A Culture of Violence

A Culture of Violence - by Stephen Lendman

What do you call a country that glorifies wars and violence in the name of peace. One that's been at war every year in its history against one or more adversaries. It has the highest homicide rate of all western nations and a passion for owning guns, yet the two seem oddly unconnected. Violent films are some of its most popular, and similar video games crowd out the simpler, more innocent street play of generations earlier. Prescription and illicit drug use is out of control as well when tobacco, alcohol and other legal ones are included.

It get's worse. It's society is called a "rape culture" with data showing:

-- one-fourth of its adult women victims of forcible rape sometime in their lives, often by someone they know, including family members;

-- one-third of them are victims of sexual abuse by a husband or boyfriend;

-- 30% of people in the country say they know a woman who's been physically abused by her husband or boyfriend in the past year;

-- one in four of its women report being sexually molested in childhood, usually repeatedly over extended periods by a family member or other close relative;

-- its women overall experience extreme levels of violence; an astonishing 75% of them are victims of some form of it in their lifetimes;

--domestic violence is their leading cause of injury and second leading cause of death;

-- statistically, homes are their most dangerous place if men are in them as millions experience battering by husbands, male partners or fathers;

-- for most women with children, there's no escape for lack of means and because male assailants pursue them causing greater harm;

-- adding further injury, its society is often unsupportive; it affords women second class status, privileges and redress when they're abused so many suffer in silence fearing coming forward may cause more harm than help;

-- its children are abused as well; millions suffer serious neglect, physical mistreatment and/or sexual abuse; many get relief only through escape to dangerous streets; they end up alone, more vulnerable and at greater danger away than at home where there, too, families act more like strangers or predators forcing young kids to flee in the first place.

What country is it where things like these are normal and commonplace; where peace, tranquility and safety are illusions; where they're crowded out by foreign wars and violence at home in communities, neighborhoods, schools, throughout the media and in core families.
What kind of country glorifies mass killing, assaults and abuse; one that looks down on pacifist non-violence as sissy or unpatriotic, yet claims to be peace loving. It's not in the third world, under dictatorship or controlled by religious extremists. It's the "land of the free and home of the brave, America the Beautiful" where human rights, civil liberties, common dignity and personal safety are more illusion than fact. More on this below.

War As "the Ultimate Economic Shock Therapy"

Mahdi Nazemroaya writes in his August 29 "War and the 'New World Order' " article on Global Research.ca that war is "the ultimate (and most effective) economic shock therapy (that can) change societies and reshape nations," and that America today is embarked on achieving a long-standing vision for "global ascendancy" and supremacy. For the Trilateral Commission of "powerful" US, EU and Japanese "elites," its operative 1973 founding goal was a "New International Economic Order." For George HW Bush it became the "New World Order," and for GW Bush a permanent state of war for global hegemony.

Nazemroaya writes America's "foreign policy is based on economic interests" with military might used to enforce them. He states various US administrations have pursued "An (unbroken) agenda of perpetual warfare and violence (for) global domination through economic means." George Bush's current "war on terrorism" in the Middle East and Central Asia are just "stepping stones" toward that "global order" unipolar Pax Americana vision under which no nation is exempt.

It's nearly always been this way in a nation addicted to war and a culture of violence that's as commonplace at home as in foreign conflicts. It's in our DNA, our schools and reinforced through the media with seductive symbols and slogans glorifying wars for peace, their warriors, and righteousness of waging them. They're packaged as liberating ones, promoting democracy, and spreading the benefits of western civilization.

We're taught our essential goodness and what Edward Herman calls our status as an "indispensable state" that lets us do what no other nation may - wage perpetual wars for an elusive peace in the name of freedom and justice for all we preach but don't practice. We manipulate false notions of exceptionalism and moral superiority giving us the right to spread our ways to others while hiding our darker imperial side delivered through the barrel of a gun. It shames the notion of a "government of the people, by the people, for the people."

Expansionism and Militarism: An American Tradition

Expansionism has always been our way and militarism our method. It's been since winning the West meant taking it from the millions there thousands of years earlier. No matter. "Manifest Destiny" meant a divine right for settlers only to enjoy the nation's "spacious skies....amber waves of grain....and purple mountain majesties....from sea to shining sea." Others already there had to go, and mass slaughter was the method.

Our forefathers loathed Native Indians, and George Washington showed it in his language. He called them "red savages," compared them to wolves and "beasts of prey," and aimed to exterminate the Onieda people who aided him in his darkest hours at Valley Forge. He also dispatched General John Sullivan and 5000 troops against the noncombatant Onondaga people with orders to destroy their villages, homes, fields, food supplies, cattle herds, orchards and then annihilate them and seize their land.

Hitler modeled his "Final Solution" on the "American Holocaust." He targeted Untermenschen (subhumans) and Slavs he called "redskins." We know what happened. Raphael Lemkin called it "genocide" as he first defined it in 1944 to mean:

"the destruction of a nation or of an ethnic group" that corresponds to other terms like "tyrannicide, homocide, infanticide, etc." Genocide "does not necessarily mean the....destruction of a nation, except when accomplished by mass killings....It is intended....to signify a coordinated plan (to destroy the) the essential foundations of the life of national groups" with intent to destroy them. Genocidal plans involve the disintegration of....political and social institutions, culture, language, national feelings, religion....economic existence, personal security, liberty, health, dignity, and" human lives.

Throughout our history, it's been our way, and since 1990, three US Presidents waged genocidal war in Iraq to erase the "cradle of civilization" and remake it in our own image. Two and a half million are dead and counting from it, the country is plagued by out-of-control violence, one-third of its people need emergency aid, millions go hungry, and a once prosperous nation is now a surreal lawless occupied wasteland with few or no essential services like electricity, clean water, medical care, fuel and most everything else needed for sustenance and survival. That's the ugly face of "genocide" in real time.

Native peoples were its earlier victim. Puritans saw them as "brutes, devils" and "devil-worshippers" in a godless, howling wilderness filled with evil spirits and "dangerous wild beasts." They were targeted for removal as settlers moved west. They cleansed the land through violence, bloodletting and 40 Native Indian wars from 1622 - 1900 to win the West, North and South. Wars became our national pastime, and we've waged them like sport ever since in an endless unbroken cycle.

We fought four imperial ones as well from 1689 to 1763 with England, France, Spain and Holland. Throughout the period, numerous settler outbreaks and insurrections arose that were also put down along with dozens of riots. Then there were the major wars we know by name. First was the American War of Independence (or Revolutionary War) from 1775 - 83. A minority of colonists supported it, little changed, and the outcome repackaged Crown rule under new management.

The so-called War of 1812 (to early 1815) was more about American expansionism than Brits impressing our seamen. "Manifest Destiny" then became a catch phrase when Jacksonian Democrats proclaimed it in 1845 as the nation's "destiny" for all the land "from sea to shining sea." It was packaged as a noble mission, propagated as ruling orthodoxy, and used to justify other acquisitions.

We then headed south of the border from 1846 - 1848 in what Mexicans called "la invasion estadounidense" that easily self-translates as the US invasion. It was our Mexican War that began after the annexation of Texas and ended with the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. It forced Mexico to cede half its country to avoid losing it all in what's now Texas, California, Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada, and parts of Wyoming and Utah. The country is still cursed the way former Mexican dictator, Porfirio Diaz, meant when he said: "Poor Mexico, so far from God, and so close to the United States." Today that holds for all nations with a rogue superpower on the march and liberty and justice nowhere in sight.

Nor was it earlier when wars had similar aims as now with one exception. The Civil War from 1861 - 1865 was sort of a family squabble. Some squabble. Before it ended, it was our bloodiest ever. Three million were in it and over 600,000 died at a time the total population was 31 million, including 4 million slaves. That was double the battle deaths from WW II when 12 million fought from a population of 132 million, and if the same proportionate number had perished it would have been around 2.5 million.

Next came the Spanish-American War against Spain. In 1897, Theodore Roosevelt (as Assistant Secretary of the Navy and later 1906 Nobel Peace Prize laureate) wrote a friend...."I should welcome almost any war, for I think this country needs one," and the next year it began. We won, they lost and America had its coming out party on a world stage. A half century later, we control much of it, want the rest, and plan, as a birthright, to take it as disdainfully as our forefathers.

The war with Spain was quick and little more than a skirmish for three and a half months. It was our first offshore imperial foray netting us control of Cuba as a de facto colony for starters. Following the war, Congress passed the Platt Amendment in 1901. It granted us jurisdictional right to intervene freely in Cuban affairs and ceded Guantanamo Bay (as a coaling or naval station only) to the US in perpetuity (provided annual rent is paid) unless later terminated by mutual consent of both countries. It was just the beginning.

We also took the Philippines (slaughtering 200,000 of its people), Hawaii, Haiti, Guam, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, Samoa, assorted other territories later and the Canal Zone from Colombia to fulfill Theodore Roosevelt's dream to link the Atlantic and Pacific with a canal across its isthmus.

Woodrow Wilson was reelected in 1916 on a campaign promise: "He Kept Us Out of War." He lied. He wanted war and established the Committee on Public Information under George Creel in 1917 to get it. It turned a pacifist nation into raging German-haters, America declared war in April, 1917 and was in it until it ended in November, 1918. This writer's dad fought in France and returned unharmed. The US empire was on a roll.

Today, mainstream historians perceive Wilson as a liberal Democrat. He was quite opposite, and his imperial record alone proves it. He occupied Haiti in 1915 beginning 20 hellish years for its people until Franklin Roosevelt withdraw US forces in 1934. He sent US troops to Nicaragua, the Dominican Republic, and in 1914 invaded Mexico, occupying its main seaport city of Veracruz. It was a dress rehearsal for WW I and might have become a full-scale war had Wilson not pulled US forces out ahead of the greater conflict he aimed for in Europe.

The defining event of the 20th century was WW II from which the US emerged the only dominant nation left standing. We became the world's unchallengeable superpower as though we planned it that way, which we did. From it emerged our "imperial grand strategy" under the Truman Doctrine as well as a plan for US global military and economic dominance. The Cold War began with "containment" the policy. The US empire was on a roll and would never look back.

US Imperialism Post-WW II

When the Cold War ended in 1991, George HW Bush's Defense Secretary Dick Cheney and undersecretary Paul Wolfowitz were tasked to shape a new strategy that emerged in 1992 as the Defense Planning Guidance or Wolfowitz Doctrine. It was so extreme, it was kept under wraps, but not for long. It was leaked to the New York Times causing uproar enough for the elder Bush to shelve it until the neoconservative think tank Project for a New American Century (PNAC) revived it in a document called "Rebuilding America's Defenses: Strategies, Forces and Resources for a New Century." It was an imperial plan for global dominance for well into the future to be enforced with unchallengeable military power. It became the blueprint for the "war on terror" and all the hot ones planned to wage it.

WW II was more a beginning than an end to war. The US kept Korea and Vietnam divided and targeted independent-minded leaders. It was part of our imperial designs on East Asia that included containing Soviet Russia as well as China. It led us to incite civil wars in Korea and Vietnam expecting both times to prevail but were stalemated in one and lost the other.

North Korea's Fatherland Liberation War began June 25, 1950 when the DPRK retaliated in force following months of US influenced Republic of Korean (ROK) provocations. It ended in an uneasy cease-fire July 27, 1953 and is still unresolved to this day. The North and South are technically at war, the US refuses to negotiate an honorable peace, and 57 years later 37,000 American forces are in the South with no intention to leave.

Korea taught us nothing. Vietnam was next, and now we're embroiled in Iraq and Afghanistan with a potentially disastrous war looming against Iran. It proves Ben Franklin right that "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over, expecting different results." Adventurism in Vietnam began under Truman and Eisenhower supporting France. It expanded full-blown under Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon before ending in a humiliating final pullout from the US Saigon Embassy rooftop April 30, 1975.

The 1980s brought more conflict with Ronald Reagan's war against "international terrorism." He invaded tiny Grenada in 1983 against a left-leaning regime for a pro-western one we installed. Scorched earth proxy wars then upped the stakes in Central America, Afghanistan, Africa and the Middle East. We tread lightly nowhere, and these conflicts left hundreds of thousands dead and immiserated in the name of democracy, humanitarian intervention, and the benefits of western civilization by our method of choice - gun barrels blazing.

GHW Bush then followed with Panama his prey. He deposed its leader, then targeted Saddam for the only crime that mattered - disobeying the lord and master of the universe and its rules of imperial management, especially Rule No. 1: We're boss, and what we say goes.

The Gulf war followed with 12 crushing years of sanctions its legacy. They left 1.5 million Iraqis dead and the living devastated. The current cycle of permanent wars began post-9/11 in October, 2001. First came the Taliban with Iraq ahead as the prime target of choice. It's huge oil reserves made it the most sought after real estate on earth with a plan to seize them simple at its core - a bold new experiment to erase a nation and create a new one by invasion, occupation and reconstruction for pillage. It would transform Iraq into a fully privatized free market paradise with blank check public funding for profit but none for Iraqis for essential needs, a sustainable economy or critical local infrastructure.

It's been a disaster with the toll on Iraqis horrific - an inferno of uncontrolled violence throughout the country with new British O.R.B. independent polling data estimating 1.2 million Iraqi deaths since March, 2003 on top of the 1.5 million others since 1990. The war is now longer in duration than WWs I or II and will likely exceed the latter one in inflation-adjusted cost before it ends. It's not in sight thanks to a complicit Democrat-led Congress that's long on theater but short on action it can take but won't. Allied with the administration, it flaunts public demands to end the war, bring home the troops, and will shortly accede to another Bush supplemental request for billions more in funding.

Public sentiment might be stronger if Jeff Nygaard's June, 2007 Z Magazine article titled "The Secret Air Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan" got wider play, so here's hoping this article gives it some. He explained US Central Command Air Forces (CENTAF) posts its daily "airpower summaries" online that makes for horrifying reading "aside (from) the blatant propaganda." Nygaard explained "relentless" air attacks against Iran and Afghanistan have gone on for years - on average 75 - 100 each day against both countries. It's a huge unreported story in the dominant media. The death toll is unknown, he says, "but a reasonable estimate" is between 100,000 - 150,000 in Iraq alone, and it's anyone's guess in Afghanistan. That's on top of all other war-related deaths estimated in both countries.

Further, these attacks exclude "guided missiles and unguided rockets fired....cannon rounds (and) munitions used by some Marine Corps and other 'coalition' aircraft or any of the Army's helicopter gunships (plus) munitions used by the armed helicopters of the many 'private (mercenary hired gun) security contractors' flying their own missions in Iraq." If the true human toll were known, it might be shockingly above the most gruesome current estimates and growing daily.

The public has a right to know this, and Congress is obligated to find out, tell them, cut off all funding and end two illegal wars of aggression. Instead, Democrats and Republicans back a further administration aggression against Iran in spite of silenced high level opposition to it. It may come from two large nuclear-armed US carrier strike groups conducting provocative exercises near Iranian waters in the Persian Gulf and Eastern Medditerranean.

Washington makes no secret it wants regime change in Iran, and time is running out for the Bush administration to get it. For months, covert black operations have been ongoing inside the country. It's aimed to incite internal ethnic and political opposition, and CIA operatives have also been sending Baluchi tribal warriors from neighboring Pakistan on terror raids into neighboring Iranian areas. Now 350 British forces have been provocatively sent from Basra to the volatile Iranian border, and the Pentagon announced it's building a US base and fortified checkpoints nearby as well. General Petraeus also implied to Congress he'll act inside Iranian territory to stop its "proxy war" against US Iraqi forces. In the meantime, Iran claims Washington backs Israeli-trained Kurdish Party for Free Life (PJAK) as well as Arab, Azeri and Baluchi incursions inside their territory to undermine its leadership, provoke a response, and provide cover for a US attack.

Without a touch of irony, US Ambassador Ryan Crocker and Iranian Ambassador Hassan Kazemi Qumi held four hours of face-to-face talks in Baghdad in May that was the first official bilateral meeting between the countries in almost three decades. It amounted to nothing more than the usual US duplicity that pointed to what's now happening and likely to escalate. Earlier, George Bush demanded and will soon get harsher US-imposed sanctions through the Iran Counter-Proliferation Act of 2007 that's designed to strangle the country economically. He earlier signed off on a commitment of economic destabilization through media-driven propaganda, now heightened, as well as manipulation of Iran's currency and international transactions. That, in turn, just prompted Tehran in response to demand foreign energy companies do business in euros and yen.

So far, it's anyone's guess what's ahead with war a real possibility. The Bush administration is pounding Iran with menacing claims of meddling in Iraq and covertly advancing a nuclear weapons program despite having no proof of either. Whatever's planned could be devastating to the region (and world economy if oil shipments are disrupted), and the kinds of options being considered may cause dire unintended consequences if the worst of them involving nuclear weapons are used.

Bill Clinton's 1990s Balkan wars took their toll earlier at a time most people shamefully bought the US-led NATO propaganda of a good war against a demonized enemy and a well-intentioned intervention to remove him. It divided and destroyed a country under the guise of humanitarian intervention that provided cover for naked imperialism. Most observers on the left got it wrong and still don't know NATO (meaning the US) committed illegal aggression to expand into Central and Eastern Europe.

The Balkan wars kept predatory capitalism on a roll for more new markets, resources and cheap exploitable labor by the same ugly methods of choice - wars, subversion or coercion with "uncooperative" leaders like Slobadon Milosevic playing fall guy. He ended up abducted to the Hague and hung out to dry by the ICTY US-run kangaroo court that silenced him (like Saddam in Baghdad) so his secrets went to the grave with him.

So much for democracy in a nation stained by a near-unblemished record of illegal aggression throughout its history and in every post-WW II conflict fought. The only exception was the so-called 1991 Gulf war. It was authorized, as required, by the Security Council but only through bribes and coercion. The US public opposed it until a lot of Kuwaiti government PR massaging turned it around, and the rest is history.

The Harmful Effects of Imperialism at Home

The price at home has been high as well with democracy here just as fake as wherever we leave our imperial footprint. Ordinary Americans are the losers. Repressive laws and crumbling social services are their reward for patriotism. Then there's the military and what's diverted to fund it. Annual Pentagon budgets are soaring with the FY 2008 DOD one calling for an astonishing $648.8 billion plus an additional $147.5 billion war supplemental and around $50 billion or more now requested. The final total will likely top out over $850 billion with the usual pork factored in and Congress ready to authorize whatever more is needed.

Then come the 16 US spy agencies and their secret off-the-books budgets. CIA, NSA and the others get tens of billions more without accountability. The CIA is an especially out-of-control, rogue agency accountable only to the President. Post-WW II, it began intervening throughout the world covertly and overtly. No dirty trick is off the table, and CIA invented their fair share of them. It uses them spying, fomenting and supporting wars, deposing foreign heads of state, and now they're in play on US soil against American citizens. Noted academic and administration critic, Chalmers Johnson, calls the agency "the president's private army" serving in the same capacity as imperial Rome's praetorian guard.

The agency is secret and lawless, unaccountable to the public, Congress or the courts with intelligence gathering a sideline operation at most. Since it was created in 1947, but especially now, CIA has an appalling record of toppling democratically elected governments, assassinating foreign heads of state and other key officials, propping up friendly dictators, and now snatching targeted individuals for "extraordinary rendition" to secret torture-prison hellholes from which many won't emerge or ever get justice.

It takes lots of cover-up and myth-building to create the illusion America wants peace, is "beautiful," and respects the law and rights of people everywhere. The truth is quite opposite abroad and at home where essential needs go unmet and violence is a way of life.

