EIGHT HOURS IN THE BASEMENT FOR PEACE

February 22, 2010
Sam Smith
Last Saturday I spent eight hours with three dozen other people in a
basement conference room of a Washington hotel engaged in an extraordinary
exercise of mind and hope.
The topic was, by itself, depressingly familiar: building an anti-war
coalition. What made it so strikingly different was the nature of those at
the table. They included progressives, conservatives, traditional liberals
 and libertarians. Some reached back to the Reagan years or to 196
activism, some - including an SDS leader from the University of Maryland
and several Young Americans for Liberty - were still in college.
In a time when politics is supposed to be hopelessly polarized along the
lines proposed by Glenn Beck and Keith Olbermann, the most heated debate
occurred not between left and right but over tactics between Ralph Nader
and Bill Greider.
There was an economics professor from a naval war college and the
executive director of Veterans for Peace; there was Katrina vanden Heuvel,
editor of the Nation, me from the Progressive Review, and editors from the
American Conservative and Reason Magazine.
The session had been conceived by long time activist and current head of
Voters for Peace, Kevin Zeese, along with artist George D. O'Neill, Jr.
who had been chair of the Rockford Institute, a leading traditional
conservative intellectual think tank in the 1980s, and who had worked on
Pat Buchanan's 1992 presidential campaign.
What we shared was an antipathy towards war. It was not so much that we
were anti-war as we were seeking a post-war world. Our approaches might
differ but our goals were, at worst, next door.
As Zeese put it in an introduction the session, it was about "views from
the right, left and radical center, views that reflect those of many
Americans which are not represented in the political dialogue in Congress
or the White House, or the mainstream media. Throughout American history
there have been times when movements developed that were outside the
limited political dialogue of the two major parties. . .
"Polling actually shows majorities often oppose war and escalation of war.
But these views are not represented in government or the media. In
addition, opposition to war is not limited to people on the left; it
covers the American political spectrum and it always has. There is a long
history of opposition to war among traditional conservatives. Their
philosophy goes back to President Washington's Farewell Address where he
urged America to avoid 'foreign entanglements.' It has showed itself
throughout American history. The Anti-Imperialist League opposed the
colonialism of the Philippines in the 1890s. The largest anti-war movement
in history, the America First Committee, opposed World War II and had a
strong middle America conservative foundation in its make-up. The
strongest speech of an American president against militarism was President
Eisenhower's 1961 final speech from the White House warning America
against the growing military-industrial complex. In recent years the
militarist neo-conservative movement has become dominate of conservatism
in the United States. Perhaps none decry this more than traditional
conservatives who oppose massive military budgets, militarism and the
American empire.
"Of course, the left also has a long history of opposition to war from the
Civil War to early imperialism in the Philippines, World Wars I and II
through Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan. It includes socialists, Quakers,
social justice Catholics and progressives. Indeed, the opposition to entry
into World War I was led by the left including socialists, trade
unionists, pacifists including people like union leader and presidential
candidate Eugene Debs, Nobel Peace Prize winner Jane Addams and author and
political activist Helen Keller. . .
"Opposition to Vietnam brought together peace advocates with the civil
rights movement, highlighted by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s outspoken
opposition to the war. . . .
"What are the ingredients for a successful anti-war, pro-peace movement?
- The anti-war movement needs to be a reflection of not just the left but
of Middle America and traditional conservatives who oppose war.
- A successful anti-war peace movement cannot give up the flag of
patriotism. It needs to grab hold of America's patriotic impulses and show
the United States can be the nation many imagine us to be-leading by
positive example, helping in crisis, being a force for good, rather than
propagating military dominance and hegemony.
- A successful anti-war movement needs to be a place where veterans, from
grunts to generals, can openly participate, share their stories and
explain the lessons they learned from American militarism.
- A well organized anti-war movement will have committees not only
reaching out to military and business, but to academics, students, clergy,
labor, nurses, doctors, teachers and a host of others.
- The 1960s tactics of big marches and congressional demonstrations have
their role but they are not sufficient. The media and government have
adjusted to them. We need to use tools like voter initiatives and
referenda to break through and put our issues before the voters. And, we
need to learn from around the world what has worked; for example, general
strikes, whether of a few hours or few days, have shown unified opposition
to government policy
- Make war relevant to Americans' day-to-day lives by constantly linking
the cost of war to their communities, incomes, and bank accounts. People
need to learn that Empire is not good for the U.S. economy.
- Both parties are dominated by pro-militarist elected officials. The
anti-war movement needs to be strong in criticizing candidates who call
for a larger military, escalation of war, or other militarist policies."
Clips from the bios of those at the session suggest the unusual
cross-ideological and cross-cultural presence:
- A Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute. He also is the Robert A. Taft
Fellow at the American Conservative Defense Alliance and served as a
Special Assistant to President Ronald Reagan.
- His leading work includes a biography of historian William A. Williams,
the Encyclopedia of the American Left, five volumes on the lives and work
of the Hollywood Blacklistees, . . . and eight volumes of nonfiction comic
art (adaptations of Howard Zinn and Studs Terkel, graphic biographies of
Isadora Duncan and Emma Goldman, The Beats, The Art of Harvey Kurtzman,
etc).
- He has been a regular contributor to Rolling Stone, and currently covers
national security for its National Affairs section. He is a contributing
editor at The Nation, a contributing writer at Mother Jones, and a senior
correspondent for The American Prospect.
- An associate professor of economics at the Naval Postgraduate School in
Monterey, California and a Research Fellow with the Hoover Institution at
Stanford University. From 1982 to 1984, he was the senior economist for
health policy, and from 1983 to 1984 he was the senior economist for
energy policy, with President Reagan's Council of Economic Advisers.
- Founding member of the Washington chapter of the National Association of
Black Journalists; executive board member of the National Alliance of
Third World Journalists. . .
- Founding Managing Editor and current Executive Editor of The American
Conservative. Research director of Pat Buchanan's 2000 campaign.
- Executive Director of Veterans For Peace. His volunteer social and
economic justice activist work include membership in Military Families
Speak Out, coordinating committee member for the Bring Them Home Now
campaign against the U.S. occupation of Iraq and Co-Chair of United For
Peace and Justice.
- Legislative aide for the armed services for Senator Robert Taft, Jr., of
Ohio from 1973 through 1976 and held a similar position with Senator Gary
Hart of Colorado from 1977 through 1986. An opponent of the Iraq War, has
written for the Marine Corps Gazette, and Defense and the National
Interest. . .
- For over four decades has exposed problems and organized millions of
citizens into more than 100 public interest groups to advocate for
