit Company, the regime-shifting power-wielding conglomerate that shaped governments (with U.S. backing) and prevented democratic endeavors throughout Central and South America for much of the 20th century. United Fruit was the company at the center of the famed “Banana Massacre”, where up to 4,000 striking locals were slaughtered by Columbian military forces at the behest of Henry Stimson, Secretary of State under President Herbert Hoover.

A dispatch from the U.S. embassy in Bogota, Columbia, where the attacks occurred, sent to Stimson revealed disappointment for the contemporary “liberal media” that was “spinning” the state-sponsored act of terrorism for what it actually was.

“Although the thinking people of the country realize that it was only the Government's prompt action that diverted a disaster, this insidious campaign of the Liberal press will undoubtedly work up a great deal of feeling against the Government and will tend to inculcate in the popular mind a belief that the Government was unduly hasty in protecting the interests of the United Fruit Company,” reads the wire transmission, telegraphed December 11, 1928. “The Conservative journals are defending the Government's course but I doubt that their counter-fire will suffice to do away with the damage the Liberal journals are causing.”

Now, in Panama, a near repeat of the Banana Massacre more than 80 years later, as Panamanian forces opted to open-fire on scores of unarmed protesters. Government soldiers used shotguns filled with bird-shot, sometimes at point-blank-range. Two union members were killed, indicated by Panamanian spokespersons as “accidental” incidents, as the intent was to injure, but not fatally wound. Along with these two senseless acts of “accidental assassination”, as many as 30 people were blinded and maimed by such shootings. Martinelli blamed Panamanian media for "a campaign of disinformation" which led to the large group protests.

Some members of Martinelli’s government expressed immediate remorse for “mistakes” that were made, while others defended the actions of militant “crowd control” in response to collective-bargaining acts of non-violent, civil disobedience. What Martinelli received as a reaction to the state’s “over-reaction” was a national, general strike of July 13th, looking to cripple the construction projects in the “canal zone”, as well as across Panamanian urban centers. He also witnessed a 12-point drop in his previously swollen approval ratings. Panama's National Front for the Defense of Social Rights (FRENADESO) claimed a 95% effectiveness for its strike across the board, insisting their aims were achieved, while the government of Panama maintains that all sectors survived the incursion unscathed.

Secretary of State Clinton may have a lot to say and do about these recent developments. Again, it was former president Clinton who administered the transition of the Canal in 1999 over to Panamanian authorities, honoring the Torrijos-Carter Treaty of ’77. Despite the deafening silence put forth by the Obama administration over the incident, Hillary will have Bill in her ear more so than Barack with regards to Panama, and Clintonian initiatives may incentivise her diplomatic treatment of the matter in the coming months. Whether or not “the sausage law” is a requisite for the currently neutralized FTA pact to get back off the ground remains to be seen.

One “change” we can “hope” for: state-sponsored murder will have to subside for the U.S./Panama FTA to advance itself from its frozen legislative status in the U.S. Senate.

Will President Martinelli back down from his “sausage law”, having incited labor groups throughout the country into civic action and commercial paralysis? Or, will the level of brutality authorized by the Martinelli government increase in defense against the democratically natural push-back of the Panamanian people. These are the apprehensions the Martinelli administration tries to navigate as the first-year president attempts to stabilize the capitalist backbone of Panama's constitutional republic, surrounded by a region dominated by surging Socialist movements?

Pending investments by foreign bankers poised to explore Panama’s economic potential, including the multi-billion-dollar canal-expansion bids, all hinge on a peaceable outcome presenting itself at ground-level. More crucial to Martinelli’s fledgling coalition government is for it to avoid re-hashing Socialist sensibilities in a nation self-determined to become a free-market player, replete with support from the World Trade Organization, as well as the World Bank which funds the viral trend of globalization.

Martinelli’s minions may ultimately heed the lessons learned from the history of collective bargaining in the U.S. itself, allowing the Panamanian people the “steam release” needed for its workers to thrive awaiting the presumed emergence of that elusive “middle-class”. Meanwhile, concern for the plight of the Panamanian worker yields itself to corporate interests, opting to “go bananas” with their attempt to seize “control” of the disenfranchised working class. It isn’t the first time such an egregious and inhumane miscalculation was made by the benefactors of Imperialism, and likely not the last.
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The Panamanian strike and the government's reaction to it has brought forth expressions of solidarity from across Latin America and Europe. Here's one such example reprinted from the Anarkismo website.
PPPPPPPPPP
All our support to the struggles of the Panamanian people!