It recently showed up in the newly launched Global Peace Index's (GPI) ranking of 121 nations. It was prepared by the Economist Intelligence Unit, an international panel of peace experts from peace institutes and think tanks, and the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Sydney, Australia. It aims to "highlight the relationship between Global Peace and Sustainability (stressing) unless we can achieve" a peaceful world, humanity's major challenges won't be solved. GPI ranked nations by their relative internal and external "peacefulness" using 24 indicators. They include its:

-- military expenditures as a percent of GDP and number of armed service personnel per 100,000 population;

-- number of external and internal wars including the estimated number of deaths from them externally and internally;

-- relations with other countries;

-- respect for human rights;

-- potential for terrorist acts;

-- number of homicides per 100,000 population including infanticide;

-- level of violent crime;

-- aggregate number of heavy weapons per 100,000 population and ease of access to small arms and light weapons;

-- number of jailed population per 100,000 population; and

-- number of internal security officers and police per 100,000 population.

The US was a shocking 96th in the overall rankings - to the naive and innocent, that is. Norway, New Zealand and Denmark scored best in that order while Iraq ranked lowest followed by Sudan and Israel, that should be a wake-up call for its supporters.

Violence in America - A Way of Life at Home and Abroad

This article began with a snapshot account of our violent history and culture. So much is in our communities and homes that it's easy selling foreign wars to people used to settling disputes confrontationally, not calmly. It may start with bloody noses in school yards or playgrounds. It's then made to seem commonplace in films and on prime time TV where assaults, violent crime, murder and even torture are everyday forms of entertainment. Then there's sports. The most popular ones involve contact, often brutal, with one played on ice once described as a fight with occasional hockey breaking out.

Television features sports of all kinds, the more violent the better. Studies show nearly every home has at least one TV set, and 54% of children have their own in their bedrooms. They spend 28 hours a week on average watching, double the time spent in school, so they learn more about life through the media than anywhere else. Before age 18, the average American child sees 200,000 acts of violence on TV including 16,000 murders, and studies show homicide rates doubled 10 - 15 years after television was introduced.

They also link the following potential adverse effects to excessive media exposure:

-- increased violent behavior;

-- impaired school performance;

-- increased sexual activity and use of tobacco and alcohol; and

-- decreased family communication among other negative influences unrelated to violence.

A National Television Violence Study showed two-thirds of children's programming had violence, three-fourths of it went unpunished, and most often victims weren't shown experiencing pain. Even more disturbing, the study identified nearly half the violence children see is in TV cartoons. They're most often portrayed in humor with victims hardly ever experiencing long-term consequences. There's more:

-- Unsurprisingly, it's no different on the big screen as film studios produce entertainment for theater viewing and at home.

-- There's a great, but unmeasurable, amount of different types of violence online, including pedophile cyber-seduction on unsuspecting, vulnerable children leading to sexual assaults.

-- Studies show violent video games like Doom, Wolfenstein 3D and Mortal Kombat can increase aggressive thoughts, beliefs and behavior both in laboratory settings and real life. They're even worse than TV or films because they're interactive and engrossing. They get players to identify with aggressors since they act like them while playing. These games teach violence. Many young people play them often and parents allow it. It's no wonder they become aggressive and continue the same behavior later as adults for real.

-- Music also teaches violence. The Parents Music Resource Center reports teenagers hear an estimated 10,500 hours of rock music between grades 7 and 12 alone or nearly as much time as they spend in school. Entertainment Monitor reported three-fourths of popular CDs sold in 1995 included profanity or lyrics about drugs, violence and sex with some popular rap artists' music glorifying guns, rape and murder.

With this as backdrop after 500 years of belligerency, it's no wonder violence in the country and attitudes toward it are out of control. The record includes harsh private and government homeland crackdowns against dissidents, labor, minorities, street protesters, rioters, ethnic or religious groups and others plus all the one-on-one confrontations as well. For centuries, violence was monstrous against our Native peoples and nearly exterminated them all. It was used against black slaves as well with whippings, other beatings, rapes, mutilations, forced family separations and even amputations as punishment for runaways. Post-slavery, the pattern continued, mostly in the South, under forced Jim Crow segregation that enforced white supremacy over blacks that played out violently for those "stepping out of line."

A snapshot of recent data on violent crimes provides more evidence. It comes from the Department of Justice (DOJ), other sources, and shows the following:

-- 960,000 violent acts against a current or former spouse, boyfriend or girlfriend and up to three million women physically abused by their husband, male partner or boyfriend annually;

-- in 2001, more than half a million American women (588,490) were victims of nonfatal violence committed by an intimate partner;

-- intimate violence is mainly a crime against women accounting for 85% of these incidences;

-- women are up to eight times more likely than men to be victimized by an intimate partner;

-- in 2001, 20% of violent crimes against women were by intimate partners;

-- up to 324,000 women experience intimate partner violence during pregnancy;

-- women of all races are about equally vulnerable to intimate partner violence;

-- women are up to 14 times more likely than men to report suffering severe physical assaults from an intimate partner;

-- 20% of female high school students report being physically and/or sexually abused by a dating partner and 40% of 14 - 17 year old girls report knowing someone their age struck or beaten by a boyfriend;

-- in a national survey of 6000 American families, 50% of the men who frequently assaulted their wives also abused their children;

-- studies show up to 10 million children witness some form of domestic violence annually;

-- over half a million women report being stalked annually by an intimate partner while 80% stalked by former husbands are physically assaulted and 30% sexually assaulted by that partner;

-- the FBI divides violent crime into four categories: "murder and nonnegligent manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery, and aggravated assault." It uses the International Association of Chiefs of Police Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program's definition of violent crime as involving force or threat of force. The annual data show these crimes topped one million in 1975 and from the mid-1980s ranged from around 1.5 - 1.9 million annually;

-- since 1975, annual violent crimes of murder and reported rape ranged from around 100,000 - 130,000;

-- Every year over the past century, 10% or more of all crimes committed were violent ones; and

-- More Americans killed other Americans at home than the total death toll from all foreign wars in our history combined.

Violence, of course, becomes ingrained in the culture. It leads to crackdowns against society's least "worthy" victims of state-sponsored repression. It made America the incarceration capital of the world with over 2.2 million in our homeland "gulag" prison system today, a greater number than in China with four times our population and a history of governments not known for gentleness toward those breaking its rules. Here 1000 new inmates weekly join others locked in cages, most for non-violent offenses. They're brutalized by prison guards and other inmates while there and become more likely to exact revenge on release for society's unjust treatment. Many, in fact, do and end up back in prison for longer sentences.

This kind of information and our national predilection for violence isn't taught in schools or explained in the media. Instead we accept the illusion of "American exceptionalism," moral superiority, and innate goodness in a nation chosen by the Almighy to lead the world. That's provided it's by rules made in Washington with people everywhere told accept them, or else. Going to war, we're told, is a last resort choice and one never taken lightly. It's to liberate the oppressed, bring democracy when we arrive, and target "national security" threats too great to ignore. It takes powerful propaganda persuasion convincing people to accept this, but it's made easier if they're already predisposed to violence and receptive to more of it.

Five centuries at home and abroad add up to potent conditioning, but the dangers were less threatening earlier than now. Today's super-weapons make older ones look like toys. They leave no margin of error, and if we slip up we'll endanger what Noam Chomsky calls "biology's only experiment with higher intelligence." Unless we confront the threat to our survival from foreign wars and a violent culture accustomed to them, we face what Albert Einstein and philosopher Bertrand Russell warned 50 years ago saying: "Shall we put an end to the human race, or shall mankind renounce war" and a culture of violence and live in peace because no other way is possible.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

Also, visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to The Steve Lendman News and Information Hour on TheMicroEffect.com Saturdays at noon US central time.

Reviewing Naomi Klein's "The Shock Doctrine"

Reviewing Naomi Klein's "The Shock Doctrine" - by Stephen Lendman

Naomi Klein is an award-winning Canadian journalist, author, documentary filmmaker and activist. She writes a regular column for The Nation magazine and London Guardian that's syndicated internationally by the New York Times Syndicate that gives people worldwide access to her work but not its own readers at home.

In 2004, she and her husband and co-producer Avi Lewis released their first feature documentary - "The Take." It covered the explosion of activism in the wake of Argentina's 2001 economic crisis. People responded with neighborhood assemblies, barter clubs, mass movements of the unemployed and workers taking over bankrupt companies and reopening them under their own management.

Klein is also the author of three books. Her first was "No Logo - Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies" (2000) that analyzes the destructive forces of globalization. Next came "Fences and Windows - Dispatches from the Front Lines of the Globalization Debate" (2002) covering the global revolt against corporate power.

Her newest book just out is "The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism" that explodes the myth of "free market" democracy. It shows how neoliberal Washington Consensus fundamentalism dominates the world with America its lead exponent exploiting security threats, terror attacks, economic meltdowns, competing ideologies, tectonic political or economic shifts, and natural disasters to impose its will everywhere. Wars are waged, social services cut, and freedom sacrificed when people are too distracted, cowed or bludgeoned to object. Klein describes a worldwide process of social and economic engineering she calls "disaster capitalism" with torture along for the ride to reinforce the message - no "New World Order" alternatives are tolerated.

"Free market" triumphalism is everywhere - from Canada to Brazil, China to Bulgaria, Russia to South Africa, Vietnam to Iraq. In all cases, the results are the same. People are sacrificed for profits and Margaret Thatcher's dictum applies - "there is no alternative."

"The Shock Doctrine" is a powerful tour de force, four years of on-the-ground research in the making and well worth the wait. In an age of corporatism partnered with corrupted political elites, it's must reading by an author now firmly established as a major intellectual figure on the left and champion of social justice. Naomi Klein is all that and more. Even for those familiar with her topics, the book is stunning, revealing, unforgetable and essential to know. This review will cover a healthy sample of what's in store for readers in the full equisitely written text. It's in seven parts with a concluding section. Each will be discussed below starting with a brief introduction.

Introduction - Blank Is Beautiful: Three Decades of Erasing and Remaking the World (into Hell)

New Orleans, post-Katrina, is a metaphor for an American-style "New World Order" with unfettered capitalism unleashed in its most savage form. Klein quotes Republican congressman Richard Baker telling lobbyists: "We finally cleaned up public housing in New Orleans. We couldn't do it but God did." And New Orleans developer Joseph Canizaro added: "I think we have a clean sheet to start again (and take advantage of) big opportunities." Their scheme is erasing communities and replacing them with upscale condos and other high-profit projects on choice city real estate at the expense of the poor mother nature forced out and government won't allow back.

Enter the "grand guru" of free-wheeling capitalism, then age 93 and in failing health. This was conservative/libertarian economist Milton Friedman's moment that he first articulated in his 1962 book "Capitalism and Freedom." His thesis: "only a crisis - actual or perceived - produces real change. When a crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around....our basic function (is) to develop alternatives to existing policies (ones Friedman rejects, and have them ready to roll out when the) the impossible becomes politically inevitable." Klein calls crises "democracy-free zones," and Friedman's thesis "the shock doctrine." For New Orleans it means "permanent reforms" like destroying public housing and issuing vouchers for privatized schools in lieu of rebuilding public ones with government reconstruction funds.

For Friedman, government's sole function is "to protect our freedom both from (outside) enemies....and from our fellow-citizens." It's to "preserve law and order (as well as) enforce private contracts, (and) foster competitive markets." In his view, anything else in public hands is socialism that for "free market" fundamentalists like Friedman is blasphemy.

Until 1973, Friedman's radical doctrine stayed in his classroom, but all that changed on an earlier September 11. Following General Augusto Pinochet's bloody ascent to power, he had a real life laboratory as advisor to the new Chilean dictator. His prescription came to be known as the "Chicago School" revolution of rapid-fire economic transformation he called "shock treatment," now known as "shock therapy." It's an economic version of "destroy(ing) the village (and country) to save it" from the Vietnam era and nearly as harsh.

Millions know its lessons, but Friedman's not their hero. It's central tenets are structurally adjusted mass-privatizations, government deregulation, unrestricted free market access for foreign corporations, and deep cuts in social spending with repressive laws, harsh crackdowns and torture along for the ride to reinforce the core tenet Reaganites call "trickle down" and Brits call "Thatcherism."

Its recipients call it hell, and Klein explains why - in Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, Bolivia, Brazil, China, Russia, the Falklands, Poland, South Africa, Sri Lanka, New Orleans, Israel, and coming to a neocon-occupied homeland neighborhood near you. It's "disaster capitalism" unleashed, and business is booming. Klein cites insiders saying opportunities are on a par with a thriving "emerging market...."the deals are even better than the dot-com days, and the 'the security bubble' picked up the slack when those earlier bubbles popped."

Reaganomics adherents are today's neoconservatives with the "full force of the US military machine (serving their unfettered) corporate agenda" of greed writ large. Its holy policy trinity is: "elimination of the public sphere, total liberation for corporations and skeletal social spending (if any at all)." But instead of lifting all boats as promised, it's mirror opposite. It creates a powerful ruling corporatist class partnered with corrupted political elites - "with hazy and ever-shifting lines between the two groups." Russia got billionaire "oligarchs," China "the princelings," Chile "the piranhas," and America the Bush-Cheney "Pioneers."

Everywhere, the scheme is the same: huge public wealth transfers to private hands, exploding public debt most often, "an ever-widening chasm between the dazzling rich and disposable poor, and an aggressive nationalism (like George Bush's permanent "war on terrorism" and the world) that justifies bottomless spending on security." "Inside the bubble" is paradise. Outside, however, is hell with "aggressive surveillance, mass incarceration, shrinking civil liberties," a declining standard of living, and repression and torture reinforcing the message to non-believers.

Klein calls the harshness "a metaphor of the shock doctrine's underlying logic." When applied, it induces a state of "deep disorientation," and shock to force targets "to make concessions against their will." The "shock doctrine" works the same way on a mass scale, and the 9/11 experience proved it. It exploded the "familiar world" and created a period of disorientation and regression the Bush administration jumped on abroad and at home. As Klein put it: "Suddenly we found ourselves living in a kind of Year Zero (with) everything we knew of the world before (now) dismissed as 'pre-9/11' thinking." We became a "blank slate, a clean sheet of paper," and the administration did what was impossible before. It's how the "shock doctrine" works: "the original disaster (terror attack, war, hurricane, market meltdown) puts the entire population into a state of collective shock" enabling policy manipulators to move in for the kill to remake the world in their image and get it done before the shock wears off.

Part 1 - Two Doctor Shocks - Torture and Chicago School Fundamentalism

Following a crisis shock, another quickly follows. The corporate piranhas exploit disorientation with economic "shock therapy" along with "police, soldiers and prison interrogators" with torture their method of choice "to build a model country (by) erasing people and then trying to remake them from scratch."

Klein reviews the history of CIA's interest in torture as a way to control the human mind. It began with the Montreal doctor they funded to perform "bizarre experiments on his psychiatric patients (by) keeping them asleep and in isolation for weeks, then administering huge doses of electroshock (plus) experimental (psychedelic LSD and hallucinogen PCP angel dust) drug cocktails."

The experiments were performed at McGill University's Allan Memorial Institute by Dr. Ewen Cameron even though they clearly violated all standards of medical ethics using human guinea pigs without their permission with permanent damage their reward. Cameron believed by blasting the human brain with an array of shocks, he could "unmake and erase faulty minds, then rebuild (on a blank slate) new personalities" cleansed of their previous nature. It was voodoo science, and it failed. His patients were his victims, but CIA gained a wealth of knowledge it now employs with no pangs of conscience or regard for ethics.

Klein traces CIA's interest in mind manipulation to a 1951 trinational meeting of intelligence agencies and academics in Montreal when concern was that Communists could brainwash POWs to control them. That was when the spy agency engaged Canadian researchers to learn how, and one of them was Dr. Donald Hebb, director of psychology at McGill, who was working on the problem. Intelligence agencies were impressed enough with his work to fund classified sensory-deprivation experiments on volunteer McGill students.

They proved intensive isolation interferes with clear thinking enough to make people more receptive to suggestion. They were also "formidable interrogation techniques" amounting to torture that Hebb knew violated medical ethics. He later characterized Cameron's work as "criminally stupid," but CIA got what it wanted - a way to interrogate "resistant sources" in a "new age of precise, refined torture, not the gory, inexact" kind from the Spanish Inquisition or what Nazis and other tyrants often practiced. Cameron's experiments with human guinea pigs built on Hebb's earlier work laying the foundation for CIA's "two-stage psychological torture method" of sensory deprivation followed by sensory overload. University of Wisconsin historian Alfred McCoy in his book, "A Question of Torture" on CIA interrogation, called it "the first real revolution in the cruel science of pain in more than three centuries."

Pre-9/11, these techniques were freely used covertly as any form of abuse or torture violates the Geneva, UN and other statutes prohibiting these practices as well as the US Army's own Uniform Code of Military Justice barring "cruelty" and "oppression" of prisoners. No longer, as "On September 11, 2001, that longtime insistence on plausible deniability went out the window" as well as any claim this nation respects the law and rights of free people everywhere. What once was done sub rosa or by proxy is now condoned and authorized at the highest levels of government on the fraudulent claim of national security to hide the real aim of social control.

Klein notes torture is still technically banned in the US, but only when pain is the "equivalent in intensity to (what accompanies) serious physical injury, such as organ failure." Simply put, anything goes, but it's not put that way. In Iraq, it was thought "shock and awe" would be so stunning, Iraqis "would go into a kind of suspended animation." A second makeover Chicago School fundamentalism shock could then be imposed on a blank post-invasion slate, and bingo, mission accomplished. Klein notes "there was no blank slate, only rubble and shattered, angry people" who were blasted with more shocks when they resisted. Like Cameron and his experiments, "Iraq's shock doctors can destroy, but they can't seem to rebuild," and the same is true wherever these shock doctors show up.

Milton Friedman and the Search for a Laissez-Faire Factory

The epicenter of shock ideology is the University of Chicago Economics Department. It came out of the 1950s "in the thrall" (of a) man on a mission to fundamentally revolutionize his profession," and on that score Milton Friedman succeeded mightily. Friedman, now gone, believed, markets work efficiently and best unfettered of rules, regulations, onerous taxes, trade barriers, entrenched interests, and human interference. Whereas Cameron believed electroshocks could restore natural health, Friedman favored economic shock as extreme and destructive to nations as Cameron and CIA's methods are to human minds.

Friedman taught this voodoo science and believed to the end, all contrary evidence aside, it was perfect and worked. Chicago School fundamentalism developed at a post-war time in the 1950s when leftist ideas supporting worker rights were gaining ground. Where they "promised (workers) freedom from bosses, citizens from dictatorship (and) countries from colonialism," Friedman promised "individual freedom" to choose that appealed to owners of capital who embraced him and his thinking.

It stood in stark contrast to what became known as "developmentalism" or "Third World nationalism" in the post-war developing world. Economists in it favored an "inward-oriented industrialization" strategy to break the cycle of poverty and grow. Like Keynesians and social democrats, they showed it worked in Latin America's Southern Cone with leaders like Juan Peron "put(ting) their ideas into practice with a vengeance (by) pouring public money into infrastructure projects, (providing) local businesses generous subsidies, and keeping out foreign imports with....high tariffs." It brought prosperity to the South and "dark days" for Friedman, his acolytes, and free-wheeling capitalists losing out to social progress.

It sprung corporate America to action by funding a legion of think tank and Chicago School foot soldiers to change the message and fortunes of their businesses. Friedman was their ideological leader preaching public wealth should be in private hands, rules and regulations out the window, accumulation of profits unrestrained, and social welfare programs curtailed or abolished. In short - deregulate, privatize and get government out of the business of everything besides providing security and enforcing contracts. He also believed taxes were onerous and once said he was "in favor of cutting (them) under any circumstances and for any excuse, for any reason, whenever it's possible...."

