Reviewing James Petras and Henry Veltmeyer's "Multinationals on Trial"

Reviewing James Petras and Henry Veltmeyer's "Multinationals on Trial" - by Stephen Lendman

James Petras is Binghamton University, New York Professor Emeritus of Sociology whose credentials and achievements are long and impressive. He's a noted academic figure on the left and a well-respected Latin American expert. He's also a prolific author of hundreds of articles and 64 books including his latest one titled "Multinationals on Trial: Foreign Investment Matters," co-authored with Henry Veltmeyer, and subject of this review.

Henry Veltmeyer has collaborated with Petras before on previous books. They include "Globalization Unmasked," "Social Movements and State Power," "A System in Crisis" and others. He's Professor of Sociology and International Development Studies at Saint Mary's University, Canada and Universidad Autonoma de Zacatecas, Mexico. He's also Editor-in-Chief of the Canadian Journal of International Development Studies and, like Petras, is a prolific author of many books and articles focused mainly on Latin American issues, globalized trade, alternative models and approaches and progressive social movements.

"Multinationals on Trial" deals with a core issue of our time - the economic power of giant corporations, their dominant role as agents and partners of imperialism, and the way they plunder developing nations. The book is a powerful indictment of unfettered "free market" capitalism and how foreign direct investment (FDI) is its main exploitive tool. Below is a detailed review of its compelling contents.

The authors state upfront how controversial corporate giants are, especially with regard to their "type of capital," how they use it operationally, and "the conditions associated with it." Specifically, the book deals with foreign direct investment (FDI) and debunks the following commonly held notions:

-- that it's "indispensable" to accessing essential financial resources;

-- that it brings with it "collateral benefits" like "technology transfers" and job creation; and

-- that overall it's a "catalyst of development" and thus an "indispensable" vehicle of growth and way for developing nations to integrate into the "new world economic order."

Rather than aiding these nations, the authors call FDI "a mechanism for empire-centred capital accumulation, a powerful lever for political control and for reordering the world economy." They offer an alternative approach in the final chapter, free from FDI imperial bondage.

Chapter 1 - Empire and Imperialism

The oldest empires go back centuries before the better known ones in ancient Rome, Persia and the one Alexander the Great built, but the authors deal only with the modern post-WW II era dominated by the US. Imperial Britain was shattered, colonialism was unraveling, Soviet Russia was devastated, and America stood alone as the world's preeminent economic, political and military superpower with every intention to keep it that way.

It did so going back to when US delegates dominated the Bretton Woods, NH UN Monetary and Financial Conference to establish a postwar international monetary system of convertible currencies, fixed exchange rates, free trade, the US dollar as the world's reserve currency linked to gold, and those of other nations fixed to the dollar. In addition, an institutional framework was designed to establish a market-based capital accumulation process that would ensure (post-war) that newly liberated colonial nations would pursue capitalist economic development beneficial to the victorious imperial powers that would soon include the Axis ones as well.

Post-war, the "US foreign policy establishment" began an unending debate on how America could stay preeminent and solidify its dominance. It began with NATO, OECD and other formal alliances with our western European partners that were "built on the foundation of the transnational corporation (as the) economic 'shock-troops' of the system." Tactics varied along the way, but the goals remained unchanged - "to enhance US hegemony and its domination of the new world order." This requires having supportive allies and the US public willing to go along with overseas adventurism like the Bush administration's foreign wars that became overreach and "a major impediment to empire building."

The authors state that wherever imperial power is projected in any form it generates diverse resistance in "every 'popular' sector of 'civil society.' " They also stress that its "omnipresence" can be a weakness, not a strength, and may lead to its impotence. This is the condition of America today under the Bush administration. Its plan for imperial dominance is in tatters, or as the authors put it, "wishful thinking or imperial hubris." It failed in the Middle East, Central Asia, Venezuela and may be unraveling in Pakistan under Musharraf's dictatorship. The country is a rogue nuclear state in unresolved turmoil that has a lot to do with deep social unrest and a very unpopular US alliance in the "war on terror."

Nonetheless, the US remains strong and resilient, and today's defeats don't spell its demise or even signal retrenchment. With its power and resources, it can blunder often as it has in the past, then rebound, and again go on the attack as its doing in Somalia, continues against Cuba, and against Hugo Chavez in Venezuela as it seeks a way to oust its Latin American nemesis despite past failed efforts.

So despite setbacks, America's imperial agenda persists, and here's how it functions:

-- through "unequal" bilateral and multilateral trade and other agreements;

-- with lots of help from willing "outside collaborators and subsidized clients;"

-- through a "divide and conquer" strategy that worked in Yugoslavia, did at first in Afghanistan (under tribal warlords) and apparently is the scheme in Iraq with the Kurdish North already separate;

-- - political destabilization, assassinations or coup d'etats to remove opposition regimes and install compliant ones; and

-- proxy or direct war as a last resort when others fail to accomplish regime change; but even conquest doesn't guarantee success as Iraq and Afghanistan prove; resistance builds, military costs mount, public support wanes, allies withdraw support and the whole effort may fail but not deter new ones at other times in other places.

Chapter 2 - Imperialisms, Old and New

The authors note that capital accumulation is the "fundamental driving force of economic growth," has been for over 100 years, and occurred in six phases:

-- capitalist industrialization in the 19th century up to around 1870;

-- the fusion of industrial and finance capital and emergence of monopolies and territorial divisions among imperial powers (the US, Europe and Japan) up to 1914;

-- imperial war, depression, Fordism-type mass production, "taming of capitalism" social reform and defeat of fascism to 1945;

-- the "golden age" of capitalist high growth, decolonization, nation-building and state-led "international development to 1973;"

-- transitional crisis and restructuring in the 1970s; and

-- the age of Washington Consensus neoliberalism, globalized trade, free market "reforms" and "neoimperialism" to the present.