We express our total rejection of the Panamanian government and our unconditional support to our working class comrades in Panama, following the appalling acts of bloodshed and repression carried out by the government of Panama led by Ricardo Martinelli against the Panamanian people and, specifically, the persecution, killing and imprisonment of leaders of the Frente Nacional por la Defensa de los Derechos Sociales (National Front for the Defence of Social Rights - FRENADESO) and the Sindicato Unico Nacional de Trabajadores de la Industria de la Construcción y similares (Single National Union of Construction Industry Workers - SUNTRACS).
This wave of repression has resulted in six deaths, 150 injured and hundreds arrested. There have also been the very selective arrests of comrades such as Jaime Caballero, Assistant General Secretary of SUNTRACS, who was arrested in Chiriquí and transferred to the capital (where he is still confined in La Joya prison). Also incarcerated at the same time were FER-29 leader, Kuna youth leader and member of the FRENADESO Noticias alternative media site, Ronaldo Ortiz, together with Alexis Garibaldi of the SUNTRACS trade union.

SUNTRACS leaders Genaro López and Saúl Méndez are now in hiding, along with other comrades, as a result of a warrant being issued for their arrest. It has been revealed that the authorities intend to send them to La Joya and La Joyita prisons, where they would be killed by common criminals under the orders of the State security forces.

According to official data, it is estimated that nearly 20 union leaders have had arrest warrants issued against them. Besides those already mentioned, also in the firing line are comrades Andrés Rodríguez, Mario Almanza, Marco Andrade, Gabriel Castillo, Dalia Morales, Yaritza Espinoza, Juan Saldaña, Ariel Rodríguez, Gloria Castillo, Juan Carlos Salas, Carlos Obaldía, David Niño, Eustaquio Méndez, Marco Guzmán, Maribel Gordón, Cristian Díaz, Cle Osvaldo Gómez, Juan Ramón Herrera and Juan Jované, amongst others.

All the above events are connected with a series of demonstrations that have carried out by the workers and the Panamanian people against the recent onslaught from the government of Ricardo Martinelli at the behest of the bosses, forcing on the people things such as changes to labour legislation (designed to curtail unionization and strikes), the passing of three executive orders and Law 30 (known as the "Sausage Law")[1], as well as an increase in consumer taxes of almost 40%, which has had a violent effect on the cost of living for Panamanian people. Finally, the government has passed a Prisons Law that criminalizes social protest.

At this stage it is essential that the support and solidarity of our class goes to the Panamanian people and social activists, who are aware that such an abuse of authority cannot go unpunished. We therefore demand the release of all political prisoners and the trial and punishment of these tyrants.


For workers' unity and organization!

Long live those who struggle!


Sindicato Nacional de Trabajadores de la Construcción (SINTEC), Chile

Translation by FdCA International Relations Office
Translator's note:

1. The "Ley Chorizo" is a mish-mash of reforms to 9 different laws, including big changes to labour laws (giving bosses the power to fire striking workers, for example, or removing the obligation to pay union rates), criminal laws (criminalizing protest, obligatory DNA testing of anyone under police investigation), environmental laws (exempting projects considered as being of "social interest" from having to provide environmental impact studies) and immigration laws. The law is very unpopular among large swathes of the Panamanian population as it also provides the police with almost total impunity.

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There is an excellent source (in Spanish) from Panama itself on events in that country. See the FRENADESO site, dedicated to social and ecomomic rights in that country. A very useful corrective to at least one of the stories circulating about the 'anarchonet' these days, seemingly claiming in triumphalist fashion that the protests were entirely successful. In actual fact all the government has done is to delay the implimentation of the Bill and agreed to strike only three clauses from the numerous provisions of the bill. NO, this is hardly anything near the total victory that the following, also from Libcom (but reproduced elsewhere) seems to claim. Exaggeration is in the end no service to the cause it promotes. What this is, at best, is a temporary truce. The struggle is far from over, and no victory is assured.
PPPPPPPPPP
Panama: strikes and protests force climbdown on anti-strike laws
A ten-day strike by banana plantation workers in Panama has come to an end after the government agreed an package of concessions that included the suspension of its anti-strike legislation, Law 30.

The strike by over 4000 banana plantation workers began on July the 2nd after workers at the Bocas Fruit Company had the portion of their pay used to pay their union subs withheld by the company in line with the recently introduced law. As the protests spread, they were joined by around 2000 independent banana growers.

Protests by plantation workers in the Bocas del Toro province on the 9th of July led to street fighting with police, who were ordered in by president Ricardo Martinelli. Demonstrators burned down a bank and several other businesses were attacked, while roadblocks were set up around the Atlantic city of Changuinola. The rioting has led to the death of two workers at the hands of police – named as Antonio Smith and Fernán Castillo - and the wounding of more than 100 more. Over 115 workers were arrested, while demonstrating workers took four police officers hostage. Union official Rafael Chavarria has claimed that the situation is much worse than the government version of events, and that a further four protesters were killed.