He also said corporations should be exempt from federal taxes claiming what they pay ends up in consumer prices that, in fact, is pure nonsense as every marketing MBA (like this writer) learns straightaway. The fundamental law of pricing is to charge what the market will bear, no more or less. In other words, get all you can but no more than buyers will pay. Soon enough they'd pay plenty in the developing world.

In 1953, the US declared war against "developmentalism" with CIA's first ever coup against Mohammed Mossadegh in Iran. Another followed the next year in Guatemala, and in both instances democratically elected leaders were ousted because corporate interests opposed them. It was only the beginning, and Friedman and his "Chicago Boys" soon had a real time laboratory to prove their "capitalist utopia" worked.

Salvador Allende's Popular Unity government electoral victory in 1970 was the opportunity. Three years later he was out giving Friedman the chance he wanted. Klein related the results in what she called "the first Chicago School state" with others to follow. They're all the same with "an unstoppable hurricane of mutually reinforcing destruction and reconstruction, erasure and creation" following the crisis. Next is unfettered economic shock therapy with torture and disappearances awaiting resisters and anyone guilty of bad thinking. Friedman's brave new world was beginning to roll. It's devastation is everywhere including at home.

Part 2 - The First Test - The Bloody Birth of the Counterrevolution

Counterrevolution began 34 years ago in Chile on another September 11 that should have been unimaginable and had to seem surreal. There were tanks in the streets and fighter jets attacking government buildings in a scene all too real and deadly. It played out in Santiago and around Chile and was just the beginning of a long nightmare. It brought General Augusto Pinochet to power (with plenty of CIA help) who called his action "a war," not a coup, and to reinforce his message he made it seem like one. Blood in the streets, the presidential palace in flames, and President Salvador Allende dead ended the most vibrant democracy in the Americas. It was a cakewalk with "the junta's grand battle over by mid-afternoon."

A state of siege was imposed followed by mass arrests, killings and torture in a climate of fear that enveloped the country. Allende supporters were targeted in Chile's "Caravan of Death." Chileans paid dearly, but the Chicago Boys had their moment of triumph, and they were ready. Rolling off the press was their detailed economic manual for the new government called "The Brick." It was a 500 page Chicago School shock therapy wish list. It was "the first Chicago School state," its first "global counterrevolution" victory, and "a genesis of terror" in a brave new world for Chileans.

The economic playbook was right from Milton Friedman's "Capitalism and Freedom" that's long on free market triumphalism and void on its effects on real people. It was pure Friedman featuring mass privatizations, deregulation and deep social spending cuts flavored generously with corporate-friendly tax cuts, trade unionist crackdowns, savage repression for non-believers, and an end to Chile's social democratic state Friedman condemned.

Pinochet bought it along with a team of Chicago School alumni called "technos." They embarked on a free market binge with disastrous results. In the first year, inflation hit 375%, thousands of Chileans lost jobs, the country was flooded with cheap imports, local businesses closed and hunger grew along with public and small business discontent in this free market "paradise." In desperation, "it was time to call in the big guns" with Milton Friedman coming to Santiago to reinforce his message that for things to improve they first had to get worse. It was classic shock treatment and Chicago School baloney with Friedman preaching patience and promising an "economic miracle" if his prescription was followed.

Pinochet agreed, and slash and burn followed with visions of paradise at the end of the rainbow. It was pure untested fantasy, and the results showed it. After one year of hardened shock therapy, Chile's economy contracted 15%, unemployment rocketed to 20%, and contrary to Friedman's rosy scenario it lasted for years with no social safety net help for desperate Chileans.

Klein notes Chile today is still cited as a model that free market "Friedmanism" works in spite of the clear evidence it doesn't. Growth did resume a decade later, but only after conditions worsened. It forced Pinochet to reinstate Allende policies like renationalizing privatized companies but not his social democratic agenda. Chileans were left with the shambles. When the economy stabilized and rapid growth resumed in the late 80s, poverty was 45%, but the richest 10% saw their incomes rise by 83%. Even today, Klein notes, Chile remains one of the most unequal societies in the world. It's shock therapy miracle shifted "wealth to the top and shock(ed) much of the middle class out of existence."

It's the way it works everywhere and a glimpse of the future: "an urban bubble of frenetic speculation and dubious accounting fueling superprofits and frantic consumerism, ringed by ghostly factories and rotting infrastructure of a development past; roughly half the population (excluded); out-of-control corruption and cronyism; (decimated) nationally owned small and medium-sized businesses; (mass) transfer of (public) wealth (and resources) to private hands (accompanied by) a huge (shift) of private debts into public hands." Inside the Chilean bubble was paradise. Outside was "The Great Depression." Bubble-benefitters reacted with "junkie logic: Where is the next fix?"

It was first across the border in other Latin American Southern Cone countries where the "counterrevolution spread (and) people vanish(ed)." Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay were targeted with similar results as in Chile under juntas replacing democrats. Chicago School fundamentalism was on a roll, and woe to the non-believers. Nations that were developmentalism models became wastelands with decades of worker gains lost almost overnight. Factories closed, wages fell, unemployment soared, poverty grew severe, dissenters disappeared, and ordinary people suffered to prove what pin-stripped academics knew after Chile went sour. Instead, it was on to the next target.

In them all, the slate was cleansed and terror unleashed, unrestrained by national borders. Former Allende economist and diplomat turned activist Marcos Orlando Letelier became a victim in September, 1976. While living in Washington, he condemned Chile's "economic freedom" for the privileged and paid with his life. Pinochet's DINA secret police killed him and his American colleague, Ronni Moffit, by remote-detonating a bomb planted under his driver's seat. An FBI investigation learned the assassins entered the country under false passports with full CIA knowledge and complicity.

The purging included cleansing wrong ideas and thinkers like legendary left wing Chilean folk singer, Victor Jara. He was seized and taken to Chile's notorious National (killing and torture) Stadium to be reeducated. Soldiers broke his hands so he couldn't play the guitar. Then they shot him 44 times "to make sure he couldn't inspire from....the grave." One culture was being erased and replaced by another. As in Nazi Germany, books were burned, newspapers and magazines shuttered, universities occupied and strikes and political meetings banned. Trade unionists were specially targeted as threats to the new economic order. It's leaders were rounded up, movement members viciously attacked, and "battalions" targeted workers in factories. They were arrested, imprisoned, tortured, and disappeared in a sweeping reign of terror designed to crush opposition and wrong-thinking.

In Argentina, Ford Motor Company's local subsidiary was complicit. It helped soldiers and secret police rid unionists from its factories and supplied vehicles as well. Green Ford Falcon sedans became the feared symbol of terror an Argentine playwright called "death-mobiles." Many thousands kidnapped and disappeared rode off in these cars, never to return.

Farmers involved in land reform struggles also were targeted along with anyone with "a vision of society built on values other than pure profit." It affected community worker activists, many church-connected, who wanted social services like health care, public housing and education the state was erasing through shock therapy and mass repression. Klein noted while "policies attempted to excise collectivism from the culture, inside....prisons (the practice was to) excise it from the mind and spirit." The sickness was democratic socialism, the cure pain and suffering. Wrong-thinkers were taught the hard way, and many paid with their lives. Chicago School fundamentalism is harsh medicine. Its grand guru, Milton Friedman, was unrepentant. He called it "freedom" and took his mathematical model miracle to the grave amidst a hail of undeserved eulogies.

In his memoirs before he died, his "blatant revisionism" on Chile was shameful and disturbing. He falsely claimed Pinochet only asked for help in 1975 when, in fact, the Chicago Boys worked with the military before the 1973 coup, and their policies were implemented on Pinochet's first day in power. Friedman also claimed the junta's repressive years didn't undo Chilean democracy. In his view, it opened up "more room for individual initiative and for a private sphere of life (offering a greater) chance of a return to a democratic society." It was classic convoluted Chicago School thinking. It made him famous courtesy of corporate triumphalism, generous funding and an utter disdain for human rights and dignity.

Friedman also used his 1976 Nobel lecture to argue economics was as scientifically accurate and objective as other sciences. He failed to mention its dark side - devastating poverty, unemployment, shuttered factories and mass human misery and deaths in the first nation adopting his ideology on its victimized people. Now it's everywhere and savagely enforced in an age of corporate dominance, wars for profit and neglect of human needs to fund them. That's Friedman's real legacy from the barrel of a gun and called "freedom."

Part 3 - Surviving Democracy

Chicago School dogma became known as Thatcherism in Britain, but its prime minister wasn't an early adherent. Margaret Thatcher thought Chilean shock therapy wasn't possible in a democracy like the UK because voters wouldn't buy it. Three years into her first term, her approval rating was lower than George Bush's. She was in danger of not being reelected and didn't dare risk imposing bitter economic medicine that would sink her chances. That is, until destiny intervened on April 2, 1982 when Argentina invaded the British-held Falkland Islands off its coast that was unimportant to either country except for the political hay to gain from war.

Thatcher jumped at the chance to regain her footing and "went into Churchillian battle mode," even though Argentina's president, General Leopoldo Galtieri, wasn't Adolph Hitler. But defending the British empire was almost as good, and it paid off. Thatcher's political future was at stake. She revived it, more than doubled her approval rating and henceforth was known as the "Iron Lady" that for her was high praise, and she made the most of it.

She launched a "corporatist revolution" based on Chicago School economics she thought impossible earlier. She parlayed her new popularity to a victory against striking coal miners in 1984 with tactics like unleashing 8000 "truncheon-wielding" riot police in a single confrontation. Before the strike ended, thousands of workers were injured, but Thatcher stood firm with a clear message to other unionists. Take what you're offered or get the same medicine.

She didn't stop there, and what followed was a radical economic agenda in a wave of state enterprise privatizations including British Telecom, British Gas, British Airways, British Steel and others in what Klein called "the first mass privatization auction in a Western democracy." It proved Chicago School fundamentalism didn't need repressive dictatorships to advance as long as "Iron Ladies" like Thatcher were around to match the best of them, short of all out tanks in the streets shock therapy, that is. Her eleven and a half years in power proved it, and Britain hasn't been the same since with Labor as committed now as the Tories.

Bolivia was soon targeted as well, but in 1985 was part a democratic wave sweeping the world. It was an election year with two familiar figures facing off for the presidency - former dictator Hugo Banzar and former elected president, Victor Paz Estenssoro. It was close and Banzar thought he won so before final returns were in he named 30 year old Harvard economist Jeffrey Sachs to help develop an anti-inflation economic plan for the country.

Sachs was part Keynsian but larger part Chicago School adherent that made for a bad combination. He bought its orthodoxy in softer form by supporting debt relief and generous aid along with the shock therapy he advised Banzar to adopt as the only solution to hyperinflation.

As it turned out, Banzar lost and Paz won, and while no socialist, he was no Chicago School adherent either, or so voters thought. Four days into his term, he charged his emergency economic team to radically restructure the economy using shock therapy with a twist. It was much harsher than Sachs proposed with the entire state-centered structure Paz erected decades earlier dismantled in the first 100 days before the public could react. In its place, food subsidies were ended, price controls lifted, wages frozen, oil prices hiked 300%, deep government spending cuts imposed, unrestricted imports allowed, and state-owned companies downsized as a first step to privatizing them. It cost hundreds of thousands of full-time jobs, pensions and safety net protections. Friedman continued to roll.

The results were predictable. The minimum wage never regained its value, and two years later real wages were down 40% and average per capita income dropped from $845 in 1985 to $789 in 1987. As in other shock therapy countries, a small elite got richer while the great majority of Bolivians lost out with campesinos faring worst. In 1987, they earned on average $140 a year, or less than one-fifth the nation's declining average income.

Bolivian misery gave Sachs star status for the country's "Miracle." It launched his new career and brought him to Argentina, Peru, Brazil, Ecuador, Venezuela and Russia later on plus a best-selling book and three-part PBS "success story" series. The only problem was it wasn't true. President Paz had no mandate for shock therapy, and many workers were predictably furious at his betrayal. They went on strike and Paz's response made Margaret Thatcher's earlier action against striking coal miners seem tame by comparison. Tanks rolled in the streets, and riot police raided union halls, a university and factories. Hundreds of arrests followed, including the top 200 union leaders, and oppositional politics was banned. The siege lasted three months during the decisive shock therapy period with more repression and Chicago School medicine later.

It showed shock therapy needs harsh authoritarian rule backing with Bolivia's pin-stripped politicians, economists and bureaucrats administering it, not uniformed soldiers as in Chile. Paz's democratic victory was illusory like others when leaders renege on promises and sacrifice them on the alter of Chicago School orthodoxy.

Argentina was another "textbook case." In the post-Falklands War period, it was burdened with billions in odious debt Washington insisted be serviced and paid. It was far more onerous after the (Paul) "Volker Shock" when the US Federal Reserve Chairman hiked interest rates up to 21% in the early-mid 1980s to fight inflation, so he said. It was painful in the US and disastrous for developing countries turning their debt burdens into crises. New loans were needed to pay off old ones, and the debt spiral was born afflicting nations then and still today. That was the whole idea, or at least one of them.

Argentina, Brazil and other countries had another option they didn't take - defaulting on debt so great it was unrepayable. As Klein put it: "Understandably (new democracies were) unwilling to go to war with Washington (and the international lending agencies it controls so they) had little choice but to play by Washington's rules (and) in the early eighties (they) got a great deal stricter....It was the dawn of the era of 'structural adjustment' - otherwise known as the dictatorship of debt."

In the 1980s, Chicago School economists colonized the IMF and World Bank to advance their corporatist crusade. Economist John Williamson named it "the Washington Consensus" that stuck ever since. It consisted of core economic policies both institutions consider essential for economic health according to their orthodoxy. We know them well: all "state enterprises ....privatized (and) barriers impeding entry of foreign firms....abolished." There was more that together was classic Friedman dogma: privatization, deregulation, unrestricted free trade (never called fair), and deep cuts in government spending except for security.

Indebted developing countries learned shock doctrine 101 the hard way. Getting aid meant accepting Washington Consensus rules - the whole package. So to save their countries, they had to "sell (them) off." Klein calls Argentina the "model student" in the 1990s under leaders like Carlos Menem. Appointing Domingo Cavallo economy minister signaled he bought the corporatist package. But as Klein points out: "Argentina was not unique (and by 1999) Chicago School alumni included more than twenty-five government ministers and more than a dozen central bank presidents from Israel to Costa Rica."

Shock therapy was on a role that in Argentina turned into a textbook case of therapeutically induced disaster. What Time magazine in 1992 called "Menem's Miracle" became Menem's Mirage when the economy collapsed in 2001, and Argentina did the unthinkable with Menem gone and a new president in power. It defaulted on an $805 million debt to the World Bank. It should have ended the neoliberal experiment, but instead it spread. Economic crises fueled it, and when old ones ebbed "even more cataclysmic ones appear(ed): tsunamis, hurricanes, wars and terrorist attacks. Disaster capitalism was taking shape" with shock therapy its tool of choice.

Part 4 - Lost in Transition: Slamming the Door on History

Before the Berlin Wall fell, Lech Walesa became a labor hero in Poland and the West by defying the Moscow-controlled government and getting away with it. Solidarnosc (Solidarity) spread from its Gdansk roots to the country's mines, shipyards and factories and within a year had 10 million members. They won the right to bargain but wanted more. They aspired to take over the state and institute their own alternative economic and political program. It's radical centerpiece was to transform huge state-run companies into worker-run cooperatives so Solidarity members could be empowered in their own "socialized enterprise."

Walesa objected, lost the debate, and he feared what then happened. The Jaruzelski government declared martial law, sent tanks to the streets and rounded up thousands of Solidarity members. By the late 80s, the crackdown subsided, the economy was in free fall, workers again struck and Mikhail Gorbachev's reformist government was in power in Moscow. Solidarity was legalized, a Citizens' Committee Solidarity wing was formed, its members stood in snap elections and won effective control of the government capturing 260 parliamentary seats.

It should have been the best of times, but with the economy in trouble, Poland needed aid including debt relief. With Chicago School alumni running IMF, none was offered except under Washington Consensus rules, take it or leave it. Enter Jeffrey Sach, the shock doc, with an even harsher plan than imposed on Bolivia. It included an immediate end to price controls, slashing subsidies, and privatizing mines, shipyards and factories. It short, it ran directly counter to Solidarity's aim for worker-run industry.

Sachs promised Solidarity Poland could become like France or Germany under his plan. By swallowing shock therapy medicine first, taking the pain, the patient would end up cured and healthy - if he was right. After debate, the verdict was in and the treatment bought with predictable results. Sachs promised "momentary dislocations" but delivered a full-blown depression. Industrial production plummeted 30% after two years of "reforms." Unemployment skyrocketed, and in 1993 hit 25% in some areas. It's still chronic today with recent World Bank figures pegging it at around 20%, the highest in the European Union. For young people, it's even worse with 40% of workers under 24 unemployed.

Most alarming is the number of people in poverty. From a 15% level in 1989, it rose to a startling 59% in 2003. Incredibly, the country, like Chile, is still cited as a free market reform model. It's pure myth, angry Poles know it, but reports in the West ignore them as they do shocked victims everywhere.

They didn't ignore "the shock of Tiananmen Square," but didn't report it accurately either. In the early 1980s, Deng Xiaoping was transforming his country economically while keeping rigid political control including iron-fisted repression when needed. Democracy was nowhere in sight nor is it now. While many of Deng's reforms were successful and popular, others in the late 80s weren't, and it provoked deep anger in the cities by people most affected. Price controls were lifted, corruption and nepotism was rampant, freedom minimal, job security eliminated, unemployment soared, and deep inequalities grew between "winners and losers in the new China."

It came to a head with mass protests in 1989 in Tiananmen Square that Western reports characterized as a clash between old-guard Communist authoritarians and idealistic students wanting western-style democracy. It was pure propaganda. The protests were massive and threatened the government, but democracy wasn't the issue. It was popular discontent from wrenching economic change raising prices, lowering wages, and causing "a crisis of layoffs and unemployment." Protesters weren't against economic reform. They were against the Chicago School version of it, but their efforts were costly.

Deng declared martial law May 20, tanks rolled in the square, indiscriminate shooting took place, and when it ended thousands were dead, many more thousands injured, and still more thousands hunted down, arrested, jailed, some tortured, and hundreds likely executed. Shock therapy rolled in China as in Chile - through the barrel of a gun and raw state terror. Following the crackdown, China opened to foreign investment, joined the WTO, and turned the country into the world's largest low wage sweatshop for Wal-Mart's "Always Low Prices."

For foreign investors and party apparatchiks, it was a win-win arrangement with Klein citing a 2006 study showing 90% of China's billionaires to be Communist Party officials. About 2900 "party scions" (called "the princelings") control $260 billion, and Klein notes the "stark similarity between (China's authoritarian rule) and Chicago School capitalism - a shared willingness to disappear opponents, blank the slate of all resistance and begin anew" using shock and fear to transform countries into free market paradises for the privileged.

The Tragedy of South Africa's "Democracy Born in Chains"

Klein quotes Nelson Mandela in January, 1990 (two weeks before he was freed) in a note to his supporters from prison saying: "The nationalisation of the mines, banks and monopoly industries is the policy of the ANC (and changing) our views....is inconceivable. Black economic empowerment is a goal we fully support and encourage, but in our situation state control of certain sectors of the economy is unavoidable." That belief became ANC policy in 1955 in its Freedom Charter. The liberation struggle wasn't just about a political system but an economic one as well. White workers in mines earned 10 times more than blacks, and large industrialists worked with the military to enforce order and disappear dissenters.