The authors note that incomes across the world converged somewhat during the "golden age of capitalism" post-WW II up to 1970 after which things changed. Now after a generation under Washington Consensus neoliberalism, no such convergence exists and the Global North-South disparity keeps widening to the detriment of developing nations. North-based corporate giants have grown so huge and dominant that the largest of them represent half or more of the world's 100 largest economies. In addition, multinational corporations (MNCs) "as a global entity" account for over 90% of world trade with 30 - 40% of it being intra-firm. The authors argue that these institutions operate as "functional units and an agency of economic imperialism."

Post-WW II, the US alone held the "commanding heights" of the world economy. Compared to today, the authors cite statistics that are staggering. With 6% of world population, the US had over 59% of its developed reserves. It generated 46% of its electricity, 38% of its production, and it held half or more of world gold and currency reserves. Twenty-five years later all that changed, and by 1971 a dwindling supply of gold and growing trade deficit got Richard Nixon to close the gold window, abandon the Bretton Woods system, and let the US dollar float freely in world markets. Ever since, the greenback has been faith-based with no intrinsic value and no longer "good as gold." Since it's uncollateralized paper or fiat currency, it's strong when it's in demand but weak, like today, when it's out of favor.

During the troubled 1970s, the US manipulated exchange and interest rates to improve its export position, and in the Reagan era began a generational assault on labor that ended the long-standing practice of industry sharing productivity gains with its workers. Corporations also began relocating labor-intensive production abroad to low wage countries that in the 1980s "became a cornerstone of a new global economy." With it came foreign direct investment (FDI) with the rest of the book focusing on its harmful effects.

The authors point out that in 1970 a "triadic structure" (in the US, Europe and Japan) characterized the world economy. However, after two decades of restructuring, a different picture emerged with China and a group of newly industrialized countries in Southeast Asia becoming the most dynamic center of world growth with the US struggling to hang on to its economic dominance even while its major corporations continue to prosper because they operate worldwide.

A critical corporate issue is productivity growth and how to overcome its pronounced sluggishness. Solutions used embrace "technological conversion" that includes new production, communication and transportation technologies. It also involves an assault on labor that caused a sharp reduction in its share of national income (10% alone from 1974 - 1983). It means loss of jobs as well because businesses downsize and shift operations abroad to low wage markets where workers are usually unorganized and more easily repressed.

The authors point out that by the 1980s "a new international division of labour and a global production system were in place" in what emerged as a "new world order" of global capitalism. New governance rules were established that were embodied in the 1994-formed World Trade Organization (WTO). By 1990, Washington Consensus neoliberalism became the "new imperialism" with big demands that developing states privatize public assets, deregulate their markets and open them to allow free trade and financial flows.

Under this system, MNCs are the world capitalist system's "basic operating unit" and "key agents of US imperialism" that all too often involves the projection of military power in the form of war. Their success and profitability are vital to a healthy economy and a thriving imperial project. The authors explain that the "US state identifies the interests of corporate capital with the 'national interest,' " and it freely commits the state's resources on its behalf for that dual benefit.

Chapter 3 - Foreign Investment at Work

Until the 1980s, MNCs were constrained under host country rules. But the "new economic model" freed them to move almost at will as developing nations began opening their markets, deregulating them, and welcoming MNCs for the perceived benefits their capital and technological expertise could provide. The authors explained the process and what happened under it.

They began by noting capital flows are public and private. The former is between governments in the form of "foreign aid" gifts or most often loans from the US-dominated IMF, World Bank and Inter-American Development Bank that come with unpleasant strings. The private kind consists of three main types: foreign bank lending from commercial banks or international lending agencies, portfolio investment (PI) financial instrument purchases like stocks and bonds, and foreign direct investment (FDI) that itself comes in two forms.

FDI involves the purchase of at least 10% of a foreign business enterprise's assets. "Greenfield" FDI involves the creation of a new facility like a factory while the "Brownfield" type buys assets of existing firms through mergers or acquisitions. In Latin America in the 1990s, over half of FDI was the latter kind.

The subject of debt financing is then discussed with the authors noting at reasonable levels it's vital for enhancing growth. But not to excess that got developing countries in trouble for the past three decades. Even in the 1980s, it became clear that debt levels were so high in Latin America they made economic growth impossible. They also caused a debt crisis by mid-decade that especially affected Argentina, Brazil and Mexico.

The Global North thus needed Plan B to reduce the debt bomb to manageable proportions, avoid default and allow troubled countries to maintain their payment obligations. One measure taken was the so-called "Brady Plan," named for Ronald Reagan and GHW Bush's Treasury Secretary, Nicholas Brady. The scheme was to forgive a small part of the debt and convert the rest into Brady IOU Bonds repayable in the long term to make the burden less onerous. It worked as no heavily indebted nation defaulted, but they had to adopt fiscal discipline to do it: structural adjustment privatizations, cuts in social spending, deregulation and more. These nations also suffered zero economic growth, a sharp reduction of living standards for its working people and producers, increased social inequity and greater unemployment and poverty.

Along with burdensome debt levels, FDI has also been a repressive instrument, especially in Latin America with its investment-friendly climate. The amount of it (as well as PI) was small until the 1990s but then grew dramatically as part of a shift from debt to equity financing with the largest portion of it going to large developing countries like Brazil, Argentina and Mexico and to the eight largest ones in the world overall getting 84% of it, according to World Bank figures. China got the most attracting 22% of all FDI since 1989 while Sub-Saharan Africa got nothing except for South Africa. Post-2004, manufacturing in China, India and Mexico got the largest FDI amounts, but natural resources and especially energy are also important, and a trend toward investing in services (especially telecommunications) is growing as well.