A parallel strike by construction workers on the Panama Canal ended today following concessions by managers on working conditions. The action by employees of the international consortium Grupos Unidos por el Canal halted work on the Panama Canal expansion project at the Gatun zone on the Panamanian Atlantic coast . The workers were reportedly demanding facilities to cook their own food, wash their clothes, and for management not to interfere with the construction workers' union SUNTRACS. National police and canal security agents arrested five reported strike leaders in the course of the dispute. According to a communique by the banana workers' union FRENADESO, “more than 70 workers striking for salaries, working conditions, and against Ley 30 were fired. Police took the workers off the bus, handed them termination papers and gave back the petitions that workers had given to the “United for the Canal”.

Meanwhile officials and members of SUNTRACS - Sindicato Único de Trabajadores de la Construcción y Similares - were arrested by police who raided a union meeting at a hotel in Panama city which passed a resolution calling for a general strike. At the time of writing, they are still being held.

Around 50 students at the University of Panama set up a roadblock on one of the main roads at the university in solidarity with the strikers, leading the government to order the cancellation of all classes.

Law 30 limits the right to strike action, union membership and freedom of association. Moreover, it outlaws workers' ability to organise street protests in the course of industrial conflicts, with the associated criminal offence carrying a penalty of two years imprisonment. It has been introduced alongside another law, Law 14, which creates new criminal offences relating to the blocking of roads by demonstrators.

HUMOUR:

THE TRUTH:

ANTI-MILITARISM CANADA:

HELP RODNEY WATSON:

The struggle against militarism is worldwide. Many other animal species "wage war" despite the illusions of some primitivists. The human situation, however, is unique because of our ability (inevitable!!! for those who who imagine that simply eliminating a technology by some miraculous universal religious renunciation) to form "coalitions"

will prevent war. Of course it won't ! The ability to prevent war in the future will require a very hard look at human nature, a hard look that my own "nutty comrades" of the primitivist strain obviously think is unnecessary. All that, of course, is irrelevant to our present situation where the actions of an anarchist movement are tiny to say the least. The dream world of parts of the American anarchist movement (I can only hope that the majority in a "country" that is better described as a "continent" have more common sense) is irrelevant to any political issue whatsoever. At its crudest, "if some idiot living in the" luxury" of a technological city wants to use the internet to propagandize for "the end of civilization" then "hypocrisy" is the least of the sins that can be attributed to such an idiot. The following is an internet appeal from the War Resister's International for solidarity with Rodney, who has claimed sancuaryin a Vancouver Church.

The following is a very special appeal for an American of conscience who has claimed sanctuary in a Canadian Church. I urge not just my Canadian comrades to support him. That much is obvious. I also urge our American comrades to do the best they can for this "good man".YES, such a campaign is "very liberal", but it is not from the perspective of the individual involved. this guy has come up here to escape killing Innocent people out in Iraq and Afghanistan. I don't expect my general readers to believe in political rhetoric, either that of the average leftist or my nutty comrades. Or my own for that matter. All that I would ask is that you consider the following appeal for a man who does not want to be a murderer and support him. This is plain language. Here is the story and appeal.

CPCPCPCPCPCP

USA/CANADA: War resister Rodney Watson in church sanctuary in Canada
2009 US war resisters Rodney Watson decided to seek sanctuary in a church in Vancouver, Canada, rather than face deportation to the United States to face desertion charges. Rodney Watson, who is originally from Kansas City, Kansas, enlisted in the US Army in 2004 for a three-year contract with the intentions of becoming a cook since he wanted to serve the troops in a non-combat capacity.

I n 2005, he was deployed to Iraq just north of Mosul, where he was put in charge of searching vehicles and Iraqi civilians for explosives, contraband and weapons before they entered the base. He was also expected to “keep the peace” by monitoring Iraqi civilians who worked on the base and fire his weapon at Iraqi children who approached the perimeter.

After his first tour was over, Watson was informed that he was instead being Stop-Lossed as the Army intended to have him serve beyond the date of his contractual obligation with the military. On two-week leave, he decided not to return to his base at Fort Hood, Texas, and instead fled to Vancouver, B.C. in 2006, where he lives with his Canadian born partner and their infant son.

In a September 2009 press conference, Watson - who is African-American - described his experience in Iraq, “I witnessed racism and the physical abuse from soldiers towards the civilians. On one occasion, a soldier was beating an Iraqi civilian, calling him a sand-nigger and threw his Qur’an on the ground and spit on it. The man was unarmed and he was just looking for work on the base. He posed no type of threat. He was beaten because soldiers brought their personal racist hatred to Iraq.”