Once apartheid ended, a new way was possible, and Mandela seemed poised to lead it. The ANC had "a unique opportunity to reject the free market orthodoxy of the day" and choose a "third path between Communism and capitalism." ANC candidates swept the 1994 elections and Mandela became president at a time South Africa surpassed Brazil as the most unequal society in the world. Negotiations were held with the ruling National Party, and a peaceful handover was achieved but not without "prevent(ing) South Africa's apartheid-era rulers from wreaking havoc on their way out the door."

Negotiations took place on two parallel tracks - political and economic. Mandela and his chief negotiator, Cyril Ramaphosa, "won on almost every count" politically. But along side it, economic negotiations were held with the country's current president, Thabo Mbeki, in charge with the outcome in the end far different. With ANC leaders preoccupied with controlling Parliament, the former white supremacist government and industrialists were determined to safeguard their wealth, and they succeeded by assuring Washington Consensus policies would be instituted when political power changed hands.

ANC economists and lawyers were outfoxed or outgunned by the opposition, IMF, World Bank, GATT and power of big capital against inexperienced politicians and technocrats who ended up losers. Black officials controlled the government, but discovered the real power was elsewhere. As Klein put it: "The bottom line was that South Africa was free but simultaneously captured." The leadership mistakenly thought once firmly in power they could undo earlier made transition compromises.

They couldn't or didn't for the same reasons other developing countries accept free market rules. Adopt them or be punished by the market as Mandela learned when he was freed. The South African stock market collapsed in panic, and the country's currency (the rand) dropped by 10%. He acknowledged the problem later on saying it's "impossible for countries....to decide economic policy without regard to the likely response of these markets." It's too bad he didn't know how Hugo Chavez managed after 1999 (oil aside). He achieved what Mandela reneged on, and Venezuela's economy is booming. Had he and ANC officials stood their ground early on, South Africa (with its mineral riches) might have done the same thing - had a growth economy in a socially democratic state and a model for its neighbors.

They didn't, black South Africans lost out, Mandela's legacy is tainted, and a key factor was current president Thabo Mbeki. He spent spent years studying in exile in England during the apartheid years during which time "he was breathing in the fumes of Thatcherism." He became the ANC's free market tutor, believed in market fundamentalism, and its prescription was "growth and more growth." It meant neoliberal shock therapy with the full Friedman package Mbeki supported. He later professed: "Just call me a Thatcherite," and Mandela told journalist John Pilger the same thing in retirement saying: "....you can call it Thatcherite but, for this country, privatization is the fundamental policy."

After over a decade of that agenda (1994 - 06), Klein highlighted the toll showing conditions today much worse than under apartheid, and ANC's leadership responsible:

-- the number of people living on less than $1 a day doubled from two to four million;

-- the unemployment rate more than doubled to 48% from 1991 - 2002;

-- only 5000 of 35 million black South Africans earn over $60,000 a year;

-- the ANC government build 1.8 million homes while two million South Africans lost theirs;

-- nearly one million South Africans were evicted from farms in the first decade of democracy; as a result, the shack dweller population grew by 50%, and in 2006, 25% of South Africans lived in them with no running water or electricity. And there's more:

-- the HIV/AIDS infection rate is about 20%, and the Mbeki government shamefully denied the severity of the crisis and did little to alleviate it; it's been a major reason why average life expectancy in the country declined by 13 years since 1990;

-- 40% of schools have no electricity;

-- 25% of people have no access to clean water and most who do can't afford the cost; and

-- 60% of people have inadequate sanitation, and 40% no telephones.

"Freedom" for these people and all black South Africans came at a high price, and no efforts are being made to ameliorate it. Political empowerment was traded for economic apartheid under Chicago School fundamentalist rules. Klein observed: "Never before had a government-in-waiting been so seduced by the international community." If China, Vietnam and even Russia saw "the neoliberal light," Mandela was told, how could South Africa resist it. The ANC leadership might have (and Mandela had the credentials to lead them) had they examined the wreckage around the world in Friedman-seduced countries. Instead, they took the easy way out and surrendered.

Russia Chooses "the Pinochet Option"

The man who ignited political and social change in Russia wasn't around long enough to lead it. Mikhail Gorbachev became head of the Soviet Union's Communist Party in March, 1985, believing the economy stalled and needed change. His solution became glasnost (liberalizing opening up) and perestroika (reconstruction), and Soviet Russia would never be the same again. By the early 1990s the press was freed, the constitutional court was independent, and elections were held for Russia's parliament, local councils, president and vice-president. In addition, Gorbachev favored a Scandinavian-style social democracy combining free market capitalism with strong social safety net protections. He hoped to build "a socialist beacon for all mankind." He never got the chance.

While still in office at the 1991 G7 meeting in London, his fellow heads of state delivered a free market message Chicago School-style. Later, the IMF, World Bank and other international lending agencies reinforced it - Soviet-era debts must be honored and aid depended on adopting strict shock therapy rules. The Soviet Union soon dissolved, Gorbachev was out, Boris Yeltsin became Russia's president, and Chicago School fundamentalism was adopted as needed "reform." Klein calls what happened next "one of the greatest crimes committed against a democracy (in peacetime) in modern history."

Yeltsin assembled a team of Chicago School ideologues to remake the economy. Jeffrey Sachs showed up, too, with other US-funded transition experts to help write privatization decrees, launch a New York-style stock exchange, and craft a total radical economic makeover for a country long used to central planning. Only one thing stood in the way - democracy, and a parliament able to vote down what Yeltsin's team designed. A clash of wills drew closer in the spring of 1993 when parliament's budget diverged from IMF demands for strict austerity. Yeltsin reacted with the "Pinochet option." He issued decree 1400 dissolving parliament and abolishing the constitution. Two days later, parliament voted 636 - 2 to impeach him, and battle lines were drawn.

Yeltsin sent troops to surround parliament and cut off power, heat and phone lines. The army backed him and he pressed on. He then proceeded to dissolve all city and regional councils in the country. Then, on October 4, 1993, he ordered the army to storm the parliament, set it ablaze and "defend Russia's new capitalist economy from the grave threat of democracy." The assault took about 500 lives, wounded nearly 1000 others with the enthusiastic support from the West in headlines like the Washington Post proclaiming "Victory Seen for Democracy" in Russia. Some democracy.

Yeltsin now had unchecked dictatorial power, the West had its man in Moscow, and shock therapy had an open field to inflict wreckage on Russia's people who didn't know what him them as it unfolded. A corporatist state replaced a communist one, and its apparatchiks were winners along with a handful of western mutual fund managers who made "dizzying returns investing in newly privatized Russian companies." In addition, "a clique of nouveaux billionaires" (17 in all called "the oligarchs") were empowered to strip mine the country of its wealth and ship profits offshore at the rate of $2 billion a month.

As a result, Yeltsin's popularity plunged so he did what all desperate leaders do to hold power with the next election to worry about. He began a war in 1994 in the breakaway Chechen republic killing 100,000 civilians by the late 90s. Elections were held in 1996, and Yeltsin won by overcoming his low approval ratings with huge oligarch-funding and near-total control of television coverage. He then quietly handed power to Vladimir Putin on December 31, 1999 without an election but with the stipulation he was exempt from criminal prosecution. His legacy was devastating with Klein noting "never have so many lost so much in so short a time." When Russia's 1998 financial crisis hit:

-- 80% of Russia's farmers were bankrupt;

-- around 70,000 states factories had closed;

-- an "epidemic" of unemployment raged;

-- before shock therapy in 1989, two million Russians lived in poverty on less than $4 a day; by the mid-90s, the World Bank estimated 74 million were impoverished and by 1996 conditions for 25% (almost 37 million) Russians were "desperate" and the country's underclass remained permanent;

-- Russians drink twice as much now as before; painkilling and hard drug use increased 900%, and HIV/AIDS threatens to become epidemic with a 20-fold jump in infections since 1995; suicides are also rising, and violent crime increased more than fourfold; and

-- Russia's population is declining by 700,000 a year with capitalism having already having killed off 10% of it as one more example of free market-inflicted disaster. That's the brave new world disease spreading everywhere with another scorched-earth stop below. Friedman called it "freedom."

The Looting of Asia

In the summer of 1997, economic crisis hit Asia from no apparent cause beyond rumors the Thai bhat was in trouble, and Thailand didn't have enough dollars to back it. Hot money in became an electronic stampede out with "Asian Contagion" unleashed and heading for Indonesia, South Korea and other so-called Asian Tiger countries that were fast-growth miracles until they crashed together with the plight of one affecting the others. It then got worse and spread to Latin America and Russia with US markets also affected briefly in 1997 and then again with a severe jolt in the summer of 1998.

The 1997 Asian panic was crippling with $600 billion in stock market wealth taking decades to build wiped out in a year. Klein notes "a classic fear cycle" ignited the crisis that might have been contained by the same type "quick, decisive loan" rescue package offered Mexico in 1994 in their so-called Tequila Crisis. It would have been a strong signal to markets the US Treasury and international lending agencies wouldn't let the Asian Tigers fail. No help came, and the message instead was: "Don't help Asia." Why? Because "Asia's catastrophe was an opportunity (for predatory western corporations and vulture investors) in disguise."

Asian Tigers grew by protecting their markets and barring foreign companies from ownership of land or national firms. They also restricted imports from the West and Japan and instead built up their own domestic markets. Western predators wanted unfettered entry to the region with the right to scoop up the best Asian companies but needed a way to do it. Now they had it from an event Klein calls "the fall of a second Berlin Wall," as important to western capital as the first one.

Enter the IMF with crisis-struck Asian countries too sick to resist it. They needed help, and the lending agency had plenty to offer on similar terms as to previous crisis recipients. With economies in trouble and empty treasuries, the Tigers got no choice. First, they had to remove all "trade and investment protectionism and activist state intervention that were the key ingredients of the Asian miracle." IMF also demanded big spending cuts, "flexible" workforces (meaning mass layoffs and constrained wages and benefits), privatized basic services, and the rest of the package they demand for loans.

The regional toll was devastating with the International Labor Organization estimating 24 million lost jobs along with "what was so remarkable about the region's 'miracle' in the first place: its large and growing middle class." In addition, 20 million people fell into the "planned misery" of poverty, reversing an earlier trend reducing it. Women and children suffered most with families selling daughters to human sex traffickers to survive as child prostitution had a new growth market.

So did Wall Street as IMF structural adjustments put "pretty much everything in Asia....up for sale" in the affected countries. The more markets panicked, the lower asking prices became, and the more pressured hurting companies were to sell out for what they could get or face bankruptcy. It was a bonanza for buyers, and major deals went through in a great fire sale at bargain prices. Asia became hugely transformed with hundreds of local brands replaced by western transnational ones. The New York Times called it "the world's biggest going-out-of-business sale." It also became an early glimpse of post-9/11 disaster capitalism - a way for corporate predators to exploit crises in what's become common practice in the age of "terror" creating opportunities galore and big profits for well-connected firms.

Klein notes the Asian crisis never ended as desparation took root after 24 million people lost jobs in two years. No nation handles that, and the fallout can be unpredictable. It led to a rise in religious extremism in Indonesia and Thailand and "the explosive growth in the child sex trade." Unemployment is still high and layoffs continue with new foreign owners demanding higher profits with jobs disappearing to provide them.

Eventually things settle down but never to where they once were. Throwing people overboard, displacing small farmers and business owners and crushing unions means those affected stay that way. "They end up in slums, now home to one billion people (and rising); they end up in brothels or in cargo ship containers. They are the disinherited (or what) German poet Rainer Maria Rilke (called) 'ones to whom neither the past nor the future belongs.' " They're the human wreckage left behind by countries swallowing Chicago School economic medicine. Its promised miracle is people-poison but not for vulture investors thriving on it. Disaster capitalism is on a roll, and its growth market potential is unlimited and guaranteed to continue unless mass public outrage stops it as one day it will.

Part 5 - The Rise of the Disaster Capitalism Complex -
Shock Therapy in the USA

Richard Nixon knew before the rest of us that Donald Rumsfeld is "a ruthless little bastard." He also has a knack for making enemies even inside the Pentagon he ran as Defense Secretary. He planned to "reinvent warfare for the twenty-first century (making it) more psychological than physical, more spectacle than struggle, and far more profitable" than ever before. Talk aside, he wanted to revolutionize the military by running it like the corporate world, and that meant using methods like outsourcing and branding. His idea was for fewer full-time troops, more as-needed ones from the Reserves and National Guard, and a lot of backup help from private contractors like Blackwater USA for security and Halliburton for a range of functions unrelated to soldiering. He wanted less staff and more tax dollars diverted to private companies. The Pentagon brass wasn't pleased, but Rumsfeld was boss and Dick Cheney backed him.

Klein calls them both "proto-disaster capitalists" who practice "the central tenet of the Bush regime (that) the job of government is not to govern but to subcontract." The privatization mania was kick-started in the Reagan era, but Bill Clinton bought it as well. Now the feeling is anything government can do, private business can do better so let them. That means fire departments, prisons, public schools, public health, data management, border control and even parts of the military. As Klein explained: "crisis-exploiting methods....honed over the previous three decades would be used to (privatize) the infrastructure of disaster creation and....response. Friedman's crisis theory was going postmodern (to create a) privatized police state" by auctioning it off.

"Then came 9/11, and the idea of hollowing out government seemed opposite of what a frightened public wanted - a strong central government to protect them. Bush promised it in speeches, but "his inner circle had no intention of converting to Keynesianism." September 11 security failures only reinforced their belief that private firms could handle the challenge better than government, and that meant transferring hundreds of billions of public dollars to corporate pockets. The Bush administration exploited shock and fear "to push through its radical vision of a hollow government in which everything from war fighting to disaster response was a for-profit venture."

Mass disorientation post-9/11 provided the opportunity, and the "war on terror" became a "bold evolution of shock therapy....built to be private from the start" to capitalize on it. It came in two stages. First, policing, surveillance, detention and war-making powers of the executive were dramatically increased though nothing in the Constitution permits it. Then, the whole package, including occupation and "reconstruction," was outsourced to well-connected private firms that responded with generous campaign funds to keep the mutually reinforcing daisy chain humming. Using the ploy of fighting "terrorism," the homeland disaster capitalism complex emerged as a full-blown new economy and what Klein calls "a virtual fourth branch of government."

The Bush administration's idea of government, with security as one function, wasn't to provide it but to buy it at cost-plus market prices with lots of latitude for the plus. Just as the internet launched the dot-com bubble, from 9/11 emerged the disaster capitalism one, and it was off to the races "in an ad hoc....chaotic fashion."

Fighting "terrorism" is big business, and one of the first opportunities was the market for surveillance cameras with 30 million of them installed in the US, billions of hours of footage, analytic software to scan it, digital image enhancement to help it, and information management and data mining technology to handle all data government collects on everyone and everything. September 11 unlocked the potential, a huge new growth market was created, and protection from terror became more important than big brother watching. In six short years, an industry that barely existed is now much larger than Hollywood or the music business, and its potential looks limitless.

Klein calls it "an unprecedented convergence of unchecked police powers and unchecked capitalism, a merger of the shopping mall and the secret prison" in a frightening brave new world most people barely understand or know exists. It generates enormous wealth that creates a powerful incentive for its winners to sell fear for more of it and partnering with government makes it easy, especially the kind in power now.

Capitalism Becomes Corporatism in a Corporatist State

Proto-disaster capitalism defines the Bush administration as crises, wars and other disasters "conflate with what's good for Lockheed, Halliburton, Carlyle and (Rumsfeld's old company) Gilead" Sciences. Cataclysm is a growth business that in the current climate involved "some of the seediest and most blatant corruption scandals in recent history," war-profiteering in the hundreds of billions, and a "whirling revolving door between government and business" taken to a new level. The limitless homeland security and war-profiteering markets are so alluring, hundreds of administration officials can't wait to cash in like earlier ones did. Klein names some noted ones like Richard Pearle, James Baker, Henry Kissinger, Paul Bremer, George Shultz, John Ashcroft, Tom Ridge, Rudi Giuliani, Richard Clarke, James Woolsey, Joe Allbaugh, and Michael Brown who wrote an infamous memo to a fellow FEMA staffer asking: "Can I quit now?"

That's the whole idea in a get rich quick environment - get an impressive government title, stay in office long enough in a department handing out big contracts, collect insider information with market value, then quit and cash in. Klein calls public service now "little more than a reconnaissance mission for future work in the disaster capitalism complex." She also quotes Danielle Brian, executive director of the Project on Government Oversight (a nonprofit watchdog group) saying: "It's impossible to tell where the government ends and Lockeed begins." She also believes that corporatist economic goals and right to limitless profit seeking lie at the heart of the most committed neocons who talk a good game but value great wealth their top priority. They partnered permanent war and homeland security with the disaster capitalism complex to get it, and it's hard indeed telling where one ends and the other begins. But it's centerpiece project is Iraq, and its headquarters is in Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone.

Part 6 - Iraq, Full Circle - Overshock - Erasing A Country

Perhaps no country provides a greater untapped opportunity for unfettered capitalism than Iraq. It represents the planet's last remaining low-hanging oil resources fruit with potentially more of it than Saudi Arabia according to some oil analysts. It's also strategically located in the heart of the oil-rich Middle East (with two-thirds of proved reserves) Klein calls the "crusade's....final frontier." Iraq's potential alone is so enormous it made war the way to crack open its market potential because peaceful methods hadn't worked. Its conquest would then serve as "a different model in the heart of the Arab-Muslim world" that could become a catalyst to opening the whole region.

The potential is a giant free-trade zone, the illusion of newly created democracies, and the freedom for unfettered capitalism "to feed off freshly privatized states." Klein explained this as "the model theory," Iraq as the model, with the idea not being nation-building but nation-creating. But what of the nation already there that's known as the "cradle of civilization." It would have to be erased, and Chicago School fundamentalism would create a new one in its place in its own image with a blank slate to work from.

Bush administration war planners considered the full array of possible shocks and went with them all - blitzkrieg "shock and awe," elaborate PsyOps, use of fear as a weapon, repressive occupation, mass detention and torture, and "the fastest and most sweeping political and economic shock therapy program attempted anywhere....From the start, the invasion was (Washington's message) to the world....in the language of fireballs, deafening explosions and city-shattering quakes." It said dare challenge US authority, and you're next. Shock and awe planners designed its strategy to deter "the public will of the adversary to resist (to render) the adversary completely impotent" from the effects of sensory deprivation and overload inducing disorientation and regression.

In March, 2003, Baghdad got it on a massive scale. The ministry of communication and four telephone exchanges was blitzed and set ablaze cutting off millions of phones and preventing people from learning if their family and friends were alive. Television and radio transmitters were also destroyed along with the electrical grid plunging the city into "an awful, endless night." Residents were trapped in their homes unable to speak or hear each other or see outside at night. "LIke a prisoner destined for a CIA black site, the entire city was shackled and hooded. Next it was stripped."

Unchecked looting did the most to erase the "country that was....Gone are 80% of the museum's 170,000 priceless objects....the national library is a blackened ruin....the Ministry of Religious Affairs....was left a burned-out shell (and the) national heritage was lost." Paul Bremer's senior economic advisor, Peter McPherson, wasn't bothered. It made his job of radically downsizing the state and selling it off easier. Cleaning the slate and erasing the nation was proceeding fast. It "all unfolded in a matter of weeks." Baghdad was "open for business," and the fire sale for its assets began with US firms having first dibs on everything, except oil, and that would come later as it has now but is stalled.