Latin America became the most favored destination for FDI inflows in the 1990s that hit their peak in the 1997 - 2001 period because friendly regimes like Cardoso's Brazil "bent over backwards" to accomodate it, mostly through merger and acquisition privatizations. The authors review facts they call "startling" and show how the "imperial-centered neoliberal model has led to the long term, large-scale pillage of every country in Latin America." In dollar terms, it amounted to $585 billion in interest payments and profits remitted mostly to US-based MNCs. More revenue was gotten from royalty payments, shipping, insurance, other fees plus billions of illegal monetary transfers by Latin American elites to offshore accounts.

This explains the sluggish regional growth in the 1990s - 3% a year, then 0.3% in 2001 and 0.9% in 2002. It's because of exploitive resource transfers and capital flows large enough to have made Latin America "one of the economic pillars of the US empire." Some of the transfers are hidden, and the authors put them in two categories:

-- one-way neoliberal structured international trade with open Latin American markets for US exports and reciprocal controlled ones in the US; the formula the authors describe is to export capital to the region in the form of FDI and import raw materials in return.

-- structured capital-labor relations with workers very much on the short end; the authors note how the "organization and export of labour" is used to pillage a country's resources and transfer them north; they cite one 2003 study estimating the net gain for the US and corresponding loss to Mexico of about $29 billion a year because of migration - indirectly through repatriated maquillardora profits and directly through exported farm labor and educated Mexicans who represent 40% of the nation's migrants benefitting the US at Mexico's expense.

Chapter 4 - The Social Dimension of Foreign Investment

The authors cite the justification "development economists" give for keeping labor's share of national income low. They claim it's because economic growth depends on capital accumulation, and households have a "low capacity to save and invest" since they spend all they get. The rich, in contrast, have a high propensity to save and invest so the more income they have the greater the economic benefit. In the 1970s and 80s, this kind of reasoning led to a class war between capital and labor with wages in the US losing 10% of their value from 1974 to 1984 and in Latin America and Sub-Saharan Africa even more - 40% in Chile and Mexico and 50% in many other countries.

Then consider economic growth under the neoliberal economic model centered around FDI. It promised prosperity but delivered failure. After 20 years at the end of the 1990s, average per capita growth overall was cut in half from the earlier period of "state-led development." It was reduced to 1.5% from 3% in industrialized countries and in developing ones (excluding China and India) to 1.2% from 3.5%. For the poorest countries, it was even worse going from 1.9% to a negative 0.5% per year. The only exceptions were a group of eight Asian "rapidly growing countries" whose governments followed a policy of state intervention outside the neoliberal model and proved their way works best.

The authors cite data to show, aside from China and India, that the "neoliberal era of globalizing capital and neoimperialism" led to rising worldwide income inequality between richer and poorer countries and between higher and lower income classes within countries. They explained that "Of the countries with the highest indices of poverty, social exclusion, and income inequality 41 are in Africa; 10 in Asia; and six in the Americas," and per capital income in all developing regions (except South and East Asia) declined compared to industrialized OECD states. During the two decade neoliberal period, inequality between rich and poor nations nearly doubled. It proves how false the notion is that unfettered free market forces create a "trickle down" effect to the poor that lets them benefit from economic growth. Just the opposite happened and it continues.

The authors show how the "magnitude of the global income divide and associated problems is staggering" with the richest population quintile consuming 86% of all products and services and the poorest one only 1.3%. And the social inequality fallout is even worse - high unemployment, desperate poverty, malnutrition, untreated illnesses and low life expectancy with hundreds of thousands of needless daily children's deaths. And yet economists at the IMF and World Bank continue to tout the benefits of neoliberal "structural reforms" in spite of clear evidence they fail. In the pre-neoliberal 1950s, 60s and 70s, income inequality decreased overall but has increased in most countries since then. Again, the culprits are privatization, financial "liberalization," deregulation and downsizing with governments exploiting working people for capital.

Take Mexico, for example. It has 11 billionaires with combined incomes exceeding the total for the country's 40 million poorest. But the same thing is true everywhere with developing nations faring the worst. It affects 2.5 billion people in the world who are unable to meet their basic needs of food, shelter, clothing and medical care let alone education, clean water, adequate sanitation and other goods and services people in the West consider essential and take for granted.

Using Latin America as an example, the authors show how capitalists in the region sustained their profits by exploiting ordinary workers. During the neoliberal period, labor's share of national income was cut from 40% to less than 20%. Even today in countries like Venezuela (with all its social gains under Hugo Chavez since 1999) and Argentina, worker wages are still below their 1970 levels. It's because of market deregulation that give employers arbitrary power to fire workers, cut wages and hire temporary and casual labor. It's gotten bad enough to hit the middle class as well and cause a rising level of urban poor. A "new urban poor" has emerged who aren't simply "rural migrants" but include "socially excluded and downwardly mobile workers and the lower middle class (who've been fired) and have found (other) employment in the burgeoning (lower-paying, less secure) informal sector."

These people, the unemployed and "rural-to-urban migrants" constitute a reserve army of labor that keeps wages in the formal sector down and workers' bargaining power weak. Then there's the notion of "social exclusion" reflecting the condition of the poor with the authors identifying its six "major pillars:"

-- social production dispossession showing up in landlessness and rural outmigration;

-- no access to urban and rural markets or for wage employment;

-- no access to "good quality" employment;

-- reduced access to government social services;

-- no access to adequate income; and

-- no political power.

In contrast, 15 - 20% of Latin Americans enjoy a "First World" lifestyle with the authors citing their array of luxuries that are unimaginable to the poor and most middle income earners. And whatever the economic condition, they benefit from the imperial system regardless because neoliberalism works by taking from the exploited many and giving generously to the privileged few. Put another way, it's a hugely out of balance give and take, and it was set up that way despite its proponents denial.

The authors review the period when the World Bank discovered poverty and carried on its kind of three-decade war against it that was the equivalent of fighting fire by throwing fuel on it. Readers know the drill by now - governments getting out of the way and promoting unfettered free market policies, pro-growth, structural adjustments and the rest of the package favoring capital over people on the nonsensical claim they'll benefit eventually. By now Latin Americans know "manana" never comes, and even some World Bank economists like Joseph Stiglitz figured it out.