solutions. . .
- Active within the Democratic, Republican, and Green parties at various
times. As a boy, he supported George McGovern for president in 1972 partly
because of the Democrat's anti-war stance. In the mid 1970s, he became a
conservative who backed Ronald . . .
- Managing editor of Reason magazine, is the author of Rebels on the Air:
An Alternative History of Radio in America.
Notably absent from the session were members of the extremist center,
liberal professors seeking to prove their manhood by backing yet another
war, legislators afraid to challenge the Pentagon, belligerent bullies and
the cowardly complacent. And everyone in the room was trying something
different.
Which, when you come to think of it, is just what happens when you make
peace. People who have been shooting at each other sit down and find a way
to share some space. One might expect that anti-war activists would
understand this, but too often we all regard our political beliefs not as
the product of imperfect and struggling minds but as our sacred identity,
our justification and our privileged demographic. We reduce politics to
the theology of the self-righteous rather than as an imperfect search for
better times.
As I sat around that table, I tried to recall those few occasions when I
had experienced something close to this - few, that is, since the days
when I sat around the family table as the third child of six and learned
about living with those different from oneself and more than willing to
say so.
Some of the later times worked; some didn’t. One that worked was the
anti-freeway coalition of the 1960s and 70s that kept Washington from
becoming another Los Angeles. It was started by among the least likely
activists - black and white middle class homeowners whose neighborhood was
about to be ruined. It expanded to include those of us in the civil rights
group SNCC as well as the all white Georgetown Citizens Association. I
once wrote of the leader, "By all rights, Sammie Abbott should have been
disqualified as a DC leader on at least three grounds: he was too white,
he was too old, and he lived in the suburbs. Instead, this short man with
a nail-file voice became the nemesis of public officials for years.
Abbott, the grandson of Arab Christians who fled Turkish persecution in
Syria, had been a labor organizer, a bricklayer and a World War II veteran
with a Bronze Star."
There was only one qualification to join the anti-freeway movement:
opposition to freeways. And the success of our effort - rare among such
highway protests - left a mark on a city colony devoid of rights and helps
to explain how - just two years after the riots - we were able to form a
biracial third party that would hold seats on the city council and/or
school board for 25 years.
I would come to think of it as existential politics - in which one defined
one's existence by one's actions rather than by one's ethnicity, class,
party registration or magazine subscriptions. And it was a sort of
politics that would become increasingly rare.
But it didn't always work. In the mid sixties, I was editing a
neighborhood newspaper in Washington's biracial Capitol East. Things were
already well beyond the capacity of any one community to solve. America's
cities were starting to burn and you could feel the heat even in Capitol
East. In September 1967, anti-poverty activist Lola Singletary convinced
the white businessmen of H Street to form a organization dedicated to
involvement in community problems.
In late 1967 I came up with the idea of pulling together the various
leaders of Capitol East into an informal leadership council with the
possibility of forming a major neighborhood coalition. Fourteen people
attended a meeting on January 31: 7 white and 7 black. Among our purposes:
- To share our group differences so we can increase our knowledge of one
another's group positions, plans and needs.
- To increase opportunities to share our group concerns so that we can
better support one another's group efforts.
- To unite in common action where we have agreement.
It was too late. A little more than two months later, the riots broke out
and Capitol East had two of the four major riot strips, including H
Street. Hope had burned up as well.
then in 1995, as part of the Green Politics Network, I joined a number of
other Greens in hosting a conference of third party activists. Over a
hundred showed up, ranging from one of the founders of the American Labor
Party to Greens, Libertarians, Perot backers, Democratic Socialists of
America, and followers of Lenora Fulani. It was a recklessly dangerous
idea for a Washington weekend, but John Rensenbrink, Linda Martin, and
Tony Affigne seemed to know what they were doing and I was happy to go
along. We established two basic rules:
- We would only discuss issues on which we might find some agreement.
- We would reach that agreement by consensus.
I was one of the kickoff speakers and said:
"As a simple empirical matter you can say that one of the great
characteristics of Americans is not merely opposition to a system of the
moment but antipathy towards unnatural systems in general -- opposition to
all systems that revoke, replace or restrain the natural rights of humans
and the natural blessings of their habitats.
"This, I think, is why we are here today. If nothing else binds us it is
an understanding of the damage that heartless, leaderless, mindless
systems have done to the specifics of our existence. . .
"Further, in our distaste with the systems suffocating our lives, we are
very much in the mainstream. These systems have done half our work for us,
they have lost the people's faith. . .
"We must stake out a position with real programs for real people, with our
enthusiasm on our sleeve and our ideology in our pocket, with small words
and big hearts, and -- most of all -- with a clear vision of what a better
future might look like. We must tackle what Chesterton called the "huge
modern heresy of altering the human soul to fit its conditions, instead of
altering human conditions to fit the human soul.". . .
"This then is our task. Let's embrace it not as sectarians or as prigs but
as a happy fellow members of a new mainstream. Not as radicals permanently
in exile but as moderates of an age that has not quite arrived. Let's
laugh and make new friends and be gentle with one another. Let's remember
Camus' dictum that the only sin we are not permitted is despair. . ."
Despite the wide range of views present, despite the near total absence of
Robert's Rules of Order, the final document, with full consensus, called
for nothing less than a major transformation. The group unanimously agreed
to support proportional representation, campaign finance reform "to
provide a level playing field in elections;" initiative, referendum and
recall; better ballot access; the end of corporate welfare; strong
environmental policies; sexual and reproductive freedom; an end to the war
on drugs and treatment of addiction as a health matter rather than as a
crime; a dramatic cut in military expenditures; workplace democracy and
the maximum empowerment of people in their communities "consistent with
fairness, social responsibilities and human rights."
Not bad for a meeting at which nobody yelled at anyone.
Interesting stories but how rare.
Now Kevin Zeese and George O'Neill have to try to build on the spirit in
that basement last Saturday and turn it into something that all can see.
Perhaps it will be a catalyst as was, say, the Seneca Falls conference was
for women's rights. Perhaps it will be nothing but another nice try that
didn't work out.
We may never know. After all, only two women who attended Seneca Falls
conference lived long enough to vote.
We do know, however, that good futures are built on the efforts of those
unafraid of failure. At a time when a majority of Americans consider their
system broken, we can either consign ourselves to being victims or we can,
as we did last Saturday, come together in new ways, with new ideas and new
allies and start replacing a failed system with communities that work.
--
Using Opera's revolutionary e-mail client: http://www.opera.com/mail/