While he was there, Paul Bremer was Washington's man in Baghdad charged with readying the launch of Iraq, Inc. He saw to it laws were passed smoothing the way for Chicago School shock therapy. Two hundred firms were to be privatized immediately to get "inefficient state enterprises into private (predatory) hands...." New economic laws followed that comprised a "wish list....foreign investors and donor agencies dream of," according to The Economist. The corporate tax was cut from 45% to a flat 15%; another allowed foreign companies to own 100% of Iraqi assets and take all profits out of the country; all restrictions on imports were removed; and investors could sign deals and leases lasting 40 years so no future government could change them.

Iraq became a bold new experiment with invasion, occupation and reconstruction transforming the country into a fully privatized new market "with a huge pot of public money" doing it. Klein called the adventure an "anti-Marshall plan," mirror opposite the post-WW II plan, and guaranteed "to further undermine Iraq's badly weakened industrial sector and send Iraqi unemployment soaring." No funds went to Iraqis or their industries nor was anything done to build a sustainable economy, or rebuild local infrastructure like electrical grids, schools, and hospitals. Iraqis played no role in planning, local firms weren't even given "subsubsubcontracts," jobs were destroyed not created while thousands of serf-type foreign workers were brought in and abused, and critically needed social services were ignored.

Another goal was for a fully outsourced, hollow government with no function so "core" a contractor couldn't handle it for profit. It was pure pillage, but nothing went as planned. "Each miscalculation provoked escalating levels of resistance" with occupying forces responding with counterrepression "sending the country into an inferno of (unending) violence." Everything "tearing Iraq apart today - rampant corruption (and unfettered plundering), ferocious sectarianism, the surge in religious fundamentalism and the tyranny of death squads (including US 'Salvador option' ones) - escalated in lockstep with....Bush's anti-Marshall Plan." In that environment, the country became "a cutthroat capitalist laboratory" for shameless pillage. Iraq today is a model, a metaphor for everything wrong with Chicago School dogma showing it to be savage, ruthless, heartless and bankrupt.

Its implementation is the core reason for resistance that continues and grows, but it caught war planners off guard when it began. They thought the shock and awe of attack, invasion, occupation and rapid transformation on the ground would be disorienting. Instead, Iraqis demanded a say from the start in how their country would be rebuilt and transformed. "And it was the Bush administration's response to this unexpected turn of events that generated the most blowback of all" that became even worse by crushing democracy and effectively installing a puppet government in the fortified Green Zone masquerading as a real one.

The result was predictable and so was the harsh response - mass detentions, aggressive interrogations, administration-sanctioned gloves off torture, and US unleashed "Salvador option" death squads making it hard to know who's doing the killing and blasting away at selected targets. What is clear are the consequences - "millions of psychologically and physically (traumatized, angry and) shattered people, first by Saddam, (then) by war, (then) by one another (and the occupation). Bush's in-house disaster capitalists didn't wipe Iraq clean, they just stirred it up....Countries, like people, don't reboot to zero with a good shock; they just break and keep breaking....Which....requires more blasting - upping the dosage...."

Slowly, it's disappearing, disintegrating, erasing an entire country - women behind veils and doors, children from schools, four million displaced, Iraqi industry collapsed, a new growth industry in kidnapping for ransom, a country so unstable investment is high-risk, and even the heavily fortified Green Zone is too unsafe for George Bush to visit on one of his "surprise trips" to the country. Bremer's charge was to build a "corporate utopia" but instead unleashed a "ghoulish dystopia," and, on an April, 2004 visit to the country, Klein thought she was witnessing a mass contractor exodus with 1500 of them leaving in one week.

Now she's not sure. Big investors like Wal-Mart, HSBC and Procter and Gamble never showed up, and in December, 2006, the Pentagon announced a new project to get state-owned factories operating with plans to buy cement and machinery from them instead of the usual corporate suppliers. Does it signal a change of disaster capitalism tactics? Not at all, and it's likely this amounts to no more than tinkering and tokenism that in the end will do little for the local economy and even less to reduce hardened anger.

The Big Oil drafted Hydrocarbon Law is still a work in progress but already inflamed things further, and well it should. It's an anti-Marshall Plan project at its worst, and in whatever final form is a shameless act of theft on the grandest scale. It's a privatization blueprint for plunder giving Big Oil a bonanza and Iraqis a mere sliver of their own resources. In one draft, Iraq's National Oil Company got exclusive control of just 17 of the country's 80 known oil fields with all yet-to-be-discovered deposits set aside for foreign investors. Even worse, Big Oil is free to expropriate all earnings with no obligation to invest anything in Iraq's economy, partner with Iraqi companies, hire local workers, respect union rights, or share new technologies. In addition, foreign investors are guaranteed long-term contracts up to 30 or more years, dispossessing Iraq and its people of their own resources in a naked scheme to steal them and deny them the one source of revenue able to rebuild their shattered country and lives.

The battle for Iraq continues that involves clinging to if not winning the hearts and minds on the home front as well. The country is a wasteland, the nation creation project bankrupt, and the prospect for success bad and worsening. Iraq has been a graveyard for past imperial powers, and it may just be a matter of time until history again repeats. The Brits in the South know it, and after four and a half futile years are tiptoeing out to the dismay of their "coalition" partners. One day, Washington may join them, and for shocked Iraqis it can't come too soon. For now, though, the shock continues, and Iraq more closely resembles hell than "the cradle of civilization."

Part 7 - The Movable Green Zone: Blanking the Beach - "The Second Tsunami"

For coastal Sri Lankans, like those in Arugam Bay, December 26, 2004 felt more like 1945 Hiroshima than life before that fateful day changing everything for them. A devastating tsunami took 250,000 lives and left 2.5 million homeless throughout the region. It affected Arugam Bay, "a fishing and faded resort village" on the island's east coast that government was showcasing in its plans to "build back better." Indeed, but not for the villagers hoteliers, developers and the government wanted removed but weren't sure how until nature did what they couldn't. Everything was gone, and a blank slate remained for what the tourist industry long wanted - "a pristine beach (in a prime area), scrubbed clean of all the messy signs of people working, a vacation Eden. It was the same up and down the coast once rubble was cleared....paradise."

"New rules" forbade homes on the beach and a "buffer zone" imposed insured it. Beaches were off-limits, displaced Sri Lankans were shoved into temporary grim barracks camps inland, and "menacing, machine-gun-wielding soldiers" patrolled to keep them there.

Tourist operators were treated differently. They were encouraged to build and expand on prime vacated oceanfront land. It was all in a document called the "Arugam Bay Resource Development Plan" to transform the former fishing village into a "high-end 'boutique tourism destination' (with) five-star resorts, luxury....chalets, (and even a) floatplane pier and helipad." Arugam Bay was to be a model for transforming up to 30 similar "tourism zones" into a "South Asian Riviera." When the plan leaked out, people in Arugam Bay and around the country were outraged.

The grand scheme to remake Sri Lanka was around two years earlier and began when the civil war ended. It was to be the country's reentry into the world economy as one of the last remaining uncolonized places globalization hadn't touched, and a high-end tourism project was seen as the right option. It would be a luxury destination for the "plutonomy set," once a few changes were made. Government's 80% land ownership had to be opened to private buyers, more "flexible" labor laws were needed, and modernized infrastructure had to be developed with World Bank and IMF providing funds on their usual shock therapy terms discussed above. With mass public opposition to the ideas, it wouldn't be easy, and before the tsunami hit, militant strikes and street protests held it back.

Sri Lanka's president, Chandrika Kumaratunga, was elected on an "overtly antiprivatization platform," but the tsunami changed everything and helped her see "the free market light." Four days after the disaster, her government passed a bill "pav(ing) the way for water privatization." It also raised gasoline prices and began crafting legislation to privatize the electricity company in pieces. It was like a second tsunami, and the same scheme followed hurricane Mitch in October, 1998 with Hondurus, Guatemala and Nicaragua hardest hit like New Orleans discussed below.

Klein explained when the tsunami struck in 2004, "Washington was ready to take the Mitch model (now familiar) to the next level - aiming not just at individuals laws but at direct corporate control over the construction." Sri Lanka's president complied and created a new body called the Task Force to Rebuild the Nation fully empowered to proceed. On it were the most powerful business leaders from banking and industry including key players from the beach tourism sector. Absent were villagers, farmers, environmentalists or even a "disaster-reconstruction specialist." Klein called the task force a new type corporate coup d'etat mother nature made possible.

In ten days, then had a complete reconstruction blueprint from "housing to highways" with aid money directed to corporate development and nothing for disaster victims. They were destined to become permanent shantytown dwellers similar to the kinds ringing most Global South cities and populating Global North inner ones. Similar stories of law changes and land grabs came out of other affected Southeast Asian countries like Indonesia, Thailand, the Maldives and India where around 150 Tamil Nadu displaced women had to sell their kidneys for food.

A year after the tsunami, NGO ActionAid surveyed the aftermath in five Asian countries and found the same pattern everywhere - residents barred from rebuilding, living in militarized temporary camps, hotels "showered with incentives," no restoration of homes lost, and "entire ways of life" destroyed. In July, 2006 in Sri Lanka, the Tamil Tigers ended their cease-fire and war resumed. It's hard knowing if disaster capitalism had a role because peace was always precarious, the government offered little, and continued violence at least promised a chance for something better before and more than ever now given the choice between disaster capitalism and hope.

Disaster Apartheid - A World of Green and Red Zones

On August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast and flooded New Orleans. The well-off left town, "checked into hotels, and called their insurance companies." For 120,000 others without cars or means of transportation, it was another story. They depended on the state, waited for help and got none. FEMA is supposed to provide it, too, but it was one of the many government functions Bush gutted advancing savage capitalism at the expense of public service.

Katrina was disastrous for those affected, but Milton Friedman saw "an opportunity" in a Wall Street Journal op-ed. It was easy for him to say from his luxury San Francisco digs as well as his like-minded ideologues who met 14 days later to plan how to pounce on the tragedy for profit. They produced 32 Chicago School-type schemes packaged as "hurricane relief" that was a wish list for developers and hell for the displaced. They ranged from suspending Davis-Bacon prevailing wage laws in disaster areas and making the whole area a flat tax free enterprise zone to erasing public schools by giving parents vouchers for privately-run charter ones. They also wanted environmental regulations suspended on the Gulf Coast and permission to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge that showed how far afield they'd go to capitalize on the shock of a local tragedy.

Things moved fast, and within weeks "the Gulf Coast became a domestic laboratory for the same kind of (outsourcing schemes) pioneered in Iraq." The names were familiar with Halliburton first in line along with Bechtel, Blackwater USA and a host of others homing in for the kill. Billions were at stake, and no open bidding was required, just good connections. As Klein put it: "within days of the storm it was as if Baghdad's Green Zone....lifted from....the Tigris and landed on the bayou....As in Iraq, government once again played the role of a cash machine equipped for both withdrawals and deposits." Corporations took one and repaid with the other in sizable campaign contributions in a pattern now familiar.

They also ignored unemployed locals and relied instead on cheap imported undocumented labor easily exploited. The Bush administration showed its type compassion, too, with $40 billion in budget cuts for essentials like Medicaid, food stamps, student loans and more so funds could go to contractors and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Again, a familiar pattern.

In visiting Iraq, Klein first thought the "Green Zone phenomenon was unique to the war in Iraq." She then discovered it emerges wherever disaster capitalism lands with the same stark divisions between the included and excluded. It was evident in New Orleans with "gated green zones and raging red" ones - not from flood damage but from predatory free market solutions only for the privileged.

The Bush administration refused emergency funds for public sector salaries so 3000 city workers were fired. Charity Hospital closed and still isn't open. Public transit was gutted losing half its workers, and most public housing is still boarded up and empty by design. Some sits on prime land close to the French Quarter, developers want it for luxury properties, and New Orleans is being erased for profit just like Iraq. It was all planned with the storm the excuse to do it.

Earlier "creative destruction" opportunities generated "rust belts," neglected neighborhoods, and underfunded inner city public schools. Creative neglect is at work as well as the American Society of Civil Engineers in 2007 said it will cost $1.5 trillion over five years to bring essential public infrastructure back to standard. Instead it continues to deteriorate while the well-off withdraw into gated communities and luxury condos with all their needs met by private providers. Klein calls this trend a "state-within-a-state that is muscular" and as able as the public one is frail. It no longer can function without help from contractors as government is hollowed so business can prosper.

New Orleans is a window on the future in which survival depends on the ability to pay, and those who can't are discarded like trash. It promises a world of protected Green Zones with those outside it neglected, abandoned, ignored and forgotten.

Losing the Peace Incentive - Israel As Warning

Conventional wisdom once thought economic growth and prosperity required peace and stability. No longer. Post-9/11, the terror scare was ignited, wars rage in Iraq and Afghanistan, more war is threatened on Iran, oil prices touched $80 a barrel, the WTO Doha Round trade talks collapsed, and "a golden period of broadly shared growth" prevails (at least until the recent credit crunch). How come?

Conflict and global instability don't just benefit arms related industries. They help the high-tech security sector, heavy construction, private health care companies treating soldiers and oil and gas. The business bonanza in Iraq alone is hugely profitable with all sorts of companies cashing in. The same goes for New Orleans and Gulf Coast overall. Terrorist attacks are good for business. The more destruction, the more to rebuild - a great market for disaster capitalism it pounces on with every incentive to assure the trend continues unchallenged, and why not when government throws public tax dollars at it.

Today, "instability is the new stability," and Israel is its "Exhibit A." In the post-1993 Oslo years, the Jewish state designed its economy to expand in response to escalating violence at home at first and now everywhere. The nation's technology firms pioneered the homeland security industry, and they still dominate it. In addition, its economy overall is the most "tech-dependent in the world," according to Business Week magazine, twice as dependent as the US representing half its exports.

Following the 2000 dot-com crash, Israel's leading tech companies needed a new global niche, and the government encouraged expansion beyond information and communications technologies into security and surveillance. It launched a slew of start-ups "specializing in everything from 'search and nail,' data mining, surveillance cameras, to terrorist profiling." It was perfect timing for a market that exploded post-9/11, and Israel's economy is thriving with one of the fastest growth rates in the world. Klein calls the country "a kind of shopping mall for homeland security technologies," and Forbes magazine says it's "the go-to country for antiterrorism technologies." Today, the country's counterterrorism industry is booming, and its defense-related exports make it the fourth largest arms dealer in the world, larger than the UK.

Klein notes: "With more and more countries turning themselves into fortresses (with walls and high-tech fences part of it), 'security barriers' may prove to be the biggest disaster market of all." In the case of Israel, it's also another "Chicago School frontier marked by rapid stratification of society between rich and poor inside the state." The security boom fueled a wave of privatizations accompanied by social program cuts, "an epidemic of inequality," and the virtual end of Labor Zionism. Klein notes 24.4% of Israelis live in poverty, including 35.2% of children, compared to 8% twenty years earlier (but she doesn't say if these figures include Arab Israeli citizens comprising 20% of the population). She concludes Israeli industry no longer fears war as it thrives on it.

Today, Baghdad, New Orleans and suburban Atlanta Sandy Springs are glimpses of a gated community future run by the disaster capitalism complex. But it's in its most advanced state in Israel - "an entire country (turned into) a fortified gated community, surrounded by locked-out people living in (the) permanently excluded red zones" of Gaza and the West Bank that aren't just left out but are encroached on and under attack. Disaster capitalism thrives in this environment so it yearns to bring it to a neighborhood near you, and that's a prospect to fear.

Hopeful Signs - Shock Wears Off

Klein quotes Canada's National Post editor, Terence Corcoran, wondering if the Chicago School movement Milton Friedman launched could continue as before after his November, 2006 death. The movement's pinnacle was capturing the Congress in 1994 that it lost in 2006 for three reasons - public disenchantment with the Iraq war, political corruption, and a growing class divide unseen since the Gilded Age of the "robber barons" or roaring 20s. Each factor related to core Chicago School economics - privatization, deregulation and cutting government services. In the US, it created a wealth disparity economist Paul Krugman calls unprecedented while poverty is growing and the middle class dying in the richest country in the world that's also the least caring one.

Everywhere Chicago School fundamentalism shows up, the results are the same. A small elite gains hugely while most others don't. But cracks in the ideology are visible as many of its front line adherents got caught up "in an astonishing array of scandals and criminal proceedings (from the) earliest laboratories in Latin America to the most recent one in Iraq."

Before he died, Pinochet was under house arrest. In Argentina, courts stripped former junta leaders of immunity. Bolivia's de Lozada got chased from the country and is now a wanted man. In Russia, many of the oligarch fraudsters were either in exile or jail. In Canada, newspaper magnate Conrad Black was convicted of fraud. In the US, a rogue's gallery of CEOs were charged and convicted as well, and other high level types were caught up in scandals like lobbyist Jack Abramoff's influence-peddling one.

Klein notes another hopeful sign as well - shock effects were beginning to wear off, and in Argentina's 2001 economic crisis forced out five presidents in three weeks. It was spreading and most apparent in Latin America where it began with opponents of Chicago School doctrine winning elections like Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, but he wasn't alone. It showed a renewed faith in democracy and condemnation of Washington Consensus dogma when people made a choice at the polls in free and open elections. Today's movements aren't replicas of the past, and one of the differences "is an acute awareness of the need for protection from shocks of the past" - coups, foreign shock therapists, torturers, debt and currency shocks.

They've learned from the past and are building "shock absorbers into their organizing models." It's in movements less centralized, Venezuela's grassroots community councils, Brazil's Landless Peoples Movement, and the streets of Oaxaca, Mexico where thousands battled police since a year ago May and still won't quit. In addition, governments are rejecting old trade models and adopting new ones like Venezuela's ALBA bartering system making it less vulnerable to turbulent markets.

They're also rejecting World Bank and IMF debt slavery, and the change is dramatic. In 2005, 80% of IMF's lending portfolio was to Latin America. It dropped to 1% in 2007. And IMF's 2005 $81 billion dollar portfolio shrank to $11.8 billion in three years with nearly all of it in Turkey. The World Bank is also being rejected. Venezuela severed its relationship, and Ecuador's Raphael Correa suspended bank loans and declared its country representative persona non grata in an extraordinary move the equivalent of a well-deserved slap in the face. In addition, the Doha Round trade talks collapsed, and some observers thought it signaled "globalization is dead," or if not, it's at least breathing hard.

Resistance is showing up in Europe, too, with voters in France and the Netherlands rejecting the European Constitution the French call "savage capitalism" and a codification of the corporatist order they reject. The Putin era in Russia is also seen as a backlash against the shock therapy of the 90s that impoverished millions of its people still left out and many desperate. The same is true in South Africa where people in slums abandoned the ANC to protest against their broken Freedom Charter promises. It even surfaced in China where, according to official government sources, 87,000 large protests were held involving over four million workers and peasants. They won major victories for new rural area spending, better health care, and pledges to eliminate education fees.

Millions of Lebanese were in the streets as well that wasn't a show of strength by Hezbollah as the major media characterized it. It was a rejection of the Siniora government's willingness to accept Chicago School reforms in exchange for billions of needed reconstruction loans to recover from Israel's summer, 2006 blitzkrieg attack. Klein called their actions "a poor and working-class people's revolt."

Examples are everywhere but so far just ripples in a pond needing greater numbers for real change. They were in tsunami-struck Thailand where, unlike in Sri Lanka, many settlements were successfully rebuilt in months but not by the government offering no aid. So hundreds of villagers "engaged in what they called land 'reinvasions,' " defied their government with direct-action, and rebuilt their communities making them better than before the destruction.