He has been living in refuge at the First United Church in Vancouver, B.C., since 18 September 2009. He was welcomed with open arms and publicly declared sanctuary on Monday. Sarah Bjorknas from the Vancouver arm of the WRSC notes that Watson was issued his deportation order before his case could be resolved through the courts.

Watson wishes to remain in Canada because of his objection to the Iraq War but his passion for his infant son remains the strongest pull.

At the press conference, Watson’s voice trembled, “I don’t want to be torn away from him. I want to be there for him during his first steps, every waking moment, I want to be there. And I know if I’m deported, it is to prison and I will not be able to see any of those moments for who knows how long, for God knows how long.” If convicted of desertion as a felony charge he will not be able to cross the border to visit his son.

War Resisters' International calls for letters of support to Rodney Watson:

Rodney Watsonc

c/o First United Church Mission

320 E Hastings St

Vancouver, BC V6A 1P4

Canada
War Resisters' International calls for letters of protest to Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, demanding to halt the deportation of Rodney Watson and other war resisters to the United States

.Office of the Prime Minister

80 Wellington Street

Ottawa

K1A 0A2

Fax: +1-613-941-6900

A protest email can be sent at http://wri-irg.org/node/9046.
Andreas Speck

War Resisters' International

CANADIAN POLITICS/ANTI-MILITARISM:

SUPPORT WAR RESISTER DEAN WALCOTT:

The following item is from the website of the Vancouver Catholic Worker, and it has been modified from a previous post on the War Resister Support Campaign. Basically, Mr Walcott is the latest in a series of American resisters to their war of conquest in Iraq who have fled their native country to our cold but otherwise hospitable clime. He is also the latest that the government of Sneaky Stevie Harper has ordered deported back to the USA to face whatever military "justice" they may get. Please join the campaign to call for the order of deportation to not be carried out.

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War resister Dean Walcott ordered to leave Canada:

U.S. Iraq war resister Dean Walcott was told on December 3rd that he must leave Canada by January 6th or face deportation to the United States. The decision follows similar ones in the cases of war resisters Corey Glass, Jeremy Hinzman and family, Patrick Hart and family, and Matt Lowell.

If deported, Dean will face a court martial, jail time and a felony conviction, all because of his refusal to participate in the immoral and illegal war in Iraq. This decision goes against the expressed wishes of the Canadian Parliament which passed a motion on June 3rd calling on the government to allow war resisters to stay in Canada, and it goes against the will of Canadians who have consistently demonstrated in polls that they want war resisters to stay.

The Federal Court stayed the removal orders of Corey Glass, Jeremy Hinzman and Matt Lowell. The Hart family faces deportation January 15th and will be asking the Court for a similar stay.

Corey Glass has since been granted a new application to stay on Humanitarian & Compassionate grounds. Jeremy Hinzman's appeal date for his negative decision has been set for February 10th 2009, and Matt Lowell is waiting to hear whether his appeal will be heard.

It is time for Minister of Citizenship & Immigration Jason Kenney to put an end to this case-by-case approach to the situation of war resisters in Canada. He must implement a political solution in line with what Canadians and Parliament are calling for and allow Dean, and all of the other courageous young men and women who have said no to participating in the war which even Stephen Harper has admitted was "absolutely a mistake", to stay in Canada.

Minister of Citizenship and Immigration Jason Kenney

Call 613.954.1064

MP Jason Kenney’s Parliamentary office:

613.992.2235

Or email him at:

minister@cic.gc.ca

or

Kenney.j@parl.gc.ca

Please cc the opposition party critics if you email Jason Kenney:

Liberal party immigration critic Borys Wrzesnewskyj: wrzesnewskyj.b@parl.gc.ca

NDP immigration critic Olivia Chow: chow.o@parl.gc.ca

Bloc Québécois immigration critic Thierry St-Cyr: st-cyr.t@parl.gc.caresisters.ca

AMERICAN POLITICS:

ENDING THE TORTURE CAMPS AND THE TORTURE SCHOOL:

In the waning days of the rule of Emperor Bush II American legislators are striving to distance themselves from the greatest scandals of his regime, especially the acceptance of torture as a regular part of US foreign policy. The President-elect has made his usual vague statements about ending this practice. The School of the Americas Watch intends to hold their feet to the fire. Here's their story and what they'd like you to do to help.