Obama's Expanding War On Terra

By Pete Stanislaw, Get Off This!


A new front is revealed in our Nobel Peace Laureate President's war for the last few resources left on Terra. That front is Yemen, with cruise missile attacks ordered by the commander-in-chief against alleged "al-Qaeda" targets for the purpose - we are repeatedly told - of fighting the threat of terrorism. The last cowardly lobbing of incredibly powerful ordnance across the Yemeni border killed a large group of high school-age boys. This brings the total of largely Muslim nations that our government's military is either occupying or bombing the shit out of from a safe distance to five - Iraq, Somalia, Afghanistan, Pakistan and now Yemen, the last two added since the new administration took office on a surge of pro-peace votes.


Since Yemen has been acknowledged to be a "covert" front in the alleged war on terror (until now), there may be others our government doesn't think we should know about. At this point, our docility in the face of utter lies and proclaimed absurdities is comic in the extreme. Whoever still believes that these violent interventions have anything at all to do with fighting terrorism is suffering from willful blindness.


In the last eight years, our government's military has done more to expand the cause(s) of terrorism on the planet than any nation accused (by our government) of "harboring" or "sponsoring" terrorists. The story for the mediated masses has always been that we have to "get in there and smoke 'em out", which makes for entertaining movies but lousy international relations, especially since it only takes 3 minutes of rational thought to realize that terrorism and terrorists are red herrings. How in hell does killing civilians in poor Muslim nations fight against angry extremists? Wouldn't such actions produce more angry extremists? Yes they would and indeed they do!


The object has never changed. Control over the resources which are absolutely necessary to sustain our wasteful and largely ignorant lifestyles remains the rationale for mass murder of those who happen to occupy the earth above said resources. The continued war and occupation in Afghanistan by the US forces as well as the puppet government we have entrenched there has much more to do with the completion and the securing of two oil and natural gas pipelines from the Caspian Sea across Afghanistan from existing Turkmenistan fields. They would continue through Pakistan to shipping ports in the south. Unfortunately, they will have to pass through areas controlled by the theocratic Taliban, who are actively maneuvering for position in whatever government should result in the aftermath of the violence. These fighters for their perceived birthright are known in the US mass media as "insurgents". One would do well to realize that they were here before our government's military was. This is their nation, when imperial powers aren't occupying it. But I digress.