The same thing happened in New Orleans. In February, 2007, housing project residents "reinvaded" their old homes and reclaimed them in another example of "people rebuilding for themselves" and bypassing government indifferent to their needs and rights. Klein calls this phenomenon "the antithesis of the disaster capitalism complex's ethos." The actions are communal with people helping each other, rebuilding rubble, and aiming to end the erasure "of history, of culture, of memory."

It's a message of collective shock resistance replacing shock, but it's too early to declare victory. The signs are encouraging, and with enough of them who knows what's possible. Hopefully a better world replacing the bankrupt notion that markets work best and government is the problem. That's an idea for the trash bin of history where it belongs and where it one day will be.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to The Steve Lendman News and Information Hour on TheMicroEffect.com Saturdays at noon US central time.

The Greatest Story Never Told

The Greatest Story Never Told - by Stephen Lendman

No issue is more sensitive in the US than daring to criticize Israel. It's the metaphorical "third rail" in American politics, academia and the major media. Anyone daring to touch it pays dearly as the few who tried learned. Those in elected office face an onslaught of attacks and efforts to replace them with more supportive officials. Former five term Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney felt its sting twice in 2002 and 2006. So did 10 term Congressman Paul Findley (a fierce and courageous Israeli critic) in 1982 and three term Senator Charles Percy in 1984 whom AIPAC targeted merely for appearing to support anti-Israeli policy.

DePaul University Professor Norman Finkelstein has long been a target as well for his courageous writing and outspokenness. Depaul formally denied him tenure June 8 even though his students call him "truly outstanding and among the most impressive" of all university political science professors. It's why his Department of Political Science endorsed his tenure bid stating his academic record "exceeds our department's stated standards for scholarly production (and) department and outside experts we consulted recognize the intellectual merits of his work."

It didn't help, and on August 26 got worse. The university acknowledged "Professor Finkelstein is a prolific scholar and an outstanding teacher." Yet it issued a brief statement canceling his classes and placing him on administrative leave "with full pay and benefits for the 2007-8 academic year (that) relieves professors from their teaching responsibilities." For now, Finkelstein's long struggle with the university ended the first day of classes, September 5. Both sides agreed to a settlement, and a planned day of protests was curtailed. But as Chicago Tribune writer Ron Grossman put it in his September 6 column headlined "Finkelstein deal ends DePaul tiff....the underlying struggle between supporters of Israel and champions (like Finkelstein) of the Palestinians continues, not just at the North Side campus but across the academic world."

That struggle is nowhere in sight in the dominant media that includes major print publications, commercial radio, television and so-called Public Broadcasting and National Public Radio both of which long ago abandoned the public trust in service to their corporate and government paymasters.

In all parts of the major media, no Israeli criticism is tolerated on-air or in print, and any reporter, news anchor, pundit or on-air guest forgetting the (unwritten) rules, won't get a second chance. Support for Israel is ironclad, absolute, and uncompromising on everything including its worst crimes of war and against humanity. Open debate is stifled, and anyone daring to dissent or demur is pilloried, ridiculed, called anti-semetic, even threatened, ostracized, and finally ignored. In his seminal work on Middle East affairs, "Fateful Triangle," Noam Chomsky put it this way: "....Israel has been granted a unique immunity from criticism in mainstream journalism and scholarship...."

Call it the myth of the free press in a nation claiming to have the freest of all. It's pure fantasy now and in an earlier era, journalist A.J Liebling said it was only for "those who own(ed) one." Today, they're giants operating the way Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky explained in their classic book on the media titled "Manufacturing Consent." The authors developed their "propaganda model" to show all news and information passes through a set of "filters." "Raw material" goes through them, unacceptable parts are suppressed, and "only the cleansed residue fit to print (and broadcast on-air)" reaches the public. The New York Times calls it "All The News That's Fit to Print." By its standard, it means sanitized news only leaving out the most important parts and what readers want most - the full truth and nothing else.

The same goes for the rest of the dominant media that serve as collective national thought control police gatekeepers "filtering" everything we read, see and hear. They manipulate our minds and beliefs, program our thoughts, and effectively destroy the free marketplace of ideas essential to a healthy democracy. In America, that's nowhere in sight.

The problem is most acute in reporting on Israel. Criticism of the Jewish state is stifled in an effort to portray it as a model democracy, the only one in the region, and surrounded by hostile Palestinians, other Arab/Muslim extremists and whoever else Israel cites as a threat, real or contrived. The truth is quite opposite but absent from corporate-controlled media spaces.

How "The Newspaper of Record" Reports on Israel

This article focuses mainly on the media's lead and most influential voice, The New York Times. It's been around since 1851 when it quietly debuted saying "....we intend to (publish) every morning (except Sundays) for an indefinite number of years to come." Today, it's the pillar of the corporate media and main instrument of fake news making it the closest thing in the country to an official ministry of information and propaganda. But here's the Times 1997 Proxy Statement quote media critic Edward Herman used in his April, 1998 Z Magazine article titled "All The News Fit to Print (Part I)." Its management then (and now) claimed The Times to be "an independent newspaper, entirely fearless, free of ulterior influence and unselfishly devoted to the public welfare." It leaves one breathless and demands an earlier used quote - "phew."

No media source anywhere has more clout than the Times, none manipulates the public mind more effectively, and where it goes, others follow. It's most visible supporting all things corporate, foreign wars of aggression, and everything favoring Israel it views one way. That's the focus below - how the New York Times plays the lead cheerleading role for Israel even when its actions are unjustifiable, unconscionable and criminal.

Freelance journalist Alison Weir founded "If Americans Knew" as an "independent research and information-dissemination institute (to provide) every American (what he or she) needs to know about Israel/Palestine." That includes "inform(ing) and educat(ing) the American public on issues of major significance that are unreported, underreported, or misreported in the American media." Below is an account of her in-depth study of how the New York Times betrays its readers by distorting its coverage on Israel.

It was in her April 24, 2005 article called "New York Times Distortion Up Close and Personal." It drew on the findings from her 23-page report, and 40 pages of supportive data, titled "Off the Charts - Accuracy in Reporting of Israel/Palestine (by) The New York Times." To be as objective as possible, the study "count(ed) the deaths reported on both sides of the (Israeli-Palestinian) conflict, and then compare(d) these to the actual number....that had occurred." The findings showed a "startling disparity....depending on the ethnicity of the victim(s)."

The study covered two periods. The first was from the September 29, 2000 beginning of the Al-Aqsa Mosque (or second) Intifada (ignited by Ariel Sharon's provocative visit to the Temple Mount Al-Aqsa Mosque site) through September 28, 2001. The second ran from January 1, 2004 through December 31, 2004. Deaths counted were only those resulting from Israeli - Palestinian confrontations.

The first study showed the New York Times reported 2.8 times the number of Israeli deaths to Palestinian ones when, in fact, three times more Palestinians were killed than Israelis. In the second one, the ratio increased to 3.6 adding further distortion to the coverage. Reporting children's deaths was even more skewed, coming in at a ratio of 6.8 for Israeli children compared to Palestinian ones and then at 7.3 in the later study. The latter ratio is particularly startling since 22 times more Palestinian children were killed, in fact, than Israelis in 2004 according to B'Tselem - the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Terroritories. The Times simply ignored them.

In all its reporting in both periods, the Times distorted the facts egregiously. It highlighted Israeli deaths by headlining and repeating them. In contrast, there was silence on most Palestinian ones. The impression given was that more Jews died than Arabs or at times the numbers were equal on both sides. Most often, they weren't even close.

It was startling to learn that Israeli and other human rights groups documented 82 Palestinian children killed at the Intifada's outset (most by "gunfire to the head" indicating deliberate targeting) before a single Israeli child died. The Times willfully ignored this in its coverage the same way it obsessed last summer over Hamas' capture of a single Israeli soldier while ignoring around 12,000 Palestinian men, women and children political detainees held by Israelis illegally. For the Times, they're non-persons, but everyone in Israel and many outside it know that soldier's name and still do.

Weir calls this coverage a "highly disturbing pattern of bias." She presented her findings ("complete with charts, spread-sheets, clear sourcing, and extensive additional documentation") to the Times' Public Editor, Daniel Okrent, in a face-to-face meeting, but came away disappointed. It was because of a 1762-word column Okrent wrote in response. It ignored or misrepresented the facts, was unconcerned that most Times reporters covering Israel/Palestine are Jewish, all live inside Israel, and the paper claimed it's impossible finding "sufficient numbers of high quality journalists of Muslim or Arab heritage to work on this issue." It is when you don't look.

Yet, it's worth noting what Weir believes was a "personal confession" in a single line. Okrent may have slipped up saying: "I don't think any of us (at the Times) can be objective about our own claimed objectivity." Confession or not, it led to no change in the Times' reporting.

Weir updated her report to include Palestinian children's deaths in 2004 and 2005 from documented information on the "Remember These Children" web site. It uses Israeli and other human rights organizations' sources with these findings through June, 2007:

-- 118 Israeli children under 18 years years of age killed compared to 973 Palestinian youths, most shot in the head or chest indicating deliberate targeting by Israeli soldiers. This information never appears in Times' reports.

Instead, The Times "marginalizes Palestinian women and Palestinian rights" according to a November 17, 2006 Electronic Intifada (EI) report. Its authors (Patrick O'Connor and Rachel Roberts) state: "The New York Times pays little attention to human rights in Israel/Palestine, downplays....violence against Palestinian women and generally silences (their) voices."

Since the second Intifada began, B'Tselem, Amnesty International (AI) and Human Rights Watch (HRW) published 76 reports documenting Israeli abuses of Palestinian rights and four others on Palestinian violations against Israelis or other Palestinians. The Times, however, wrote only four articles on them all - two on Israeli abuses and two others on what Palestinians did suggesting both sides shared equal guilt.

Three other Times articles on the conflict focused on a Human Rights Watch report criticizing Palestinian suicide bombings, another HRW one on Israeli actions in Jenin in 2002, and a B'Tselem report on the Israeli Defense Forces' (IDF) exoneration of soldiers for killing a Palestinian child. The Times also published one article criticizing Israel's 2006 war on Lebanon and one other one critical of Hezbollah during that conflict. It's the Times' idea of fairness and balance, that distorts facts, ignores truth, and in every instance betrays its readers.

EI's writers refer to thousands of New York Times articles on Israel/Palestine since the second Intifada began September 29, 2000. Yet in them all, it "quoted, cited or paraphrased just 4187 words....from human rights organizations in 62 articles, snippets (only) averaging just 69 words per article." In the same articles, far more space was given to Israeli government denials even when clear evidence proved them false.

Other research shows The New York Times op ed page marginalizes Palestinian voices and completely shuts out its women who are portrayed as passive, docile and at the mercy of men. Readers aren't told they "balance their dual commitment to the national (and feminist) struggle(s)" by courageously leading the fight against domestic and Israeli violence in the Occupied Territories. The Times also ignores Amnesty International's emphasis on the occupation's harmful effects on women in detention centers and from "military checkpoints, blockades and curfews" even though they cause sick and pregnant women to die for lack of aid.

It's part of the same pattern of selective disclosure and distortion so readers don't know what's happening and are led to believe victims are the victimizers. Facts are ignored, international law is unmentioned and reporting "contributes to the dangerous pattern of Western disparagement of Muslim society," made easy post-9/11.

EI sums up its article stating "If the Times cared about human rights in Israel/Palestine, (balanced reporting, and) valued independent third party perspectives, (it) would have published more than 6256 (total) words....of major human rights organizations (reports) in its thousands of articles" for the past seven years. Instead, the impression given is Israeli crimes are marginal, sporadic, inconsequential, acts of self-defense and not crimes at all. This type reporting sets the (low) standard for the rest of the dominant media and highlights why few Americans question their government's full and unconditional support for Israeli policy.

The Times willfully ignores the following type information B'Tselem posts and updates on its website (www.btselem.org). From September 29, 2000 through August 31, 2007, it documented 4274 Palestinians killed by Israeli security forces or civilians including 857 children. That compares to 1024 Israelis killed by Palestinians including 119 children.

Throughout this period, The Times low-keyed Israeli violence in its coverage but featured dozens of articles on Palestinian suicide bombings and other acts of self-defense it portrays as "terrorism" against innocent Israelis. Left out is what B'Tselem, Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR), AI, HRW, ICRC and other human rights organizations report:

-- willful violations of the Fourth Geneva Convention's protections of civilians in times of war and under occupation by a foreign power.

-- excessive use of force and abuse;

-- policy of collective punishment and economic strangulation;

-- growing numbers of expanding illegal settlements;

-- home demolitions;

-- random IDF invasions, air and ground attacks;

-- many dozens of extrajudicial assassinations;

-- administrative detentions without charge and routine use of torture of thousands of Palestinians including young children treated like adults;

-- land expropriation;

-- crop destruction;

-- policies of closure, separation, checkpoints, ghettoization and curfews;

-- denial of the most basic human rights and civil liberties; and

-- an overall Kafkaesque "matrix of control" designed to extinguish Palestinians' will to resist.

The Times willful distortion and indifference to Palestinian suffering highlights its coverage. Like others in the dominant media, it displays no sense of fairness, accuracy or balance in portraying Palestinians as militants, gunmen and terrorists - never as oppressed human beings under occupation struggling for freedom in their own land. In sharp contrast, Israelis are seen as surrounded, beleaguered, and innocent victims acting in self-defense. It's sheer fantasy, the facts on the ground prove it, but Times readers aren't given them.

They're also not told how Israel discriminates against Palestinian Arab Israeli citizens. Patrick O'Connor explained in his March 30, 2006 Electronic Intifada article titled "The New York Times Covers Up Discrimination against Palestinian Citizens of Israel." He noted the rise to prominence of Israeli Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Strategic Affairs Avigdor Lieberman and his extremist Yisrael Beiteinu party. It advocates "transferring a number of Palestinian towns in Israel to Palestinian Authority (PA) control," thereby revoking the legalized status of hundreds of thousands of its own citizens. They're already second class ones and are treated unequally under Israel's Basic Law that affords rights and benefits to Jews only.

O'Connor notes the Times plays "a leading role collaborat(ing) with this strategy." It characterizes all Palestinians as militants, gunmen and terrorists while suppressing their "experiences under....occupation (victimized by) Israeli state terrorism, and (the) systemic Israeli discrimination against Palestinian (citizens) living in Israel...."

An instance of Times distortion was from a March 21, 2006 article by Dina Kraft. In it, Israel dismissively refers to "Israeli Arabs" and so does Kraft. They're not called Palestinian Israeli citizens "to divide and rule, and to cover up the familial, historical and cultural relationship between Palestinians" inside Israel to those in the Territories and diaspora. The Times goes along without challenge, never questioning if a self-declared Jewish state can be democratic without ensuring equal rights to its non-Jewish minority. Ignored as well is Yisrael Beiteinu's outlandish proposal to revoke citizenship rights for Arabs inside Israel because they're not Jews.

O'Connor stresses how the Times, Kraft and the major US media collaboratively perpetuate the myth that Israel is "a liberal, democratic state inexplicably beset by Arab/Muslim terrorism." In so doing, they suppress the historical record that Israel ethnically cleansed 800,000 Palestinians, killed many thousands of others, and destroyed 531 villages and 11 urban neighborhoods in cities like Tel-Aviv, Haifa and Jerusalem in its 1948 "War of Independence." They also deny that Palestinians everywhere have close historical, family and cultural ties, yet Israel discriminates against them all unfairly.

In her report, Weir noted what all people of conscience believe: that "readers of The New York Times (and all Americans) are entitled to full and accurate reporting on all issues, including the topic of Israel/Palestine." In her study period, the Times covered it in "well over 1000 stories," so it's deeply troubling how much critical information was omitted.

A 9/11/07 Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR) Action Alert provides more evidence of NYT cover-up and distortion. It's titled "Whose Human Rights Matter? NYT on Hezbollah and Israeli attacks on civilians." FAIR cites two recently released Human Rights Watch (HRW)investigations of Israel's war against Lebanon in which The New York Times highlighted "unlawful attacks against Israel" while giving short shrift to "unlawful attacks committed by Israel." This is de rigueur at The Times so the FAIR report is no surprise.

It noted the NYT ran its own 800 word story supportive of Israel on 8/31/07 titled "Rights Group Accuses Hezbollah of Indiscriminate Attacks on Civilians in Israel War" accompanied by a photo of "Israeli civilians at risk from Hezbollah rockets." In sharp contrast, it settled for a 139 word AP report on Israeli unlawful attacks under its own headline titled "Israel Criticized Over Lebanon Deaths" with no photo. Even worse, The Times report on Israeli infractions omitted key information about the claim that Hezbollah used Lebanese people as human shields. HRW found no supportive evidence, and its executive director, Kenneth Roth, said the Israeli government's assertion was false.

The Times also failed to reflect the dramatic disparity in civilian deaths on each side. HRW estimated Israel killed about 900 Lebanese civilians out of a total 1200 death toll in the country while Hezbollah killed 43 Israeli civilians plus about 80 IDF personnel. FAIR's conclusion: The Times values Israeli lives far more than Lebanese ones. No surprise.

FAIR raised an additional point as well from its 12/6/06 Action Alert. It refuted a Times report as false that Israeli attacks on civilians were legitimate "since Hezbollah fired from civilian areas, itself a war crime, which made those areas legitimate targets." Again, standard practice at The Times that values fake news above truth, accuracy, fairness and balance.

Weir hoped a public airing of her findings on The Times would lead to better reporting at the "paper of record." It never did and just got worse following Hamas' dramatic democratic January, 2006 electoral victory. Afterwards, all outside aid was cut off, Hamas was marginalized and politically isolated, and Israeli repression got stepped up in an effort to crush the fledging government by making the Territories "scream."

It came to a head June 14 following weeks of US-Israeli orchestrated violence. Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas declared a "state of emergency" and illegally dismissed Hamas prime minister Ismail Haniyeh and his national unity government. He appointed his own US-Israeli vetted replacements days later with The New York Times in the lead supporting the new quisling coup d'etat government. Noted journalist and documentary filmmaker John Pilger explains the first casualty of war is good journalism. It's as true for reporting on Israel, especially on the pages of "the newspaper of record" that sets the low standard others then follow.

That standard excludes discussion of the powerful Israeli lobby with AIPAC just one part of it. Noted figures like John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago and Stephen Walt of the Harvard Kennedy School of Government are persona non grata for their heroic work documenting its powerful influence on US policy toward Israel and the Middle East. Noted scholar and activist James Petras makes the same compelling case in his revealing 2006 must-read book titled "The Power of Israel in the United States." The record of "the newspaper of record" includes none of their findings and conclusions proving when it comes to truth in reporting, it's absent from its pages. It's especially pronounced in its coverage of Israel/Palestine.

More Evidence of Corporate Media Distortion on Israel-Palestine

When it comes to shoddy reporting, most notably on Israel/Palestine, there's plenty of blame to go around. It's found on major US broadcast and cable channels, most all corporate-owned publications here and abroad, the BBC, CBC, Deutche Welle, other European broadcasters, and what passes for so-called public radio and broadcasting in the US. An exception is Pacifica Radio, the original and only real public radio in the US. Its provides excellent coverage, especially on KPFA's daily Flashpoints Radio with the best of it anywhere on-air from its co-hosts, contributors and top quality guests.