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Senate confirms Rumsfeld Authorized Torture:
Take Action: Ask President-elect Obama to Ban Torture and Close the School of the Americas

Yesterday the US Senate released a report confirming that Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and other senior US officials are responsible for authorizing torture at Abu Ghraib prison and Guantanamo Bay. Similarly, the torture manuals used at the School of the Americas/WHINSEC - made public in 1996 - were also authorized by the highest levels of the Pentagon in the early 1980s. Read the Reuters article here: www.soaw.org/rumsfeld

TAKE ACTION: Please Call the Obama transition team and share the below message at 202-540-3000 - after instructions, press "2" to speak with the transition team.

"President- elect Obama, as a member of the School of the Americas Watch - I ask that after you are inaugurated President that you issue executive orders to ban torture - no exceptions, close the School of the Americas/WHINSEC and close Guantanamo Bay."

Please also take a moment to Contact President-elect Obama via his website to paste in the above message at:

http://change.gov/page/content/contact

AMERICAN POLITICS:

HOWARD ZINN ON THE OBAMA VICTORY:

Here's yet another libertarian comment on the Barack Obama victory down USA way, this time from the homepage of libertarian socialist historian Howard Zinn. The essay below was originally published in the French newspaper L'Humanité.

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Howard Zinn article written for l'Humanité
OBAMA’S HISTORIC VICTORY:

by Howard Zinn
Those of us on the Left who have criticized Obama, as I have, for his failure to take bold positions on the war and on the economy, must join the exultation of those Americans, black and white, who shouted and wept Tuesday night as they were informed that Barack Obama had won the presidential election. It is truly a historic moment, that a black man will lead our country. The enthusiasm of the young, black and white, the hopes of their elders, cannot simply be ignored.

There was a similar moment a century and a half ago, in the year 1860, when Abraham Lincoln was elected president. Lincoln had been criticized harshly by the abolitionists, the anti-slavery movement, for his failure to take a clear, bold stand against slavery, for acting as a shrewd politician rather than a moral force. But when he was elected, the abolitionist leader Wendell Phillips, who had been an angry critic of Lincoln’s cautiousness, recognized the possibility in his election.

Phillips wrote that for the first time in the nation’s history “the slave has chosen a President of the United States.” Lincoln, he said, was not an abolitionist, but he in some way “consents to represent an antislavery position.” Like a pawn on the chessboard, Lincoln had the potential, if the American people acted vigorously, to be moved across the board, converted into a queen, and, as Phillips said, “sweep the board.”

Obama, like Lincoln, tends to look first at his political fortunes instead of making his decisions on moral grounds. But, as the first African American in the White House, elected by an enthusiastic citizenry which expects a decisive move towards peace and social justice, he presents a possibility for important change.

Obama becomes president in a situation which cries out for such change. The nation has been engaged in two futile and immoral wars, in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the American people have turned decisively against those wars. The economy is shaken by tremendous blows, and is in danger of collapsing, as families lose their homes and working people, including those in the middle class, lose their jobs, So the population is ready for change, indeed, desperate for change, and “change” was the word most used by Obama in his campaign.

What kind of change is needed? First, to announce the withdrawal of our troops from Iraq and Afghanistan, and to renounce the Bush doctrine of preventive war as well as the Carter doctrine of military action to control Mideast oil. He needs to radically change the direction of U.S. foreign policy, declare that the U.S. is a peace loving country which will not intervene militarily in other parts of the world, and start dismantling the military bases we have in over a hundred countries. Also he must begin meeting with Medvedev, the Russian leader, to reach agreement on the dismantling of the nuclear arsenals, in keeping with the Nuclear Anti-Proliferation Treaty.

This turn-around from militarism will free hundreds of billions of dollars. A tax program which will sharply increase taxes on the richest 1% of the nation, and will tax their wealth as well as their income, will yield more hundreds of billions of dollars.

With all that saved money, the government will be able to give free health care to everyone, put millions of people to work (which the so-called free market has not been able to do). In short, emulate the New Deal program, in which millions were given jobs by the government. This is just an outline of a program which could transform the United States and make it a good neighbor to the world.
###
(written for l'Humanité in Paris)

AMERICAN POLITICS:

WHAT WILL OBAMA DO ON FOREIGN POLICY ?:

The following article from the COAT site tries to extrapolate what the foreign policy of an Obama Administration will be like, given the past pronouncements of the President-Elect. The answer...not that much different from what has gone before. No doubt the "tone" will be different, but the substance will remain the same- the preservation of empire. One has to, of course, take Obama's past positions with the usual wheelbarrow full of salt reserved for the promises of any politician, but there is no reason to doubt that the next US Preident is any more dishonest than others. Thus, what he has said before is likely to be, in general terms, the way he will conduct himself in office. What will this be like ? Read on.