My point is this: As Alexander Cockburn said in Counterpunch two months ago, President Obama's receiving the Nobel Peace Prize should come as acknowledgement that absurdity is part and parcel of the human condition. That he can order cruise missiles to be launched over sovereign borders the world over and still be regarded by the Nobel Committee as deserving of a Peace Prize is patently absurd.


Remember, Henry Kissinger has one too...

Iran War Dance

From MediaLens:

...A rare voice of sanity in the Guardian, Scott Ritter, former chief UN weapons inspector in Iraq, put the latest revelations in context, noting that: “when Obama announced that ‘Iran is breaking rules that all nations must follow’, he is technically and legally wrong”. Ritter explained:

“The Qom plant, if current descriptions are accurate, cannot manufacture the basic feed-stock (uranium hexaflouride, or UF6) used in the centrifuge-based enrichment process. It is simply another plant in which the UF6 can be enriched.

"Why is this distinction important? Because the IAEA has underscored, again and again, that it has a full accounting of Iran's nuclear material stockpile. There has been no diversion of nuclear material to the Qom plant (since it is under construction). The existence of the alleged enrichment plant at Qom in no way changes the nuclear material balance inside Iran today.

“Simply put, Iran is no closer to producing a hypothetical nuclear weapon today than it was prior to Obama's announcement concerning the Qom facility.” (http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2009/sep/25/iran-secret-nuclear-plant-inspections)

Even if the claims of Iranian military intent are true, Ritter added, “this interpretation would still require the diversion of significant nuclear material away from the oversight of IAEA inspectors, something that would be almost immediately evident. Any meaningful diversion of nuclear material would be an immediate cause for alarm, and would trigger robust international reaction, most probably inclusive of military action against the totality of Iran's known nuclear infrastructure".

Instead, it is “more likely, an attempt on the part of Iran to provide for strategic depth and survivability of its nuclear programme in the face of repeated threats on the part of the US and Israel to bomb its nuclear infrastructure".

Read Full Alert

The Rest of Paul Harvey's Story

Paul Harvey is an American icon. I must admit that my introduction into the world of journalism and radio news media in particular was shepherded by Harvey, since I began to listen to KGO in 1979 while slaving away at Shugart Associates, building floppy-disc drives. I did find his voice and his little homilies quite comforting - until I started to listen closely. Over the two-year period that I worked there and listened to Paul Harvey's broadcast every day, I began to realize that he was extremely conservative and possibly fascist. I became very critical of every show, including his shameless shilling for whoever was paying him the most to advertise their product, and came to realize that I really didn't like his ideology at all. I will still thank him for the beginnings of my political education, however. This post from FAIR lays out Mr. Harvey's world-view quite succinctly.--Pete

by Jim Naureckas, FAIR

On the death of radio's Paul Harvey, it's hard for me not to think of his June 23, 2005 broadcast as his most revealing moment.

That's the episode where he delivered this memorable rant (Extra! Update, 8/05):

After the attack on Pearl Harbor, Winston Churchill said that the American people…he said, the American people, he said, and this is a direct quote, "We didn’t come this far because we are made of sugar candy."

And that reminder was taken seriously. And we proceeded to develop and deliver the bomb, even though roughly 150,000 men, women and children perished in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. With a single blow, World War II was over.

Following New York, September 11, Winston Churchill was not here to remind us that we didn’t come this far because we’re made of sugar candy.

So, following the New York disaster, we mustered our humanity...and we sent men with rifles into Afghanistan and Iraq, and we kept our best weapons in our silos.

Even now we're standing there dying, daring to do nothing decisive, because we’ve declared ourselves to be better than our terrorist enemies--more moral, more civilized.

Our image is at stake, we insist.

But we didn’t come this far because we’re made of sugar candy.

Once upon a time, we elbowed our way onto and across this continent by giving smallpox-infected blankets to Native Americans. That was biological warfare. And we used every other weapon we could get our hands on to grab this land from whomever.

And we grew prosperous. And yes, we greased the skids with the sweat of slaves.

So it goes with most great nation-states, which--feeling guilty about their savage pasts--eventually civilize themselves out of business and wind up invaded and ultimately dominated by the lean, hungry up-and-coming who are not made of sugar candy.

To Harvey, in other words, failing to use nuclear and biological weapons because we feel guilty about genocide and slavery means that we're "made of sugar candy." And this will mean the end of U.S. civilization.

It's hard to know how to respond to that worldview, or to the fact that the person who promulgated it was one of the most popular and longest-running personalities, other than to note that he was taking Churchill out of context. Churchill followed up his observation--which was made about the "peoples of the British empire," not about Americans--with the vow that "we shall never descend to the German and Japanese level," meaning the Nazis and the World War II-era Japanese Empire. Harvey seemed genuinely worried that we wouldn't descend to that level soon enough.

See also Extra!: "The Right of the Story: Harvey Peddles Tall Tales--With a Conservative Kick" (9-10/97) by Dan Wilson.