The opposite is true for so-called National Public Radio's (NPR), but its public broadcast (PBS)counterpart shares equal guilt. Many people naively turn to NPR as an acceptable alternative to corporate media disinformation without realizing it's as corrupted by capital interests and big government as all the others. Its president, Kevin Klose, is the former head of US propaganda that includes Voice of America (VOA), Radio Liberty, Radio Free Europe, Radio Free Asia, Worldnet Television and the anti-Castro Radio/TV Marti. He's ideal for the same role at National Public Radio, and it's why he got the job.

NPR never met a US war of aggression it didn't love, and it's especially attentive to the interests of its corporate paymasters like McDonald's (with $225 million of it), Allstate, Merck, Archer Daniels Midland, and the worst of all worker rights' abusers, Wal-Mart, that NPR welcomes anyway. In its space, there never is heard a discouraging word on any of these or most other major US corporate giants.

Then, there's the issue of fair and balanced reporting on Israel/Palestine that's absent from NPR programs all the time. The media watchdog group FAIR exposed it in its study of NPR's coverage of Israeli/Palestinian violence in the first six months of 2001. Over virtually any period, Palestinian deaths way outnumber Israeli ones. Yet NPR in the period studied reported 62 Israeli deaths compared to 51 Palestinian ones at a time 77 Israelis and 148 Palestinians were killed. It meant "there was an 81% likelihood an Israeli death would be reported on NPR, but only a 34% likelihood" a Palestinian one would be.

The findings were similar each way FAIR examined the data. They showed one-sided pro-Israel reporting the way it is throughout the dominant media. The result (then and now) is NPR betrays the public trust. It suppresses real news in favor of the fake kind it prefers. It violates its claim to be "an internationally acclaimed producer of noncommercial news, talk and entertainment programming" and its mission statement pledge "to create a more informed public - one challenged and invigorated by a deeper understanding and appreciations of events, ideas and cultures (through) programming that meets the highest standards of public service in journalism and cultural expression." It's pure nonsense. On all counts, NPR fails badly.

The Electronic Intifada web site showed how badly. It was in a February 19, 2002 article titled "Special Report: NPR's Linda Gradstein (its Israel correspondent) Takes Cash Payments from Pro-Israel Groups." Ali Abunimah and Nigel Parry (its co-founders) discovered Gradstein violated professional journalistic and NPR ethics and policy by accepting cash honoraria from pro-Israeli organizations in the past and currently to the date of the article.

Gradstein is notorious for her pro-Israeli bias and being paid for it makes it worse. Hillel is one of her paymasters, and in one instance openly acknowledged it considered Gradstein an Israeli propagandist. Other Israeli groups apparently do as well as Gradstein openly violated NPR's stated (but uninforced) policy not to accept these fees. Instead, she regularly takes them and likely still does.

The EI writers concluded "for some reason or other, Gradstein is effectively exempt from NPR's own regulations. These revelations only broaden existing concerns about the integrity of NPR's Middle East reporting and honesty of Linda Gradstein....the sad truth is that Linda Gradstein rarely meets (the minimum) standard(s)" of journalistic ethics and integrity. This is common practice at NPR and at the rest of the major media as well.

The Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA)

The dominant US media have loads of firepower and freely unleash it supporting Israel. They need no backup help but get it anyway from CAMERA, a powerful Boston-based pro-Israeli media lobby group. The organization was founded by Charles Jacobs in 1982 and claims to be "non-partisan....regard(ing)....American or Israeli political issues (and takes no position) regard(ing)....ultimate solutions to the Arab-Israeli conflict." It calls itself "a media-monitoring, research and membership organization devoted to promoting accurate and balanced coverage of Israel and the Middle East."

It claims "Inaccurate and distorted accounts of events in Israel and the Middle East are....found everywhere from college radio stations to network television, from community newspapers to national magazines (to the) Internet." They're also in "fashion magazines, architectural publications, encyclopedias....travel guides, and even dictionaries." They're "inaccurate (and) skewed (and) may fuel anti-Israel and anti-Jewish prejudice."

CAMERA's on guard to fight back with plenty of dues-paying members to do it - 55,000 well-heeled ones plus "thousands of active letter writers." They monitor all media and its journalists everywhere for one purpose - to resolutely support Israel and combat all criticism it calls "anti-Israel bias." CAMERA tolerates none, not even modest in tone on issues too minor to matter. They do to CAMERA that views everything in black and white terms with no gray allowed.

Muslims are bad because they're Muslims and not Jews. Jews, on the other hand, are good because they're Jewish. This for CAMERA is fair and balanced meaning support Israel, right or wrong, and you are. Dare criticize, you're not, and be targeted full force with all CAMERA's hard-hitting tools - mass letter-writing, articles, op-eds, monographs, special reports, full-page ads in major publications, the CAMERA Media Report critiquing "bias and error," CAMERA on Campus doing the same thing, CAMERA Fellows training students in pro-Israeli thinking, and focused attacks on "media bias" and journalists anywhere even mildly critical of Israel.

CAMERA is effective because it's unrelenting, focused and well-funded. It "systematically monitors, documents, reviews and archives (all) Middle East coverage." Its staffers "contact reporters, editors, producers and publishers" demanding "distorted or inaccurate coverage" be retracted and replaced by "factual information to refute errors." For CAMERA, it means support Israel without compromise or be hounded until you do.

Two Examples of Truth in Reporting Banned in the Dominant Media - First from Bethlehem

Pacifica's KPFA Flashpoints Radio co-host Nora Barrows Friedman has become the electronic media's most courageous voice on Israel/Palestine. An example was her disturbing story from Bethlehem August 21 for Inter Press Service that was unreported in the dominant media. It's a dramatic example of sanitizing ugly parts of a story to prettify Israeli actions or simply ignoring it as in this case.

Friedman reported the Israeli military has been cutting and destroying apricot and walnut trees for months to make way for its scheme in the village of Artas, southeast of Bethlehem. It's a concrete tunnel (along with the apartheid separation wall) for raw Israeli settlement sewage (excrement and waste). It's to be dumped on Palestinian land even though its toxicity will endanger the health and welfare of its residents. It will destroy crops and poison the land rendering it useless for agriculture.

Artas villagers have been "active and defiant....over the last year after unofficial information" about the plan leaked out. It's still ongoing, nonetheless, as Israeli bulldozers continue uprooting crops and orchards in preparation for construction to follow. Non-violent protesters (on their own land) "have been shot at, beaten" arrested and imprisoned for defying expropriation of their property. Israel frequently does this throughout the Occupied Territories for the parts it wants. In this case, it's for land to dump raw untreated toxic sewage waste on from its settlements.

It's part of an overall ethnic cleansing scheme to dispossess Palestinians from their lands, one parcel, one village at a time, every devious way Israelis can invent to do it. This time, villagers are fighting back in the Israeli Supreme Court. But based on its past rulings, they have little hope for justice and no hope the major media will help stop the abuse by exposing it in its coverage.

A Second Example: Hamas' "Goals for All of Palestine"

Mousa Abu Marzook, Hamas political bureau deputy, prepared an eloquent op-ed piece July 10 titled "Hamas' stand" that got rare space in the latimes.com but none in the New York Times, NPR or elsewhere in the dominant media. In it, he explained Hamas' July rescue of BBC journalist Alan Johnson wasn't done "as some obsequious boon to Western powers. It was....part of our effort to secure Gaza from (all) lawlessness.... and violence....where journalists, foreigners and guests of the Palestinian people will be treated with dignity."

He stressed Hamas never supported attacks on Westerners. Instead, its struggle "always....focused on the occupier and our legal resistance to it....supported by the Fourth Geneva Convention." Despite that right of any occupied people, Israel and Washington falsely accuse its leaders of ideologies "they know full well we do not follow, such as the agenda of Al Queda and its adherents."

Marzook "deplore(d) the current prognosticating over "Fatah-land (in the West Bank) versus "Hamastan (in Gaza). In the end, there can be only one Palestinian state," and its people have every legal right to demand and expect one. He continued saying its "militant stance" is reasonable in "our fight against the occupation and the right of Palestinians to have dignity, justice and self-rule." It's guaranteed all peoples everywhere under the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Marzook raised the litmus test issue of Palestinians having to concede Israel's "putative right to exist as a necessary precondition to discussing grievances, and to renounce" its 1988 charter position "born of the intolerable conditions under occupation more than 20 years ago." A state "may have a right to exist," he stated, "but not....at the expense of other states (or more importantly) at the expense of millions of human individuals and their rights to justice."

Marzook justifiably asked "Why should anyone concede Israel's right to exist, when it....never....acknowledged (its) foundational crimes of murder, ethnic cleansing (and seizure of) our towns and villages, our farms and orchards, and made us a nation of refugees? Why should any Palestinian recognize (this) monstrous crime....?" How can Israel "declare itself explicitly to be a state for the Jews (alone)....in a land where millions of occupants are Arabs, Muslims and Christians."

Marzook continued denouncing Israeli hypocrisy referring back to the writings of its Zionist founders. In them, they made "repeated calls for the destruction of Palestine's non-Jewish inhabitants" saying: "We must expel the Arabs and take their places." Israeli policy today "advocat(es) for the expulsion of Arab citizens from Israel and the rest of Palestine, envisioning a single Jewish state from the Jordan (River) to the sea." The international community voices "no clamor....for Israel to repudiate these words as a necessary precondition for any discourse whatsoever. The double standard, as always, is" for Palestinians alone.

Marzook has no trouble "recognizing" Israel's right to exist. "Israel does exist," he says, "as any Rafah boy in a hospital bed, with IDF shrapnel in his torso, can tell you." He referred to a distracting "dance of mutual rejection (while) many are dying (or live) as prisoners....in refugee camps" and Israeli prisons unjustly.

Marzook speaks for all Palestinians saying he "look(s) forward to the day when Israel can say to me, and millions of other Palestinians: 'Here, here is your family's house by the sea (we took from you in 1948), here are your lemon trees, the olive grove your father tended: Come home and be whole again.' Then we can speak of a future together" and can have one in peace but never under occupation.

Try finding that commentary in the New York Times or on NPR. Somehow, it slipped into the latimes.com and maybe in error. Pilger is right. The first casualty of war is good journalism. It applies as well to reporting on Israel/Palestine and most other major world and national issues. Real news and information fall victim to the fake kind in the dominant media. Thankfully, people are catching on, viable alternatives abound in print and online, and web sites like this one provide it.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to The Steve Lendman News and Information Hour on TheMicroEffect.com Saturdays at noon US central time.

"Unrecognized" Palestinians

"Unrecognized" Palestinians - by Stephen Lendman

Israel's population today is about 7,150,000. About 5.4 million are Jews (76%) plus another 400,000 Jewish settlers in over 200 expanding settlements on occupied Palestinian land in the West Bank that includes Palestinian East Jerusalem. They're the chosen ones afforded full rights and privileges under the laws of the Jewish state for Jews alone.

Palestinian Arabs are another story. Their population is around 5.3 million (plus six million or more in the Palestinian diaspora). Around 3.9 million live in occupied Gaza and the West Bank, and another 1.4 million are Arab citizens of Israel (20% of the population), including about 260,000 classified as internally displaced. Palestinians get no rights afforded Jews even though those inside Israel are citizens of the Jewish state, have passports and IDs, and can vote in Knesset elections for what good it does them. They're subjected to constant abuse and neglect, are confined to 2% of the land plus 1% more for agricultural use, and are treated disdainfully as nonpersons.

Arab Israeli citizens live mainly in all-Arab towns and villages in three heartlands - the Galilee in the north; what's called the "Little Triangle" in the center that runs along the Israeli side of the Green Line separating Israel from the West Bank; and the Negev desert region in the country's south. These communities aren't geographically consolidated and are surrounded by established Jewish communities, hostile to Arab neighbors, and with Israel's full military might backing them. A minority of Palestinians also live uneasily in mixed Jewish-Arab cities like Tel Aviv, Jaffa, Haifa, Acre, Jerusalem in the West Bank and others.

The Plight of Palestinian Nonpersons in "Unrecognized Villages"

The term is Orwellian in its worst sense. How can something real not officially exist? Around 150,000 or more (accurate numbers are hard to come by) Palestinian Arabs today live in over 100 so-called "unrecognized villages," mainly in the Galilee and the Negev desert. They're unrecognized because their inhabitants are considered internal refugees who were forced to flee their original homes during Israel's 1948 "War of Independence" and were prevented from returning when it ended.

These villages were delegitimized by Israel's 1965 Planning and Construction Law that established a regulatory framework and national plan for future development. It zoned land for residential, agriculture and industrial use, forbade unlicensed construction, banned it on agricultural land, and stipulated where Israeli Jews and Palestinians could live. That's how apartheid worked in South Africa.

Existing communities are circumscribed on a map with blue lines around them. Areas inside the lines can be developed. Those outside cannot. For Jewish communities, great latitude is allowed for future expansion, and new communities are added as a result. In contrast, Palestinian areas are severely constricted leaving no room for expansion. Their land was reclassified as agricultural meaning no new construction is allowed. This meant entire communities became "unrecognized" and all homes and buildings there declared illegal, even the 95% of them built before the 1965 law passed. They're subject to demolition and inhabitant displacement at the whim of Israeli officials. They want new land for Jews and freely take it from Arab owners, helpless to stop it.

All Israeli public land is administered by the Israel Land Authority (ILA) that has a legal obligation to treat all its citizens fairly. Instead and with impunity, it serves Jewish interests only using various methods to do it.
It restricts and prohibits Palestinian land development by:

-- putting large Arab areas under its control through the creation of regional councils;

-- zoning restrictions mentioned above;

-- transferring public land adjacent to Arab communities to Jewish National Fund (JNF) ownership that mandates it's only for Jews;

-- connecting the cost of leasing land to military service that discriminates against Palestinians not required to serve and almost none do;

-- declaring national priority town areas for Jews only;

-- delaying, restricting and prohibiting local development in Arab communities;

-- ignoring Arab needs in regional and national plans;

-- allowing Palestinians little or no representation on national planning committees;

-- enforcing a policy of forced evictions and demolitions of buildings without appropriate permits. In "unrecognized villages," no permits are allowed Palestinians on their own land. Entire villages thus face prosecution in the courts and loss of their homes, land and possessions through a state-sponsored policy to remove them judicially.

It gets worse. No new Palestinian communities are allowed, and existing "unrecognized villages" are denied essential municipal services like clean drinking water, electricity, roads, transport, sanitation, education, healthcare, postal and telephone service, refuse removal and more because under the Planning and Construction Law they're illegal. The toll on their people is devastating:

-- clean water is unavailable almost everywhere unless people have access to well water,

-- the few available health services are inadequate,

-- many homes have no bathrooms, and no permits are allowed to build them,

-- only villages with private generators have electricity enough for lighting only,

-- no village is connected to the main road network,

-- some villages are fenced in prohibiting their residents from access to their traditional lands,

-- in the North, only one school remains open and children must travel 10 - 15 kilometers to attend another; as a result, achievement levels are low and dropout rates high.

It's worse still when home demolitions are ordered. It may stipulate Palestinians must do it themselves or be fined for contempt of court and face up to a year in prison. They may also have to cover the cost when Israeli bulldozers do it under a system of convoluted justice penalizing Palestinians twice over.

Discriminatory Israeli Law

Israel is a signatory to the 1966 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). Its Preamble states "the obligation of (signatory) States under the Charter of the United Nations to promote universal respect for, and observance of, human rights and freedom." It then covers what states must observe in 53 Articles that stipulate the following:

-- "All people have the right of self-determination."

-- "Each state party....undertakes to respect and ensure to all individuals within its territory the rights in this Covenant, without distinction of any kind" for any reason.

-- "Every human being has the inherent right to life," to "be protected by law," and no activity may be undertaken to destroy any rights and freedom covered under this Covenant.

-- "No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment."

-- "No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest or detention."

-- "Everyone....within the territory (shall) have the right to liberty of movement and freedom to chose his residence (and) to be free to leave any country (and not be) deprived of the right to enter (or return to) his own country."

-- "All persons shall be equal before the courts and tribunals."

-- "Everyone shall have the right to recognition everywhere as a person before the law."

-- "All persons are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to the equal protection of the law."

-- In states with "ethnic, religious or linguistic minorities (those persons) shall not be denied the (same) right(s)....as the other members."

In Israel, for all intents and purposes, the ICCPR is a nonstarter. It applies to Jews alone, not to Arabs and other non-Jews. Israeli laws allow it by subjecting non-Jews, and specifically Arabs, to three types of discrimination:

-- legal direct discrimination guaranteeing Jews alone the right to immigrate and become citizens; it also gives various Jewish organizations in the country quasi-government status serving Jews only.

-- indirect discrimination through "neutral" laws and criteria applying principally to Palestinians; government preferences and benefits are predicated on prior military service most Palestinians don't perform; the categorization of the country into preferential zones for Jews provides them privileges and benefits denied Palestinians.

-- institutional discrimination through a legal framework facilitating a pattern of privileges afforded Jews only; they're allocated through budgets and resources showing preferential treatment for Jews and discrimination against Palestinians; Israeli courts enforce the bias by refusing to hear cases where Palestinians claim their rights have been denied;

-- even when courts hear cases and rule favorably, Palestinians get only crumbs; an example was in the early September Supreme Court decision that Israel reroute part of its illegal apartheid wall and return a small portion of stolen land to the people of Bil'in; a far greater issue was ignored by allowing the illegal Modiin Illit settlement on Bil'in land to remain intact; for anti-occupation Gush Shalom, the court decision message to settlers is do as you please, build fast and expect court approval retrospectively.

Israel professes to be a democracy. It is not by any reasonable standard. It defines itself as a Jewish state which contradicts its claimed democratic credentials. It treats Jews preferentially and entitles them to special consideration denied non-Jews who are discriminated against as second-class citizens and denied comparable rights.

Israel has no formal constitution and instead is governed by its Basic Laws that before 1992 guaranteed no basic rights. That year, the Basic Law: Human Dignity and Freedom passed authorizing the Knesset to overturn laws contrary to the right to dignity, life, freedom, privacy, property and to leave and enter the country. The law states "There shall be no violation of the life, body or dignity of any person. All persons are entitled to protection" of these rights, and "There shall be no deprivation or restriction of the liberty of a person by imprisonment, arrest, extradition or otherwise."

For a nation committed to violence, the irony is particularly galling that a section of the Basic Law also deals with "The Right to Life and Limb in Israeli Law." It states "Israeli law has abolished the death penalty for murder (and corporal punishment)." It notes this penalty exists in principle but only under limited circumstances such as for treason during war and under the Law for the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide. It further notes Israel's 1998 Good Samaritan Law requires assistance be given in situations "of immediate and severe danger to another." Omitted from the Basic Law is the right to equality so all rights in it apply to Jews only.

Palestinian Arabs have none, yet can stand for public office in the Knesset. Some do, a few are elected but have no power beyond a public stage to state their views and be shouted down or ignored. They're also constrained by the 1992 Law of Political Parties and section 7A(1) of the Basic Law that prohibits candidates for office from denying "the existence of the State of Israel as the state of the Jewish people." No candidate may challenge the fundamental Jewish character of the state or demand equal rights, privileges and justice under the law for Arabs and Jews. The essential Zionist identity is inviolable, the rule of law works for Jews alone, and Palestinians are denied all rights, equal treatment and justice under a legal system for Jews that discriminates against Arab Muslims. In South Africa it was called apartheid.

The Current Plight of Palestinian Israeli Citizens in the Negev

About half the 160,000 Bedouin Arabs today face forced displacement in the Negev. Why? Because they live in dozens "unrecognized villages" making their homes illegal under Israeli law. They face imprisonment and fines if they refuse to leave so their land can be cleared, homes demolished, and the area Judaised for a Negev development plan. It's described as "A Miracle in the Desert" that aims to populate the area with a half million new Jewish residents in the next decade. Plans are for 25 new communities and 100,000 homes on cleared Bedouin lands. For the past two years, Israel has been ethnically cleansing the Negev and erasing Bedouin villages to make it possible.