The cartoon above, by the way, is from the Tales of the Iraq War blog by the Brazilian cartoonist Latuff. Also needless to say Molly doesn't agree with the following author's hope that the inevitable disappointment with Obama in power will lead to a "Third Party" in the USA. However realistic or unrealistic this hope may be it is something quite different from what Molly hopes for. It also leads to the inevitable question..."Would a 'Third Party' be any different in power ?". The experience of us colonials who have multiparty systems suggests otherwise.

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A Rough Guide to Obama, on $2.3 billion a day*:
By Richard Sanders, coordinator, Coalition to Oppose the Arms Trade (COAT)

Did you know that President-elect Obama:
**voted for every one of President Bush's Iraq-War funding increases?
**believes Bush's "surge" in Iraq has "succeeded beyond our wildest dreams" and has proclaimed his "absolute" belief in the "War on Terror"?
**criticized the Iraq War because it is "unwinnable," not because it is illegal, immoral and has killed one million Iraqis?
**will probably leave 140,000 private contractors (mercenaries) and as many as 60,000 to 80,000 regular US troops in Iraq?
**praised President Bush, Sr., and the 1991 Gulf War saying: "I think that when you look back at his foreign policy, it was a wise foreign policy. In how we executed the Gulf War.... I think George H.W. Bush doesn't get enough credit for...his foreign policy team and the way that he...prosecuted the Gulf War. That cost us $20 billion dollars. That's all it cost. It was extremely successful."
**is willing to bomb Iran and that he won't rule out a first strike nuclear attack?
**wants to send an additional 10,000 US troops to fight the war in Afghanistan?
**wants to expand the Afghan war with unilateral air strikes to bomb Pakistan?
**supported Israel's war against Lebanon?
**supports Ballistic Missile Defense?
**favours military expenditures on warplanes that he says "provide the backbone of our ability to extend global power."
**voted for the Patriot Act II, the Wall Street bailout, building a border wall with Mexico and immunity for corporations that conducted electronic eavesdropping on Americans?
**wants continued sanctions against Cuba?
**called President Chavez an "enemy of the US" and wants sanctions against Venezuela?

Unfortunately, this is just the tip of the iceberg. There are many other examples from Obama's statements, his voting records, his financial backers and his selection of advisors and staff that expose very regressive positions on foreign policy and domestic issues. (Check out the links to an initial list of articles below.)

Some rationalize their support for Obama by saying he is less pro-war than McCain or Bush. Others may argue with contention that Obama even is pro-war. At different times, and with different audiences, Obama has taken completely contradictory stands on many important issues. How do we interpret this behaviour? Are we believe all of his progressive-sounding rhetoric on "hope" and change," and simply ignore as inconvenient his many "right-wing," pro-war positions?

As Obama himself has said in his latest book The Audacity of Hope: "I am new enough on the national political scene that I serve as a blank screen on which people of vastly different political stripes project their own views." As James Krichick said in the New Republic, "Obama is, in his own words, something of a Rorschach test."

Sam Smith puts it this way in an article called "Can we talk about the Real Obama now?":
"Obama has left the same kind of vacuum. His magic, or con, was that voters could imagine whatever they wanted and he would do nothing to spoil their reverie. He was a handsome actor playing the part of the first black president-to-be and, as in films, he was careful not to muck up the role with real facts or issues that might harm the fantasy. Hence the enormous emphasis on meaningless phrases like hope and change."
(Undernews (online report of the Progressive Review), November 5, 2008.)

Obama's rhetoric on the Iraq War is a case in point. Many mistakenly see him as as anti-war "peace candidate" who will pull the US military out of Iraq. Unfortunately, the truth about his position on this subject is far more complicated.

"In an interview with Amy Goodman, Sen. Obama stated his intention of leaving 140,000 private contractors in Iraq because “we don’t have the troops to replace them.” He also stated the need to keep an additional “strike force in the region … in order to not only protect them, but also potentially to protect their territorial integrity."
Matt Gonzalez, "The Trail of Broken Promises," CounterPunch, October 29, 2008.

Colin Kahl, the coordinator of the Obama campaign’s working group on Iraq policy wrote a paper for Center for a New American Security, saying that between 60,000 and 80,000 US troops should stay in Iraq until the end of 2010.(James Kirchick, "Who has Obama's ear?," Politico, April 15, 2008.)

Another insight into Obama's position on the Iraq war is revealed in his appointment of Joe Biden as his vice presidential running mate. Stephen Zunes, in "Biden, Iraq, and Obama's Betrayal," (Foreign Policy In Focus, August 24, 2008) says that

"Obama's selection of Joseph Biden as his running mate constitutes a stunning betrayal of the anti-war constituency who made possible his hard-fought victory in the Democratic primaries and caucuses. "The veteran Delaware senator has been one the leading congressional supporters of U.S. militarization of the Middle East and Eastern Europe, of strict economic sanctions against Cuba, and of Israeli occupation policies.