Obama Doesn't Plan to End the Occupation in Iraq

By Jeremy Scahill, AlterNet

Alternet article

The New York Times is reporting an "apparent evolution" in president-elect Barack Obama's thinking on Iraq, citing recent statements about his plan to keep a "residual force" in the country and his pledge to "listen to the recommendations of my commanders" as Obama prepares to assume actual command of U.S. forces. "At the Pentagon and the military headquarters in Iraq, the response to the statements this week from Mr. Obama and his national security team has been akin to the senior officer corps' letting out its collective breath," the Times reported. "[T]the words sounded to them like the new president would take a measured approach on the question of troop levels."

The reality is there is no "evolution."

Anyone who took the time to cut past Barack Obama's campaign rhetoric of "change" and bringing an "end" to the Iraq war realized early on that his Iraq plan boiled down to a down-sizing and rebranding of the occupation. While he emphasized his pledge to withdraw U.S. "combat forces" from Iraq in 16 months (which may or may not happen), he has always said that he intends to keep "residual forces" in place for the foreseeable future.

It's an interesting choice of terms. "Residual" is defined as "the quantity left over at the end of a process." This means that the forces Obama plans to leave in Iraq will remain after he has completed his "withdrawal" plan. No matter how Obama chooses to label the forces he keeps in Iraq, the fact is, they will be occupation forces.

Announcing his national security team this week, Obama reasserted his position. "I said that I would remove our combat troops from Iraq in 16 months, with the understanding that it might be necessary -- likely to be necessary -- to maintain a residual force to provide potential training, logistical support, to protect our civilians in Iraq." While some have protrayed this as Obama going back on his campaign pledge, it is not. What is new is that some people seem to just now be waking up to the fact that Obama never had a comprehensive plan to fully end the occupation. Most recently, the Times:

"On the campaign trail, Senator Barack Obama offered a pledge that electrified and motivated his liberal base, vowing to 'end the war' in Iraq," wrote reporter Thom Shanker on Thursday. "But as he moves closer to the White House, President-elect Obama is making clearer than ever that tens of thousands of American troops will be left behind in Iraq, even if he can make good on his campaign promise to pull all combat forces out within 16 months."

For many months it's been abundantly clear that Obama's Iraq plan is at odds with his campaign rhetoric. Yet, Shanker writes, "to date, there has been no significant criticism from the antiwar left of the Democratic Party of the prospect that Mr. Obama will keep tens of thousands of troops in Iraq for at least several years to come." The Times is actually right about this, in a literal sense. There has seldom, if ever, been a public peep about Obama's residual force plans for Iraq from members of his own party, including from those who describe themselves as "anti-war."

But, for those who have scrutinized Obama's plans and the statements of his advisors from the beginning, this is old news. Obama never defined "ending the war" as removing all U.S. forces from Iraq. Besides the counsel of his closest advisors -- many of whom are pro-war hawks -- Obama's Iraq plan is based on two primary sources: the recommendations of the Baker-Hamilton "Iraq Study Group" and the 2007 Iraq supplemental spending bill, which, at the time was portrayed as the Democrats' withdrawal plan. Both envisioned a sustained presence of U.S. forces for an undefined period following a "withdrawal."

In supporting the 2007 supplemental, Obama said it would put the U.S. "one signature away from ending the Iraq War." The bill would have redeployed U.S. forces from Iraq within 180 days. But that legislation, vetoed by President Bush, would also have provided for 20,000 to 60,000 troops to remain in Iraq as "trainers," "counter-terrorist forces," or for "protection for embassy/diplomats," according to an analysis by the Institute for Policy Studies. The bill contained no language about how many "private contractors" could remain in Iraq. This helped shed light on what Obama actually meant by "ending the Iraq War."

Other glaring clues to the actual nature of Obama's Iraq plan to anyone paying attention could be found in the public comments of his advisors, particularly on the size of the force Obama may leave in Iraq after his withdrawal is complete. Obama has refused to talk numbers, saying in October, "I have tried not to put a number on it." That has been the position of many of his loyal aides. "We have not put a number on that. It depends on the circumstances on the ground," said Susan Rice, Obama's nominee for UN ambassador, during the campaign. "It would be worse than folly, it would be dangerous, to put a hard number on the residual forces."

But, Richard Danzig, President Clinton's former Navy Secretary who may soon follow Robert Gates as Obama's Defense Secretary, said during the campaign that the "residual force" could number as many as 55,000 troops. That doesn't include Blackwater and other mercenaries and private forces, which the Obama camp has declared the president-elect "can't rule out [and] won't rule out" using. At present there are more "contractors" in Iraq than soldiers, which is all the more ominous when considering Obama's Iraq plan.

In April, it was revealed that the coordinator of Obama's Iraq working group, Colin Kahl, had authored a paper, titled "Stay on Success: A Policy of Conditional Engagement," which recommended, "the U.S. should aim to transition to a sustainable over-watch posture (of perhaps 60,000-80,000 forces) by the end of 2010 (although the specific timelines should be the byproduct of negotiations and conditions on the ground)." Kahl tried to distance the views expressed in the paper from Obama's official campaign position, but they were and are consistent.