The authors sum up three decades of World Bank efforts saying we're "where we were in the 1970s and in a number of ways further back," especially with regard to greater poverty that's now hitting the middle class. Based on incontrovertible evidence, social inequality and poverty at the end of the 1990s stem from the "pro-growth, pro-poor" World Bank "imperialist policies" and the FDI regime along with deregulated, unfettered markets giving capital free reign to pillage for profit. But there's hope in the form of resistance with the authors stating "capitalist development in its neoliberal form is clearly on its last legs." For the poor of the world, it can't come soon enough.

Chapter 5 - Policy Dynamics of Foreign Investment

Here the authors examine the record of FDI since 1980 when markets were deregulated and capital flows were "liberated from control." Again they cite the notion that economic growth depends on the accumulation of capital, developing countries are deficient in it, and private multinational commercial and investment banks and MNCs will ride to the rescue with FDI. And while capital fuels growth, international trade is "one of its driving forces." Two models are considered. One gives the state an active role, and it worked during the 1940 - 1970 "golden age of capitalism" period. That's when "international development" meant per capita economic growth based on "industrialization, modernization and capitalist development."

That period came to an end in the troubled 1970s, and a "counter-revolution in development thinking and practice" took over. The scheme that became neoliberalism turned capital towards exports and induced governments to cut social benefits to raise levels of savings, productivity, profits and productive investments.

World Bank economists were tasked to create the new model that became its Structural Adjustment Program (SAP) with eight major components:

-- devalued currencies for stability;

-- privatizations;

-- capital market and trade "liberalization" meaning unfettered free market capitalism;

-- deregulation;

-- labor market "reform" meaning lower wages and loss of worker rights;

-- downsizing;

-- decentralizing policy formulation and decision-making; and

-- a free market for capital, goods and services meaning all benefits accrue to the Global North by pillaging developing nations.

Former World Bank economist and neoliberal critic, Joseph Stiglitz, called this package the "steps to hell" two years after he resigned his position in 2000. All the evidence to date proves it with the authors stating "the neoliberal model of capitalist development (is) unsustainable, (it's) both dysfunctional and politically destabilizing." Confirming data and examples are cited throughout the book, but in this chapter Mexico is featured in great detail from 1980 - 2005. It's covered under four presidents with each in his own way outdoing or at least matching the excesses of his predecessor with the people of Mexico the poorer for it.

This review can only touch on that period briefly beginning with Miguel De La Madrid (1982 - 1988) who was the first to begin reversing a state-led approach to relieve the "debt crisis" stemming from the 1976 - 1982 period of over-borrowing. It was IMF to the rescue with its usual package of "reform" measures to "liberalize" capital, encourage exports, deregulate markets, devalue the currency, and demand fiscal discipline and privatizations. De La Madrid obliged.

Next came Carlos Salinas de Gortari (1988 - 1994) who introduced a second round of structural reforms. It included over 1000 more privatizations that sold off the most important state enterprises like the banks and state telephone company, TELMEX. The international financial community loved him, but his term ended in tatters when the economy crashed in 1994.

Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de Leon (1994 - 2000) inherited the mess that broke out right after he took office. With help from a $52 billion US bailout, he responded with a "stabilization program" that included deep social spending cuts and a 43% peso devaluation that caused inflation to rise 52%, thousands of businesses to close, real wages to drop 25%, and two million people to lose jobs. Zedillo was also Mexico's first president under NAFTA that went into effect January 1, 1994. And he continued neoliberal "reforms" and even exceeded his predecessor's commitment to global capitalism.

So did Vincente Fox Quesdad (2000 - 2006) in his zeal to live up to his PAN party's rightest agenda compared to the more centrist PRI during its continuous 72 year rule. The PAN under Fox practiced fiscal conservatism and free market economics that maintained the neoliberal agenda of his predecessors even in the face of widespread opposition that constrained him from going further. The authors state that the Fox era "brought an end to a cycle of neoliberal policies." His administration failed to achieve sustainable growth and showed "the neoliberal model is economically dysfuntional and has exhausted its economic limits."

Chapter 6 - Foreign Investment and the State

The authors' dominant theme is how harmful FDI is to developing nations even as it pretends to be beneficial. Most of it is also "subsidized and risk-free" to investors, and "relies on securing monopoly profits (by buying) state enterprises (on favorable terms) and control(ing)....strategic markets." Much or most of it provides no new productive investment recipient countries need to grow, prosper and help their people.

The authors rightfully describe the process as pillage. State-owned assets are transferred to private hands, and revenues that once went to national treasuries now go to corporate coffers. Further, deals are justified on the false claim they increase competition. False. All they do is put existing enterprises under new management, and in the case of "natural monopolies" like public utilities, it allows private owners to hike prices substantially and price the country's poor out of the market, but that's just for starters.

Foreign investors make big demands, and host countries oblige - tax deferrals and exemptions, direct subsidies, infrastructure development, free or low cost land, deregulation, assumption of "transition" costs of the inevitable downsizing that follows, legal security protection through bilateral investment treaties (BITs), labor training, and more. Other schemes are in the form of Trade Related Investment Measures (TRIMs) and Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs). And when nations balk during WTO trade talks, like in the faltering Doha Round, they're pressured to come around through bilateral deals with neighboring states.

With this kind of advantaging, local enterprises don't stand a chance, especially small ones. They nearly always lose and end up being bought, becoming a satellite supplier, or going bankrupt. Labor also loses out. Wages are frozen or cut, benefits slashed or ended, job protection ends, working conditions deteriorate, unions weakened, and inequality grows as the wealth gap widens substantially. In short, FDI works one-way - all for capital at the expense of developing economies and its workers. An alternative development strategy is needed, and it's readily available to states willing to buck the system, withstand the pressure to conform, and go another way.