"Most significantly, however, Biden, who chaired the Senate Foreign Relations Committee during the lead-up to the Iraq War during the latter half of 2002, was perhaps the single most important congressional backer of the Bush administrations decision to invade that oil-rich country." (Emphasis added)

Leaving aside the Iraq War there is plenty for peace activists to be concerned about in Obama's overall agenda for the US military. For example, as Obama wrote in an article called "Renewing American Leadership":

"To renew American leadership in the world, we must immediately begin working to revitalize our military. A strong military is, more than anything, necessary to sustain peace. . . . We must use this moment both to rebuild our military and to prepare it for the missions of the future. . . . I will not hesitate to use force, unilaterally if necessary, to protect the American people or our vital interests whenever we are attacked or imminently threatened. We must also consider using military force in circumstances beyond self-defense in order to provide for the common security that underpins global stability..."
(Foreign Affairs, May 31, 2007.)

And, here's what the official website of the Obama-Biden campaign says about what they'll do to when elected to "rebuild the military for 21st century tasks":
***Expand to Meet Military Needs on the Ground: Barack Obama and Joe Biden support plans to increase the size of the Army by 65,000 soldiers and the Marines by 27,000 troops. Increasing our end strength will help units retrain and re-equip properly between deployments and decrease the strain on military families.
**Review Weapons Programs: We must rebalance our capabilities to ensure that our forces have the agility and lethality to succeed in both conventional wars and in stabilization and counter-insurgency operations. Obama and Biden have committed to a review of each major defense program in light of current needs, gaps in the field, and likely future threat scenarios in the post-9/11 world.
**Preserve Global Reach in the Air: We must preserve our unparalleled airpower capabilities to deter and defeat any conventional competitors, swiftly respond to crises across the globe, and support our ground forces. We need greater investment in advanced technology ranging from the revolutionary, like Unmanned Aerial Vehicles and electronic warfare capabilities, to essential systems like the C-17 cargo and KC-X air refueling aircraft, which provide the backbone of our ability to extend global power.
**Maintain Power Projection at Sea: We must recapitalize our naval forces, replacing aging ships and modernizing existing platforms, while adapting them to the 21st century. Obama and Biden will add to the Maritime Pre-Positioning Force Squadrons to support operations ashore and invest in smaller, more capable ships, providing the agility to operate close to shore and the reach to rapidly deploy Marines to global crises.
**National Missile Defense: An Obama-Biden administration will support missile defense, but ensure that it is developed in a way that is pragmatic and cost-effective; and, most importantly, does not divert resources from other national security priorities until we are positive the technology will protect the American public.
A 21st Century Military for America

Particularly revealing is the section above called "Preserve Global Reach in the Air" which concludes with the assertion that the US needs to invest in multi-billion dollar warplane programs because they "provide the backbone of our ability to extend global power."

The idea that Obama is anti-war is a powerful myth that will impede the peace movement's ability to mobilize opposition to the inevitable continuation of US militarism and imperialism. President Obama may then prove to be more of an obstacle to peace than a true agent of change moving the US economy away from a world in which corporations seek profit through predatory wars. Obama's deceitful image as peacemonger will allow him to get away with policies and actions that would not be countenanced for an instant if they had come from the likes of McCain or Bush. This blindspot for Obama's pro-war agenda will not only hamper the ability of US peace activists to speak out, organize and protest, it will also help to dampen the efforts of many others around the world.

There is a potential silver lining to this situation. As President Obama and his government begin to carry forward their efforts to "extend global power," liberal activists will hopefully begin to concede that Obama is not the peace president they had expected him to be. As the campaign hype and honeymoon fade away, disappointment in Obama's rhetoric and hypocrisy may transform into a realization that the US is in dire need of a strong "third party" to give voice to the aspirations for peace held by so many millions of Americans. Perhaps this disillusionment in the Democratic Party will begin to open up new possibilities for the election of some future US president who really does stand for peace. But don't hold your breath!