In March, Obama advisor Samantha Power let the cat out of the bag for some people when she described her candidate's 16-month timetable for withdrawing U.S. "combat" forces as a "best case scenario." Power said, "He will, of course, not rely on some plan that he's crafted as a presidential candidate or a U.S. Senator." (After that remark and referring to Sen. Hillary Clinton as a "monster," Power resigned from the campaign. Now that Obama is president-elect, Power's name has once again resurfaced as a member of his transitional team.)

The New York Times also raised the prospect that Obama could play semantics when defining his 16-month withdrawal plan, observing, "Pentagon planners say that it is possible that Mr. Obama's goal could be accomplished at least in part by relabeling some units, so that those currently counted as combat troops could be 're-missioned,' their efforts redefined as training and support for the Iraqis."

Compare all of the above with a statement Obama made in July: "I intend to end this war. My first day in office I will bring the Joint Chiefs of Staff in, and I will give them a new mission, and that is to end this war -- responsibly, deliberately, but decisively."

Some may now accuse Obama of flip-flopping. The reality is that we need to understand what the words "end" "war" "residual" and "decisively" mean when we hear Obama say them.

Jeremy Scahill is the author of Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army and is a frequent contributor to The Nation and Democracy Now! He is a Puffin Foundation Writing Fellow at the Nation Institute.

The Mythology of the War on Terrorism

By WILLIAM BLUM

On November 8, three men were executed by the government of Indonesia for terrorist attacks on two night clubs in Bali in 2002 that took the lives of 202 people, more than half of whom were Australians, Britons and Americans. The Associated Press8 reported that "the three men never expressed remorse, saying the suicide bombings were meant to punish the United States and its Western allies for alleged atrocities in Afghanistan and elsewhere."

During the recent US election campaign, John McCain and his followers repeated a sentiment that has become a commonplace – that the War on Terrorism has been a success because there hasn't been a terrorist attack against the United States since September 11, 2001; as if terrorists killing Americans is acceptable if it's done abroad. Since the first American strike on Afghanistan in October 2001 there have been literally scores of terrorist attacks against American institutions in the Middle East, South Asia and the Pacific, more than a dozen in Pakistan alone: military, civilian, Christian, and other targets associated with the United States. The year following the Bali bombings saw the heavy bombing of the US-managed Marriott Hotel in Jakarta, Indonesia, the site of diplomatic receptions and 4th of July celebrations held by the American Embassy.

The Marriott Hotel in Pakistan was the scene of a major terrorist bombing just two months ago. All of these attacks have been in addition to the thousands in Iraq and Afghanistan against US occupation, which Washington officially labels an integral part of the War on Terrorism. Yet American lovers of military force insist that the War on Terrorism has kept the United States safe.

Even the claim that the War on Terrorism has kept Americans safe at home is questionable. There was no terrorist attack in the United States during the 6 1/2 years prior to the one in September 2001; not since the April 1995 bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City. It would thus appear that the absence of terrorist attacks in the United States is the norm.

An even more insidious myth of the War on Terrorism has been the notion that terrorist acts against the United States can be explained, largely, if not entirely, by irrational hatred or envy of American social, economic, or religious values, and not by what the United States does to the world; i.e., US foreign policy. Many Americans are mightily reluctant to abandon this idea. Without it the whole paradigm – that we are the innocent good guys and they are the crazy, fanatic, bloodthirsty bastards who cannot be talked to but only bombed, tortured and killed – falls apart. Statements like the one above from the Bali bombers blaming American policies for their actions are numerous, coming routinely from Osama bin Laden and those under him.

Terrorism is an act of political propaganda, a bloody form of making the world hear one's outrage against a perceived oppressor, graffiti written on the wall in some grim, desolate alley. It follows that if the perpetrators of a terrorist act declare what their motivation was, their statement should carry credibility, no matter what one thinks of their cause or the method used to achieve it.

William Blum is the author of Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II, Rogue State: a guide to the World's Only Super Power. and West-Bloc Dissident: a Cold War Political Memoir.

He can be reached at: BBlum6@aol.com

Three reasons for Bush's shift on Iran

http://www.antiwar.com/bock/?articleid=13167

As far as I'm concerned, the third option is the only realistic one. It immediately came to mind when I heard that we were sending a high-ranking state department official to Geneva for talks with Iran's nuclear envoy. The other options don't add up with this administration, which has demonstrated complete indifference to diplomacy and an utter lack of forethought where it's agenda is concerned.--Pete

Alan Bock, Antiwar There seem to be two possibilities, according to several experts and sources I talked to last week, to explain the fact that the United States decided to have Undersecretary of State William Burns, the third-ranking person in the State Department, sit in the same room with Iranian nuclear envoy Saeed Jalili and high-ranking diplomats from five other countries in Geneva on Saturday. Well, maybe there's a third possibility.