Chapter 7 - Anti-Imperialism and Foreign Investment.

Here, the authors first identify the myths about foreign investment that are needed to sell this snake oil to developing states. Seven of them are briefly listed below:

-- Economic growth depends on FDI; false; in fact, FDI is attracted by economic growth;

-- FDI creates productive, competitive new enterprises; false; it mostly buys existing ones, transfers little new technology, does little or no new research, and crowds out local enterprises;

-- FDI provides links and access to foreign markets; false; it's often used to buy natural resources for export and to repatriate profits and eliminate jobs;

-- FDI provides tax revenues and hard currency earnings; false; revenues are repatriated, tax fraud abounds, and the impact on the balance of payments is negative;

-- Good financial standing and integrity of the system depends on maintaining debt payments; false; much past debt is odious and servicing it harms local economies and in the case of Argentina led to an economic collapse in 2001;

-- Developing nations need FDI for development for lack of local sources; false; most FDI is national savings borrowing to buy local enterprises; it doesn't inject new capital into economies; and

-- FDI provides an anchor for new investment; false again; the opposite is true as investors freely relocate to lower-wage countries creating a boom and bust environment when they arrive. Bottom line - FDI is poison unless used moderately and is tightly controlled.

The authors present arguments for and against FDI with the latter only considered below:

-- FDI strips states of their ability to control "investment decisions, pricing, production and future growth;"

-- FDI results in long-term capital outflows repatriated to corporate coffers;

-- FDI results in "unbalanced and overly specialized production," especially in commodity areas;

-- Tax, subsidy and other concessions to FDI deprive developing states of needed revenues;

-- FDI most often only puts existing enterprises under new management; it seldom creates new ones;

-- FDI creates "enterprise enclaves," imports technology linked to "outside production and distribution networks," and doesn't help local economies;

-- FDI often controls local banking that lets it "shape state credit and interest policy" and decide what industry sectors to favor and at what cost; and

-- With investors attracted to extractive industries and freed from regulatory constraints, environmental devastation results.

In sum - FDI endangers "national independence, popular sovereignty, and severely compromis(es)" developing states' ability to control their destiny and represent all their people. It's a "risky, costly and limiting (one-way) strategy." Developing nations need to minimize it because of its harmful economic, social and political costs.

Chapter 8 - Anti-Imperialist Regime Dynamics

Contrary to Margaret Thatcher's TINA dictum (there is no alternative), many others are better and the authors list them:

-- Reinvestment of profits into local production to stimulate a "multiplier" effect and increase local consumption;

-- Control foreign trade to retain foreign exchange earnings;

-- Invest pension funds in productive activities;

-- Create development banks for overseas workers' remittances home so funds can be used productively;

-- Place a moratorium on debt payments to stop servicing the odious portion of it:

-- Recover stolen treasury funds and property;

-- Recover unpaid taxes;

-- Establish land taxes and expropriate or buy underutilized land to be used for agrarian reform and greater agricultural productivity;

-- Liquidate overseas investments and reinvest them locally; and

-- Maximize employment and reduce underemployment.

In cases where a country's taxable resources and overseas earnings are limited, FDI can help if used moderately and constrained. Ways to do it include maximizing "strategic national ownership and control" and relying on short-term deals that include training workers and contracting with skilled advisers for whatever technical help is needed.

One successful model reviewed is WEPC - Worker-Engineer Public Control or worker-managed enterprises (WMEs). Salvador Allende used them in over 100 factories in Chile while he was in office. They attained greater productivity, higher worker motivation and achieved significant social, health and working conditions improvements while they remained in place. WEPCs aren't problem-free, however, and the main one is they're targeted by imperial states for destruction because their policies aren't corporate friendly. Nonetheless, their advantages greatly outweigh the negatives. They include:

-- Minimizing tax evasion to increase state revenues;

-- Social investment in lieu of repatriated profits;

-- Avoidance of capital flight;

-- Emphasizing long-term R & D over speculative investment;

-- Social welfare and betterment over savage capitalism; and

-- Fixed capital and upwardly mobile labor over mobile capital and fixed labor.

The authors persuasively show that FDI is a cancer. Once established, it spreads like a virus, "corrupt(ing) local officials, brib(ing) regulators (and) present(ing) a different 'role model' for state executives - one attuned to luxury living, big salaries, privileges, and, above all" a neoliberal ideological commitment. Another way is possible and vital to the health, welfare and growth of developing nations. It "puts the worker-engineer public sector-led model at the centre of development," and empirical evidence shows it works.

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 Mondays at noon US Central time.

Tragedy and Travesty at Annapolis

Tragedy and Travesty at Annapolis - by Stephen Lendman

November 27 at Annapolis kicks off the latest Israeli-Palestinian Middle East peace process round that may be an historic first. It's the first time in memory the legitimate government of one side is excluded, and that alone dooms it. Like previous rounds, it's more pretense than peace, and as Jonathan Steele puts it in his November 16 Guardian column "The Palestinian path to peace does not go via Annapolis....so what do....Palestinians do next....In their decades-long bid for justice, they have tried everything:" armed struggle to compromise, but nothing works and the reason is simple. Their sincerity isn't matched by Israel, the West, other Arab states and the US most of all with all the muscle in its hands to push or constrain Israelis to be serious and fair. That's the problem. How can one side negotiate in good faith without a willing partner.

Nothing new will be introduced this time; the conference is for one day; no peace negotiations will be held; Israeli Prime Minister Olmert calls the summit "a meeting, not a negotiating session;" respected Middle East correspondent Robert Fisk says Olmert "has no more interest in a Palestinian state than....Ariel Sharon;" no advance agreement of intentions or principles has been reached; and it's still not sure who's coming.