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* Under President Obama, the US military budget may well be spending about $2.3 billion a day. The 2008 US military budget is $696 billion. Obama says he will increase military spending and will add 65,000 troops to the Army and 27,000 Marines. Every increase of 1,000 army troops adds about $2 billion per year, while every addition of 1,000 Marines adds $1 billion/year. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,327888,00.html That means Obama's proposal could add $157 billion, bringing the total to $857 billion per year, which means about $2.3 billion per day.
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Resources:
^African People's Solidarity Committee, "Obama Exposed" and "Obama Fact Sheet"
^"Quentin Young, Early Supporter of Obama, Now Disappointed and Saddened," Corporate Crime Reporter, January 28, 2008.
^Shaun Booth, "Barack Obama: A Hawk in Dove’s Clothing," Political Lore, January 18th, 2008.
^Michel Chossudovsky, "The Democrats endorse the 'Global War on Terrorism': Obama 'goes after' Osama," Global Research, August 29, 2008.
^August Cole, "Obama Adviser Doesn't Expect Defense Cuts," Wall Street Journal, October 3, 2008.
^Robert Dreyfuss, "Obama's Evolving Foreign Policy," The Nation, July 1, 2008
^Tom Eley, "Barack Obama and the War In Iraq," World Socialist Web, February 14, 2007.
^Glen Ford, "Obama surrenders on military spending," The Progressive, January 15, 2008.
^Chris Floyd, "The Bagman Cometh: Obama Embraces War Criminal's Endorsement," Empire Burlesque, October 19, 2008.
^Chris Floyd, "Surge Protectors: Obama Embraces Bush-McCain Spin on Iraq," Baltimore Chronicle, September 5, 2008.
^Joshua Frank, "It Could be a Long, Hard Struggle: A Look Under the Hood of an Obama Administration," November 6, 2008.
^Matt Gonzalez, "The Trail of Broken Promises," CounterPunch, October 29, 2008.
^Glenn Greenwald, "The bipartisan consensus on U.S. military spending," Jan. 2, 2008.
^William D. Hartung, "Dems: What about the Military Budget?" Foreign Policy In Focus, February 21, 2008
^Joseph Gerson, "Obama's Foreign & Military Policies: Old Wine in a New Bottle?" Common Dreams, April 23, 2007.
^Margaret Kimberley, "Freedom Rider - Obama's Iraq Fairy Tale," Black Agenda Report, July 9, 2008.
^James Kirchick, "Who has Obama's ear?," Politico, April 15, 2008.
^Tom Mackaman, "Democratic keynote speaker Barack Obama calls for missile strikes on Iran," World Socialist Web, October 1, 2004.
^Pam Martens, "Obama's Money Cartel: How Barack Obama Fronted for the Most Vicious Predators on Wall Street," CounterPunch, May 5, 2008.
^"Sen. Barack Obama Speaks Out on the Iraq War, Race, Hillary Clinton and Pastor Jeremiah Wright," CNN Larry King Live, March 20, 2008.
^The Obama Iraq Documentary: Whatever The Politics Demand, John McCain's team. (This contains dozens of contradictory statements made by Obama regarding various aspects of the Iraq war.)
^Ralph Nader, "Open Letter to Senator Barack Obama," November 3, 2008.
^Johnny Peepers, "Obama’s Pro-War Chief of Staff: Rahm “Rahmbo” Emanuel," Dillsnap cogitations, November 2008.
^St. Pete for Peace, "If you voted for Obama, this is what you voted for," November 2008.
^News release, Greens Warn Antiwar Americans Against Wasting Votes on Pro-War Democrats, US Green Party, July 28, 2008.
^Kevin Zeese, "Is It Time for the Peace Movement to Start Protesting Senator Obama?," Voters for Peace, April 2008.

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Over the past year, John Pilger has written numerous columns critiquing Obama hawkish policies, including:
1)Bringing down the new Berlin Walls
13 Feb 2008 ... One of Barack Obamas chief whisperers is Zbigniew Brzezinski, architect of Operation Cyclone in Afghanistan, which spawned jihadism, ...
2)The danse macabre of US-style democracy
23 Jan 2008 ... Barack Obama is a glossy Uncle Tom who would bomb Pakistan. Hillary Clinton, another bomber, is anti-feminist. ...
3)In the great tradition, Obama is a hawk
12 Jun 2008 ... The foregone nomination of Barack Obama, which, according to one breathless commentator, "marks a truly exciting and historic moment in US...
4)The invisible government
16 Jun 2007 ... Obama writes that while he wants the troops home, We must not rule out military ...
5)Obama, the prince of bait-and-switch
24 Jul 2008 ... Having declared Afghanistan a "good war", the complicit enablers are now anointing Barack Obama as he tours the bloodfests in Afghanistan ...
6)A murderous theatre of the absurd
11 Sep 2008 ... At home, Obama offers no authentic measure that might ease Americas grotesque inequality, such as basic health care. ...
7)The new world war - the silence is a lie
24 Sep 2008 ... The change candidate for president, Barack Obama, had already called for an invasion and more aircraft and bombs. The ironies are searing. ...
8)The diplomacy of lying
23 Oct 2008 ... The beatification of President Barack Obama is already under way; for it is he who challenges America to rise up [and] summon the better ...

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