All Bedouin Arabs in "unrecognized villages" face what those living in Tawil Abu Jarwal endured in January. The entire village was destroyed when the Israeli military (IDF), a large police contingent and special task forces, a helicopter and bulldozers came in January 9. They demolished all 21 of its homes that consisted of shacks, brick rooms and tents. It followed a month earlier assault when 17 other homes were destroyed and their residents forcibly displaced. The people became homeless, and 63 of them in January were children. In late 2006, Israel's interior minister, Roni Bar-On, announced his intention to destroy all 42,000 "illegal structures" in the Negev in a bandit declaration of planned forced ethnic cleansing against people helpless to stop it.

It's happening in Al-Sadir, Tel-Arad, Amara-Tarabin and on June 25 to Bedouin families in the small villages of Um al-Hiran and Atir that are homes to about 1000 people. Hundreds of police and Israeli security forces destroyed over 20 of their homes to make way for a Jewish community called Hiran to replace them. People living in them lost everything including their possessions they had no chance to remove. Haaretz reported Atir villagers lived there for 51 years after being transferred to the area in 1956 under martial law. The article continued saying the Israeli Regional Council of "Unrecognized Villages" will move displaced families to a refugee camp in the center of Jerusalem (where Bedouins don't wish to live) "as part of the government's (forced ethnic cleansing) relocation project" to make the "desert bloom" for new Jewish only communities.

This is what all Negev Bedouin Arabs now face unless something can stop it. Large numbers of them attended an early August protest conference. It was held in solidarity with unaffected Palestinians who together called on Arab and other countries to support their right to remain in their homes and denounce Israel's racist apartheid laws.

Arab Knesset member, Talab Al Sane, spoke on their behalf. So did Hussein Al Rafay'a, head of the regional council of the "unrecognized villages," who said Israel wants Palestinians to be refugees in their own lands and has been forcing them into this status by a policy of home demolitions and continued displacement. Arabs once owned 5.5 million dunams of land (550,000 hectares) in the Negev, he said. They now own less than 200,000 (20,000 hectares) and are threatened with losing all of it. "We will resort to the Security Council, and the international court (in the Hague) to provide the residents and their lands with needed protection."

With an assured US veto in the Security Council and Israel's record of ignoring UN resolutions and World Court rulings against it, there's little chance for success and every likelihood legal Israeli Arab citizens will continue being displaced from their own land.

Advocacy for Palestinian Arabs in "Unrecognized Villages"

Israel denies all Palestinians their basic rights. However, those living in so-called "unrecognized villages" face a special threat - demolition of their homes, loss of their land and possessions, and frightening displacement that will make them refugees along with millions of others in their own land. Few organizations advocate on their behalf, but a group that does is called The Association of Forty.

It's a grassroots NGO in Israel committed to promoting social justice for Israeli Arabs and to gain official recognition for their "unrecognized villages." It was formed in December, 1988 when Arab and Jewish residents from several of the affected villages and other areas formed the Association. It now "represents the residents of the 'unrecognized villages' and their problems, and promotes support locally and internationally" on their behalf. It seeks official recognition for the villages, an improvement in their living conditions, and "full rights and equality for the Arab citizens of the state" of Israel.

Its work consists of initiating "the preparation and implementation of active projects within these villages such as paving roads, improving existing roads and helping the residents to achieve their rights, to connect their villages to the network of water, electricity and telephones, to establish and operate kindergartens and clinics for mother and child care, and to obtain educational non-curricular activities for the schoolchildren...." It publishes a monthly newspaper, Sawt Al-Qura, has photographic exhibitions, films and documentaries that reflect the plight of the villages. It also organizes study days, holds local and international conferences, and participates in other international ones.

The Palestinians Enduring Struggle for Freedom and Justice

Palestinians today live under horrendous conditions. By any standard, they're appalling, repressive and in violation of fundamental human rights principles under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights stating:

-- "All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights."

-- "Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms....in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind."

-- "Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person."

-- "Everyone has the right to recognition everywhere as a person before the law."

-- "All are equal before the law and are entitled....to equal protection."

-- "Everyone has the right to own property (nor shall anyone) be arbitrarily (be) deprived of his property."

Israel offers these rights to Jews alone. It denies them to Palestinian Arab Muslims in violation of its own Basic Law professing "Fundamental human rights....founded upon recognition of the value of the human being, the sanctity of human life, and the principle that all persons are free." It continues stating the Basic Law of Israel "is to protect human dignity and liberty....(that) There shall be no violation of the property of a person....(that) All persons are entitled to protection of their life, body and dignity....(that) All government authorities are bound to respect the rights under this Basic Law."

The Basic Law also states Israel is a Jewish state, and the message is clear. All rights, benefits, privileges and protections are for Jews alone. All others are unwelcome, unwanted, unprotected, and unequal under the law. For them, justice unrecognized is justice denied and for Palestinians it's willful and with malice.

They face constant harassment, abuse and near daily assaults in the West Bank and even worse treatment under virtual imprisonment in Gaza. Their democratically elected government was ousted by a US-Israeli orchestrated coup in June to the shameless applause of Western leaders and silence from Arab ones. They're now isolated, surrounded and dangerously close to a humanitarian disaster affecting 1.4 million people.

It's no better for Israeli Palestinian citizens. They're nonpersons in their own land, are treated like intruders, given no rights, face constant harassment and mistreatment, get no justice, and face imminent loss of their homes, land, freedom and lives any time Israeli authorities wish to act against them. Yet they persist and endure as do their brethren in the Occupied Territories. They reach out to the world community, press their case, and a delegation from occupied Palestine stated it at the World Social Forum in Nairobi, Kenya in January.

It was a call to action and cry for help for "freedom, justice and (a) durable peace" and an end to six decades of repression. It called for a "global Campaign for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel until it ends its apartheid-like regime of discrimination, occupation and colonization, and respects the right of return of Palestinian refugees and internally displaced persons."

It called for "Consumer boycotts of Israeli products; boycott of Israeli academic, athletic and cultural events and institutions complicit in human rights abuses; divestment from Israeli companies (and) international companies involved in perpetuating injustice, and pressuring governments to impose sanctions on Israel...."

Silence is not an option, and people of conscience can help. Noted author and documentary filmmaker, John Pilger, believes "something is changing," and he saw it in a recent full page New York Times ad having a "distinct odour of panic." It called for boycotting Israel, and Pilger senses the "swell....is growing inexorably, as if an important marker has been passed (and it's) reminiscent of the boycotts that led to sanctions against apartheid South Africa.....once distant voices," notes Pilger, have "gone global," it caught Israel off guard and may signal change. But not easily or fast and may not happen at all unless global pressure becomes mass public outrage that this injustice no longer will be tolerated by people of conscience anywhere.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to the Steve Lendman News and Information Hour on TheMicroEffect.com Saturdays at noon US central time.

Middle East Madness

Middle East Madness - by Stephen Lendman

Administration rhetoric is heated and the dominant media keep trumpeting it. It signals war with Iran of the "shock and awe" kind - intensive, massive and maybe with nuclear weapons. Plans are one thing, action another, and how things play out, in fact, won't be known until the fullness of time that may not be long in coming. For now, waiting and guessing games continue, and one surmise is as good as another. The more threatening they are, the less likely they'll happen, or at least it can be hoped that's so.

It's not media critic, activist and distinguished professor emeritus Edward Herman's view. He writes "the situation now is even more menacing than we faced in 2002-2003 when the Bush gang was readying us for the invasion (and) occupation of Iraq. There is strong evidence that Bush-Cheney and company are about to attack Iran (and) the groundwork is being set with a flood of propaganda, helped by the media and Democrats." It may be "his last (crazed) hope for immortality" and possible attempt to revive "Republican strength through this classic maneuver of cornered-rat politicians."

Most frightening is that the Bush administration doesn't have enough of a bad thing and may want more of it. This time, however, the stakes are incalculable, the risks over the top, and the chance for success (from an American perspective) almost nil if post-WW II history is a good predictor. Distinguished historian Gabriel Kolko notes in all its conflicts since 1950, America never lost a battle and never won a war. It's a world class bumbler, never learns from its mistakes, and only succeeds, in Kolko's words, in making an "unstable world far more precarious" than if it left well enough alone.

Enter Iran with George Bush having a way with words about the Islamic Republic. They're hotting up and sending ominous signals. At the American Legion Reno convention August 28, Bush, with typical bluster, accused Iran of threatening the Middle East with a nuclear holocaust and said he authorized US military commanders in Iraq to "confront Tehran's murderous activities." He accused the Ahmadinejad government of supporting violent Iraqi forces he calls "radicals and extremists....Either the forces of extremism (or freedom) succeed. Either our enemies advance their interests in Iraq, or we advance" ours.

Earlier in the month, Bush threatened Iran stating: "When we catch you playing a non-constructive role, there will be a price to pay." He added recent US-Iranian meetings in Baghdad were "to send a message that there will be consequences for....people transporting, delivering EFPs (roadside bombs)....that kill Americans in Iraq."

This type language points to a widened Middle East war with Iran the target in mind and sanity of those planning it in question. Or maybe not? Questions remain in the run-up to the September 11 Iraq progress report General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker will deliver to Congress. Packaging is everything, and the date chosen was planned to heighten public fear of the event on that day that may help explain what's going on - not attacking the Islamic Republic but shoring up flagging support for a war gone sour and worry later about more of it with Iran.

Or maybe not, according to a report called "Considering a war with Iran: A discussion paper on WMD in the Middle East." On August 28, the Raw Story web site published a summary of what two respected figures wrote. They are: British scholar and arms expert Dan Plesch, Director of the Centre for International Studies and Diplomacy of the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) at the University of London and Martin Butcher, former Director of the British American Security Information Council (BASIC) and former adviser to the Foreign Affairs Committee of the European Parliament.

Their work compliments others saying war with Iran is coming, and things are too far along to stop it. Their analysis is detailed, elementary in their opinion, and very frightening. They conclude the Pentagon has plans for a "massive, multi-front, full-spectrum" shock and awe-type attack on Iran short of a ground invasion. In involves destroying enough of the country's military capacity and armed forces, nuclear energy sites, economic infrastructure and more to destabilize and oust its regime or reduce its status to "a weak or failed state." It continues saying:

-- 10,000 sites are targeted using bombers and long range missiles;

-- the US has enough ground, air and Marine forces in the region to devastate Iran on short notice;

-- covert US (and possibly UK) and armed popular resistance activities are already ongoing in the Iranian provinces of Azeri, Balujistan, Kurdistan and the country's major oil producing region of Khuzestan in the southwest bordering Iraq and the Persian Gulf.

-- nuclear weapons are deployed but unlikely to be used short of clear evidence Iran already has them, may in short order, or if its believed only these weapons can destroy its hardened Natanz nuclear facility;

-- the Bush administration has avoided publicizing its war preparations leading Plesch and Butcher to believe confrontation is more likely;

-- no information is available on possible Iranian WMD weapons, but the authors state its military "has missiles and probably some chemical capacity;" those aren't WMDs and many other nations also have them; at least eight of them (not Iran) have nuclear ones as well, several are prepared to use them, and the US states it as first-strike policy;

-- significant "risks and impediments" exist but eliminating Iran as a regional power and regime change are stated goals in the administration's National Security Strategy (updated in 2006);

-- except for the UK and Israel, no other nations are known to support US plans;

-- according to anonymous UK military sources, the Bush administration switched its main focus to Iran after March, 2003 even when its forces became bogged down in Iraq;

-- region-based Marines outside Iraq are deployed to protect oil tankers, shipping lanes in the Gulf, the Straits of Hormuz and be able to confront and destroy Iranian forces;

-- US Special Forces will continue covert search and destroy missions in Iran and efforts to incite internal uprisings against the Iranian government;

-- there's no assurance Iraqi Shias will support their Iranian allies; their leaders may act in their own best interests inside Iraq that may preclude backing Iran under US attack;

-- US 2008 presidential candidates are posturing to see who can be toughest on confronting a potential Iranian threat even though there is none; Europeans are puzzled that political expediency trumps reality especially concerning a wider Middle East war; the Bush administration may worry most about an "Iran of the regions" and may attack the Islamic Republic to avoid it;

-- if an attack on Iran succeeds (with long odds against it) and the US is better able assert "its global military dominance....then the risks to humanity....and to states of the Middle East are grave indeed."

Enter the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)

IAEA's August 30 report on Iran was bad news for the Bush administration based on what its Director, Mohamed ElBaradei, told the press: "This is the first time Iran is ready to discuss all outstanding issues which triggered the crisis in confidence. It's a significant step. There are clear guidelines, so it's not, as some people are saying, an open-ended invitation to dallying with the agency or a ruse to prolong negotiations to avoid sanctions....I'm clear at this stage you need to give Iran a chance to prove its stated goodwill."

The Bush administration was dismissive to enraged in response with statements claiming the agreement is inadequate and Tehran must suspend all (its perfectly legal) nuclear enrichment, or else. State Department spokesman Tom Casey disdainfully said: "There is no partial credit here. Iran has refused to comply with its international obligations, and as a result of that the international community (meaning the US and other nations it can bully, bribe or threaten) is going to continue to ratchet up the pressure."

The message is clear and all known information confirms it. Washington wants regime change in Iran. The open question is by what means and when. It doesn't matter that Iran is a signatory to the 1970 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), is in full compliance with it, and in 1974 entered into an agreement with the IAEA "for the application of safeguards in connection with the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons" to remain in force as long as Iran is so obligated under NPT provisions. The agreement stipulates all Iranian "source or special fissionable materials" and activities relating to them are subject to IAEA Safeguards "with a view to preventing diversion of nuclear energy from peaceful purposes."

IAEA reported Iran's uranium enrichment program slowed, is operating well below capacity, and isn't producing nuclear fuel in significant amounts. As of August 19, it had 1968 centrifuges operating and 656 others in various stages of assembly or testing. IAEA verified this level of enrichment is well below what's needed to build a nuclear bomb. IAEA also said an outstanding issue related to plutonium experiments was satisfactorily resolved.

Iran and IAEA also announced a timetable to resolve by year end "all outstanding questions" regarding the implementation of Iran's Safeguards Agreement as well as other non or less relevant questions. They include: lab experiments involving minute amounts of plutonium and plutonium-210 and the source of the enriched uranium micro-contamination at a technical University in Tehran. Although not obligated to do so, Iran also agreed to resolve other minor issues as a show of good faith. As it's now proceeding, Iran is on track to verify total compliance with its Safeguard Agreement obligations by yearend. That should make it less vulnerable to a US attack, but don't bet on it. Bush administration officials are never short on reasons to justify its plans and facts on the ground won't deter them.

They've already denounced the IAEA report as an Iranian ploy to buy time and seems to imply IAEA partnered with Iran against Washington. ElBaradei's response to this was: "My responsibility is to look at the big picture. If I see a situation deteriorating (and) it could lead to war, I have to raise the alarm or give my advice." Earlier he said: "I have no brief other than to make sure we don't go into another war or that we go crazy into killing each other. You do not want to give (an) additional argument to the new (Bush administration) crazies who say 'let's go and bomb Iran.' "

Bush Administration Strategy: Usually Wrong but Never in Doubt

In the run-up to its March, 2003 attack on Iraq, the Bush administration proved it didn't lack tricks and schemes to justify war. Iran now faces the same threat with one provocative act from Washington after another. In an unprecedented and outrageous move against a sovereign state, the New York Times and Washington Post reported August 15 the administration plans to designate Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps (a major branch of its military) a "global terrorist" organization. It's based on unsubstantiated claims IRGC's elite Quds Force is arming, training and directing Shiite militias involved in attacking US Iraqi troops.

It contradicts Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki, however, that Iran's role in the region is constructive. That comment runs counter to Bush claiming Iran as "the world's leading state sponsor of terrorism, (is) active(ly) pursui(ng)....technology that could lead to nuclear weapons (and) We will confront this danger before it is too late."

Washington further insists IRGC is helping Taliban fighters in Afghanistan, interfering in various other ways in Iraq, and is aiding US-designated "terrorist" groups like Hezbollah and Hamas. It has no evidence, reports are CIA confirms it, but no matter. All that counts is Washington claims it, case closed. That's how schoolyard bullies run playgrounds and global godfathers do it everywhere.

In the long-running US-Iran saga, it remains to be seen how events will play out. Expect more heated rhetoric, and don't ignore Dick Cheney's influence. Barnett Rubin's recent comments about him from his Global Affairs blog are all over the internet. Cheney's already unofficially on record urging war on Iran and presently proposes bombing suspected Quds Force sites in Iraq. Earlier reports were he and other administration hard-liners considered air attacks against Quds Force headquarters near Tehran. If they come, it risks all-out war so, for now, they were tabled.

Barnett now says he has a message from a well-connected insider that "the Office of the Vice-President (plans) to roll out a campaign for war with Iran in the week after Labor Day" to be backed by hawkish think tanks and similar elements in the dominant media. It will involve a "heavy sustained assault on the airwaves" to win over public support that will be considered successful at "35 - 40 percent."

It's already begun on-air and on the pages of the lead and most influential proponent for war on Iraq in the Judith Miller days, The New York Times. It may now be playing the same role promoting war with Iran with one example showing up in Michael Slackman and Nazila Fathi's September 3 article: "On Two Fronts, One Nuclear, Iran Is Defiant." Its headlined tone (differing from explanatory comments buried below) contradicts IAEA evidence and claims "to reaffirm the country's refusal to back down to pressure from the United States over its nuclear program and its role in Iraq."

That came after an opening salvo that "Iran's leaders issued dual, defiant statements on Sunday (September 2)." It continued saying President Ahmadinejad claimed the nation had 3,000 active centrifuges to enrich uranium (IAEA inspections confirm 1968), and "the top ayatollah (Ali Khamenei) appoint(ed) a new Islamic Revolutionary Guards commander who once advocated military force against students." This is just a sampling of what's ahead from the Times and other dominant media elements. They're enlisted, like in 2002, to beat the drums of war and maybe get one for their efforts.

Then there's Congress on both sides of the aisle and presidential candidates hawkishly posturing for whatever they imagine it gains them. The public overwhelmingly opposes more war and wants the Iraq one ended. But those ideas are nowhere in sight on the campaign trail or Capitol Hill where the Iran Counter-Proliferation Act of 2007 will likely pass easily now that Congress is reconvened. It cleared the House Foreign Affairs Committee 37 to 1 June 28 and after passing both Houses will become effective January 1, 2008. It hardens the existing Iran Sanctions Act by closing loopholes in it with the intent to thwart all foreign investment in Iran and strangle the country economically.

It also prohibits nuclear cooperation between the US and any nation aiding Iran's commercial nuclear program and requests the White House designate Iran's IRGC a "terrorist" group and block assets of any nation, organization or group supporting it. As summer wanes, fall approaches and the administration touts progress in Iraq it claims will continue (with Bush's grandstanding six hour visit for a staged performance at Al Asad Air Base in Al Anbar province part of it), the prospect for more "progress" Iraqi-style awaits Iran. That's unless public pressure builds and/or cooler heads in Washington and other capitals denounce what some distinguished analysts believe may ignite WW III if it comes. That's incentive enough for us all to become engaged and stop this rush to madness in the Middle East not likely to be contained where it starts.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to The Steve Lendman News and Information Hour on TheMicroEffect.com Saturdays at noon US central time.