Further, Gaza remains under siege, the West Bank is also terrorized, settlements continue being built, Palestinian land keeps being taken, more lives in the Territories are being lost, suffering remains unbearable, and hope for the beleaguered people again will be dashed. Their message on the ground is clear, but no one's listening. They won't accept surrender for peace. They want nothing less than freedom and justice in their own unoccupied land. Israel won't give it to them, so the struggle continues.

But just in case, neoconservative hard-liners are taking no chances on something of substance from Annapolis reports Jim Lobe in his November 22 Electronic Intifada article. Skepticism or not about prospects this time has them united to assure Israel gives nothing away now or ever. Secretary Rice is their target because she's pushing for her kind of no state-two-state solution by January, 2009 when a new administration takes over. It doesn't matter how flawed it is as long as something resembling progress emerges.

But even that's too much for hard-liners like super-hawk Frank Gaffney who calls any type Palestinian state "a dagger pointed at the heart of Israel and a new safe-haven for terror aimed at the United States and other Western nations." Others like him agree and support continued Middle East war until the entire region is subdued under US-Israeli control. That means no concessions at Annapolis, defeating Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, no pullback from Iraq, and attacking Iran. A very scary scenario as another peace offensive gets underway with its participants pretending it's real.

Looking Back at Past Peace Process Futility

Until the late 1980s, the US and Israel were content to ignore regional and other calls for peaceful diplomacy, but that began to change with the outbreak of the first intifada mass uprising in 1987 when oppressed Palestinians fought back and caught the media's attention. The region exploded again when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in August, 1990, and the Gulf war followed in 1991. When it ended, the US and Soviet Union jointly sponsored the watershed Madrid peace conference at which Israel negotiated face-to-face with Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and the Palestinians for the first time. They continued after its conclusion on two parallel tracks to resolve past conflicts and sign bilateral peace treaties along with multilateral negotiations on issues affecting the whole region.

Madrid promised hope and was the catalyst for the Oslo Accords and their Declaration of Principles that were signed on the White House lawn in September, 1993. They began secretly with a post-Gulf war weakened PLO and delivered betrayal. They established a vaguely-defined negotiating process, specified no outcome, and let Israel delay, refuse to make concessions, and continue colonizing the Occupied Territories. In return, Palestinians got nothing for renouncing armed struggle, recognizing Israel's right to exist, and leaving major unresolved issues for indefinite later final status talks. They included an independent Palestinian state, the right of return, the future of Israeli settlements, borders, water rights, and status of Jerusalem as sovereign Palestinian territory and future home of its capital.

Israel got more as well - the right to establish a new Palestinian Authority (PA) to police a restive indigenous population. Yasser Arafat and other PLO leaders were in exile in Tunis following the 1982 Lebanon war. They got to come home, take control of their people, and be rewarded for being Israel's enforcer.

Oslo I led to Oslo II that was signed in Taba, Egypt in September, 1995, countersigned in Washington four days later, and made things even worse with its complex document. It called for further Israeli troop redeployments beyond Gaza and major West Bank population centers and later from all rural areas except for Israeli settlements and designated military zones. The process divided the West Bank into three parts with each having distinctive borders, administration and security control rules - Areas A, B and C plus a fourth area for Greater Jerusalem. A complicated system was devised as follows:

-- Area A under Palestinian control for internal security, public order and civil affairs;

-- Area B under Palestinian civil control for 450 West Bank towns and villages with Israel having overriding authority to safeguard its settlers' security; and

-- Area C with its water resources under Israeli control and its settlements on the West Bank's most valuable land with them all connected by special by-pass roads for Jews only.

Israel has total control of the Territories and occupies most of the West Bank with its expanding settlements, by-pass roads, separation wall, military areas and no-go zones overall that are off limits to Palestinians in their own land.

The Sharm el-Sheikh Memorandum came next and was signed by Yasser Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak on September 4, 1999. Its purpose was to implement Oslo II and all other agreements since Oslo I in 1993 that included the following:

-- a 1994 Protocol on Economic Relations;

-- a Cairo Agreement on Gaza and the Jericho Area the same year;

-- the 1994 Washington Declaration and Agreement on Preparatory Transfer of Powers and Responsibilities between the two parties; and

-- the 1995 Protocol on Further Transfer of Powers and Responsibilities. Both sides agreed to resume "permanent status" talks and discuss other elements of a peace plan relating to Israeli troops redeployments, land transfers, safe passage openings between Gaza and the West Bank, a Gaza seaport, prisoner releases and other issues related to security, normal civilian life activities, international donor community aid, and a timetable for final status talks on the toughest issues.

"Permanent status" talks followed in July, 2000 at Camp David where Bill Clinton hosted Yasser Arafat and Ehud Barak. Betrayal was again planned and delivered, but the major media called Barak's offer "generous" and "unprecedented" with Arafat spurning peace for conflict. Barak insisted Arafat sign a "final agreement," declare an "end of conflict," and give up any legal basis for additional land in the Territories. There was no Israeli offer in writing, and no documents or maps were presented.

All Barak offered was from a May, 2000 West Bank map dividing the area into four isolated cantons under Palestinian administration surrounded by expanding Israeli settlements and other Israeli-controlled land. They had no direct links to each other or to Jordan. The cantons consisted of: Jericho, the southern canton to Abu Dis, a northern one including Nablus, Jenin and Tulkarm, and a central one including Ramallah. Gaza was left in limbo as a fifth canton that was resolved when Israel disengaged from the Territory in August and September, 2005 but kept total control over it and right to reenter any time. The Barak deal was so duplicitous that if Arafat accepted it any hope for real peace would be dashed. He didn't and was unfairly blamed.

The Foundation for Middle East Peace (FMEP) analyzed the deal as follows:

-- Israel only proposed relinquishing control of from 77.5 - 81% of the West Bank excluding East Jerusalem and likely intended to keep the Jordan Valley;

-- Israel claimed sovereignty over all West Jerusalem, one-third of occupied East Jerusalem, and as later developments proved wants all Greater Jerusalem exclusively for Jews;

-- Israel wanted control of the Temple Mount that Palestianians call al-Haram al-Sharif or Noble Sanctuary and is the site of the sacred Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa Mosque.