The first, of course, is that the Bush administration is in the beginning stages of a relatively dramatic turnaround in its approach to Iran. As Ted Carpenter, vice president for foreign policy and defense studies at the libertarian Cato Institute, told me, "Perhaps they understand that a military option is simply not realistic, or too unpredictable, and as with North Korea, have been dragged into diplomacy.". . .

Marina Ottaway, who heads Middle East studies at the generally realist/liberal Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told me the Bush administration has to be aware that it is increasingly isolated in foreign policy, especially in the Gulf region. At the UN, Russia and China effectively prevent the most severe of sanctions being imposed multilaterally. And the Gulf countries, which fear they would be among the first victims of Iranian retaliation in the event of military action, are not following where the U.S. in its more hard-line mood wants to lead, so the U.S. is not leading anything or anyone. . .

There's another way to interpret the administration's move, however. It could be that a decision has been made to take some kind of military action against Iran – or to facilitate an Israeli action to ensure that it does enough damage to matter – before the administration leaves office. Under this possibility, even the Cheney-neocon cabal understands that it would be better, before a military strike is undertaken, to be able to say that we tried the diplomatic option, we talked, we met, we discussed, but the other side was just too intransigent, too unyielding, too unreasonable, and ultimately too potentially dangerous to leave us any choice but to strike them militarily.

As Ted Carpenter put it to me, "the hawks might want to be able to say they gave Iran one last chance, and made it clear to Iran during the talks that it was their last chance to stop doing provocative nuclear stuff," (however much the Iranians claim it's for electricity, not bombs). He suggested to me that one signal that option two was the real plan might be if Defense Secretary Robert Gates or Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Michael Mullen resigns, as their public statements have suggested that they are both quite opposed to military action against Iran, at least in the near future.

The wild card in all this, of course, is Israel. . . It would be difficult for Israel to carry out a minimally effective strike (one that does enough damage to Iran's bomb-making capacity to at least delay its ability to build deliverable nuclear weapons) without close cooperation from the United State – refueling over Iraqi airspace, needing rescue helicopters based in Iraq, etc. There's a possibility that this slight diplomatic opening to Iran has been accompanied by a stern word to the Israelis to keep their warplanes sheathed. But there's also the possibility that Israel could find ways to deliver damaging-to-devastating strikes without open U.S. cooperation.

The third possibility is that the administration hasn't decided yet what to do, but has decided that this gambit gives it the most options. If negotiations suggest that the Iranians are not eager to see military action and are willing to make some concessions on nuclear enrichment (maybe getting some supplies suitable for civilian use from a third party under strictly monitored conditions?), then the diplomatic option would go forward. If the Iranians in private negotiations – the kind that don't have to be followed up by a press conference where both sides mouth milky platitudes – sound more like the provocative Ahmadinejad than the more practical mullahs, the military option could still be exercised, perhaps after the November U.S. elections. Early reports from the Saturday meetings suggest that the Iranians were not inclined to yield much at this stage. An apparent two-week deadline for the Iranians to show some flexibility leaves this option quite open; things could go either way.

That third option might well turn out to be the most likely, which would be reason to keep the champagne on ice for a while and not pop the corks just yet.

United States of Insecurity

May, 24 2008

By Noam Chomsky
and Gabriel Matthew Schivone

Source: Monthly Review

Noam Chomsky's ZSpace Page

Based on an interview with Noam Chomsky conducted by Gabriel Matthew Schivone via telephone and e-mail at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, November 27, 2007 through February 11, 2008. Parts of the text have been expanded by the author.

A State of Insecurity in the Post-9/11 World

GMS: In a recent interview, Abdel Bari Atwan, author and editor of the London-based Arabic daily newspaper Al-Quds Al Arabi, said that President Bush is not ending terrorism nor is he weakening it, as is one of his strongest assertions in his so-called "War on Terror", but that now Al-Qa'ida has powerfully developed into more of an ideology than an organization, as Atwan describes, expanding like Kentucky Fried Chicken, opening franchises all over the world. "That's the problem," he says. "The Americans are no safer. Their country is a fortress now, the United States of Security." Is this accurate?

CHOMSKY: Except for the last sentence, it's accurate. There's good reason to think that the United States is very vulnerable to terrorist attacks. That's not my opinion, that's the opinion of US intelligence, of specialists of nuclear terror like Harvard professor Graham Allison, and former Defense Secretary Robert McNamara and others, who have warned that the probability of even a nuclear attack in the United States is not trivial. So, it's not a fortress.

One of the things that Bush hasn't been doing is improving security. So, for example, if you look at the government commission after 9-11, one of its recommendations—which is a natural one—is to improve security of the US-Canadian border. I mean, if you look at that border, it's very porous. You or I could walk across it somewhere with a suitcase holding components of a nuclear bomb. The Bush administration did not follow that recommendation. What it did instead was fortify the Mexican border, which was not regarded as a serious source of potential terrorism. They in fact slowed the rate of growth of border guards on the Canadian Border.

But quite apart from that, the major part of Atwan's comment is quite correct. Bush Administration programs have not been designed to reduce terror. In fact, they've been designed in a way—as was anticipated by intelligence analysts and others—to increase terror.