Barak's Camp David deal was all take and no give with no chance for reconciliation or resolution of the conflict's most intractable issues. It was all pretense by design, but when Ariel Sharon took over in February, 2001 he ended all further peace negotiations.

It stood that way until George Bush unveiled the Quartet's fake "road map" for peace in a June 24, 2002 speech. In it, he called for an independent Palestinian state along side Israel in peace by 2005 with good faith efforts on both sides to achieve it. The process was to be in three phases, but its prospects were doomed from the start. After the plan's launch, the region was beset by violence, Israel increased its land seizures and targeted assassinations, Palestinians responded in kind, and the humanitarian situation in the Territories became so dire it was impossible convincing either side that the road map was credible. It wasn't, and it failed like all previous efforts before it.

That's where things stood until Condoleezza Rice restarted the current Annapolis round to salvage a warmaking administration, reinvent it as a peacemaker, and manage to manipulate a fake outcome to prove it. The scheme is this, and George Bush spelled it out on November 21 when he spoke to Israeli, Palestinian and Egyptian leaders to lay the groundwork for Annapolis:

-- forty-nine countries were invited;

-- who's coming isn't sure, but Iran wasn't invited;

-- Saudi Arabia accepted with reservations; and

-- Syria was a maybe but AP reported November 25 it will now send its deputy foreign minister unlike other attendees sending foreign ministers; Syria will come because the occupied Golan is on the agenda, even though, like the Saudis, it has no formal relations with Israel.

Others listed are members of the Quartet, G-8, Arab League, permanent members of the Security Council along with Israel and the Palestinian Abbas quisling government with its legitimate one excluded that renders the process a sham.

Rice is pathetic saying "very clear signs" are evident, and "everybody's goal is the creation of a Palestinian state" with both sides on board for it. Israeli Prime Minister Olmert is just as bad claiming "Annapolis will be the jumping-off point for continued serious and in-depth negotiations (that won't) avoid any issue or ignore any division (in) our relations with the Palestinian people for many years." Nearly sixty to be exact and over 40 under occupation with no serious effort ever for resolution.

Snags still remain in the window dressing surrounding the conference with both sides so far unable to reach an acceptable joint statement to be presented in Maryland. If they're still apart when it starts, the conference will end with Rice's statement and not a joint Israeli-PA one. Either way matters little as once again fanciful language will substitute for substantive results. With Gaza under siege, Hamas uninvited, and an illegitimate government in its place, peace and any progress toward resolution can't happen. That's how it's always been and will remain until Israel begins negotiating in good faith. But that won't happen until the world community accepts nothing less because world public opinion and people of conscience demand it.

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

Also visit his blog site at sj.lendman.blogspot.com and listen to The Steve Lendman News and Information Hour on TheMicroEffect.com Mondays at noon US Central time.

Coup D'Etat Rumblings in Venezuela

Coup D'Etat Rumblings in Venezuela - by Stephen Lendman

The Bush administration tried and failed three prior times to oust Hugo Chavez since its first aborted two-day coup attempt in April, 2002. Through FOIA requests, lawyer, activist and author Eva Golinger uncovered top secret CIA documents of US involvement that included an intricate financing scheme involving the quasi-governmental agency, National Endowment of Democracy (NED), and US Agency for International Development (USAID). The documents also showed the White House, State Department and National Security Agency had full knowledge of the scheme, had to have approved it, and there's little doubt of CIA involvement as it's always part of this kind of dirty business. What's worrying now is what went on then may be happening again in what looks like a prelude to a fourth made-in-Washington attempt to oust the Venezuelan leader that must be monitored closely as events develop.

Since he took office in February, 1999, and especially after George Bush's election, Chavez has been a US target, and this time he believes credible sources point to a plot to assassinate him. That information comes from Alimamy Bakarr Sankoh, president of the Hugo Chavez International-Foundation for Peace, Friendship & Solidarity (HCI-FPFS) in a November 11 press release. Sankoh supports Chavez as "a man of peace and flamboyant champion of human dignity (who persists in his efforts in spite of) growing US blackmail, sabotage and political blasphemy."

HCI-FPFS sources revealed the plot's code name - "Operation Cleanse Venezuela" that now may be unfolding ahead of the December 2 referendum on constitutional reforms. According to Sankoh, the scheme sounds familiar - CIA and other foreign secret service operatives (including anti-Castro terrorists) aiming to destabilize the Chavez government by using "at least three concrete subversive plans" to destroy the country's social democracy and kill Chavez.

It involves infiltrating subversive elements into the country, inciting opposition within the military, ordering region-based US forces to shoot down any aircraft used by Chavez, employing trained snipers with shoot to kill orders, and having the dominant US and Venezuelan media act as supportive attack dogs. Chavez is targeted because he represents the greatest of all threats to US hegemony in the region - a good example that's spreading. Venezuela also has Latin America's largest proved oil reserves at a time supplies are tight and prices are at all-time highs.

Sankoh calls Washington-directed threats "real" and to "be treated seriously" to avoid extending Bush's Middle East adventurism to Latin America. He calls for support from the region and world community to denounce the scheme and help stop another Bush administration regime change attempt.

More information on a possible coup plot also came from a November 13 Party for Socialism and Liberation article headlined "New US plots against the Venezuelan Revolution." It states Tribuna Popular (the Communist Party of Venezuela) and Prensa Latina (the Latin American News Agency) reported: "Between Oct. 7 and Oct 9, high-ranking US officials met in Prague, Czech Republic, with parts of the Venezuelan opposition (where they were) urged to convene social uprisings, sabotage the economy and infrastructure, destroy the food transportation chain and plan a military coup." It said Paul Wolfowitz and Madeleine Albright attended along with Humberto Celli, "a well-known coup-plotter from the Venezuelan party Accion Democratica."