Read More

Bush Authorizes New Covert Action Against Iran

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/052307J.shtml

By Brian Ross and Richard Esposito
ABC News

Tuesday 22 May 2007

The CIA has received secret presidential approval to mount a covert "black" operation to destabilize the Iranian government, current and former officials in the intelligence community tell the Blotter on ABCNews.com.

The sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the subject, say President Bush has signed a "nonlethal presidential finding" that puts into motion a CIA plan that reportedly includes a coordinated campaign of propaganda, disinformation and manipulation of Iran's currency and international financial transactions.

"I can't confirm or deny whether such a program exists or whether the president signed it, but it would be consistent with an overall American approach trying to find ways to put pressure on the regime," said Bruce Riedel, a recently retired CIA senior official who dealt with Iran and other countries in the region.

A National Security Council spokesperson, Gordon Johndroe, said, "The White House does not comment on intelligence matters." A CIA spokesperson said, "As a matter of course, we do not comment on allegations of covert activity."

The sources say the CIA developed the covert plan over the last year and received approval from White House officials and other officials in the intelligence community.

Officials say the covert plan is designed to pressure Iran to stop its nuclear enrichment program and end aid to insurgents in Iraq.

"There are some channels where the United States government may want to do things without its hand showing, and legally, therefore, the administration would, if it's doing that, need an intelligence finding and would need to tell the Congress," said ABC News consultant Richard Clarke, a former White House counterterrorism official.

Current and former intelligence officials say the approval of the covert action means the Bush administration, for the time being, has decided not to pursue a military option against Iran.

"Vice President Cheney helped to lead the side favoring a military strike," said former CIA official Riedel, "but I think they have come to the conclusion that a military strike has more downsides than upsides."

The covert action plan comes as U.S. officials have confirmed Iran had dramatically increased its ability to produce nuclear weapons material, at a pace that experts said would give them the ability to build a nuclear bomb in two years.

Riedel says economic pressure on Iran may be the most effective tool available to the CIA, particularly in going after secret accounts used to fund the nuclear program.

"The kind of dealings that the Iranian Revolution Guards are going to do, in terms of purchasing nuclear and missile components, are likely to be extremely secret, and you're going to have to work very, very hard to find them, and that's exactly the kind of thing the CIA's nonproliferation center and others would be expert at trying to look into," Riedel said.

Under the law, the CIA needs an official presidential finding to carry out such covert actions. The CIA is permitted to mount covert "collection" operations without a presidential finding.

"Presidential findings" are kept secret but reported to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and other key congressional leaders.

The "nonlethal" aspect of the presidential finding means CIA officers may not use deadly force in carrying out the secret operations against Iran.

Still, some fear that even a nonlethal covert CIA program carries great risks.

"I think everybody in the region knows that there is a proxy war already afoot with the United States supporting anti-Iranian elements in the region as well as opposition groups within Iran," said Vali Nasr, adjunct senior fellow for Mideast studies at the Council on Foreign Relations.

"And this covert action is now being escalated by the new U.S. directive, and that can very quickly lead to Iranian retaliation and a cycle of escalation can follow," Nasr said.

Other "lethal" findings have authorized CIA covert actions against al Qaeda, terrorism and nuclear proliferation.

Also briefed on the CIA proposal, according to intelligence sources, were National Security Advisor Steve Hadley and Deputy National Security Advisor Elliott Abrams.

"The entire plan has been blessed by Abrams, in particular," said one intelligence source familiar with the plan. "And Hadley had to put his chop on it."

Abrams' last involvement with attempting to destabilize a foreign government led to criminal charges.

He pleaded guilty in October 1991 to two misdemeanor counts of withholding information from Congress about the Reagan administration's ill-fated efforts to destabilize the Nicaraguan Sandinista government in Central America, known as the Iran-Contra affair. Abrams was later pardoned by President George H. W. Bush in December 1992.

In June 2001, Abrams was named by then National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice to head the National Security Council's office for democracy, human rights and international operations. On Feb. 2, 2005, National Security Advisor Hadley appointed Abrams deputy assistant to the president and deputy national security advisor for global democracy strategy, one of the nation's most senior national security positions.

As earlier reported on the Blotter on ABCNews.com, the United States has supported and encouraged an Iranian militant group, Jundullah, that has conducted deadly raids inside Iran from bases on the rugged Iran-Pakistan-Afghanistan "tri-border region."

U.S. officials deny any "direct funding" of Jundullah groups but say the leader of Jundullah was in regular contact with U.S. officials.

American intelligence sources say Jundullah has received money and weapons through the Afghanistan and Pakistan military and Pakistan's intelligence service. Pakistan has officially denied any connection.

A report broadcast on Iranian TV last Sunday said Iranian authorities had captured 10 men crossing the border with $500,000 in cash along with "maps of sensitive areas" and "modern spy equipment."

A senior Pakistani official told ABCNews.com the 10 men were members of Jundullah.

The leader of the Jundullah group, according to the Pakistani official, has been recruiting and training "hundreds of men" for "unspecified missions" across the border in Iran.

Click Here to See Photos of the Players in Another Iran Operation - the Iran-Contra Affair: Where Are They Now?