The article further reported Tibisay Lucena, The National Electoral Council chairman, said the Venezuelan corporate media was "stoking a mood of violence amongst right-wing students" through a campaign of agitprop, and Hermann Escarra from the "pro-coup" Comando Nacional de la Resistencia openly incited "rebellion" last August and then called for constitutional changes to be stopped "through all means possible."

The Venezuelan news agency, Diaria VEA, also weighed in saying "anonymous students planned on committing acts of destabilization" as the December 2 vote approaches. Venezuelan Radio Trans Mundial provided proof with a recorded video of a youth dumping gasoline into an armored vehicle, ramming metal barricades into police on top of other vehicles, and knocking them from their roofs and hoods onto the ground.

The Threat of Street Protest Violence

For weeks, protests with sporadic violence have been on Venezuela's streets as anti-Chavistas use middle and upper class students as imperial tools to destabilize the government and disrupt the constitutional process. The aim is to discredit and oust the Chavez government and return the country to its ugly past with Washington and local oligarchs in charge and the neoliberal model reinstated.

Venezuela's Foreign Minister, Nicolas Maduro, weighed in on this on November 8. He accused Washington of meddling by staging violent Caracas street protests against proposed constitutional reforms to extend the country's participatory social democracy. Referring to a November 7 shootout at Caracas' Central University, he said: "We don't have any doubt that the government of the United States has their hands in the scheme that led to the ambush yesterday" that Chavez calls a "fascist offensive." Several students were wounded on the streets from a clash between pro and anti-Chavez elements.

"We know the whole scheme," Maduro added, and he should as it happened before in 2002, again during the disruptive 2002-03 oil management lockout, and most often as well when elections are held to disrupt the democratic process. These are standard CIA operating tactics used many times before for 50 years in the Agency's efforts to topple independent leaders and kill them. Chavez understands what's happening, and he's well briefed and alerted by his ally, Fidel Castro, who survived over 600 US attempts to kill him since 1959. He's now 81 and very much alive but going through a difficult recovery from major surgery 15 months ago.

Chavez has widespread popular support throughout the region and from allies like Ecuador's Raphael Correa and Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega who expressed his "solidarity with the revolutionary people of Venezuela and our friend Hugo Chavez, who is being subjected to aggression from a counterrevolution fed by the traitors from inside the country and by the empire (referring to the US)." He compared the situation to his own country where similar efforts are being "financed by the United States Embassy" in Managua to support elements opposed to his Sandinista government even though it's very accommodative to Washington.

Even Brazil's Lula chimed in by calling Chavez's proposed reforms consistent with Venezuela's democratic norms, and he added: "Please, invent anything to criticize Chavez, except for lack of democracy."

Constitutional Reform As A Pretext for Protests

Washington's goal from all this is clear, but why now? Last July, Chavez announced he'd be sending Venezuela's National Assembly (AN) a proposed list of constitutional reforms to debate, consider and vote on. Under Venezuelan law, the President, National Assembly or 15% of registered voters (by petition) may propose constitutional changes. Under articles 342, 343, 344 and 345, they must then be debated three times in the legislature, amended if needed, and then submitted to a vote that requires a two-thirds majority to pass. Finally within 30 days, the public gets the last word, up or down, in a national referendum. It represents the true spirit of democracy that's unimaginable in the US where elitists control everything, elections are a sham, and the people have no say.

That was true for Venezuela earlier, but no longer. In its history, there have been 26 Constitutions since its first in 1821, but none like the 1999 Bolivarian one under Chavez that's worlds apart from the others. It created a model participatory social democracy that gave all citizens the right to vote it up or down by national referendum and then empowered them (or the government) later on to petition for change.

On August 15, Chavez did that by submitting 33 suggested amendment reforms to the Constitution's 350 articles and explained it this way: The 1999 Constitution needed updating because it's "ambiguous (and) a product of that moment. The world (today) is very different from (then). (Reforms are) essential for continuing the process of revolutionary transition" to deepen and broaden Venezuelan democracy. That's his central aim - to create a "new geometry of power" for the people along with more government accountability to them.

Proposed reforms will have little impact on the nation's fundamental political structure. They will, however, change laws with regard to politics, the economy, property, the military, the national territory as well as the culture and society and will deepen the country's social democracy.

The National Assembly (AN) completed its work on November 2 adding 25 additional articles to Chavez's proposal plus another 11 changes for a total of 69 articles that amend one-fifth of the nation's Constitution. The most important ones include:

-- extending existing constitutional law that guarantees human rights and recognizes the country's social and cultural diversity;

-- building a "social economy" to replace the failed neoliberal Washington Consensus model;

-- officially prohibiting monopolies and unjust consolidation of economic resources;

-- extending presidential terms from six to seven years;

-- allowing unlimited presidential reelections so that option is "the sovereign decision of the constituent people of Venezuela" and is a similar to the political process in countries like England, France, Germany and Australia;

-- strengthening grassroots communal councils, increasing their funding, and promoting more of them;

-- lowering the eligible voting age from 18 to 16;

-- guaranteeing free university education to the highest level;

-- prohibiting foreign funding of elections and political activity;

-- reducing the work week to 36 hours to promote more employment;

-- ending the autonomy of Venezuela's Central Bank to reclaim the country's financial sovereignty the way it should be everywhere; today nearly all central banks are controlled by private for-profit banking cartels; Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul wants to end that status in the US and correctly explains the Federal Reserve Bank is neither federal nor does it have reserves; it's owned and run by Wall Street and the major banks;

-- adding new forms of collective property under five categories: public for the state, social for citizens, collective for people or social groups, mixed for public and private, and private for individuals or private entities;

-- territorial redefinition to distribute resources more equitably to communities instead of being used largely by economic and political elites;

-- prohibiting sexual orientation discrimination and enacting gender parity rights for political candidates;

-- redefining the military as an "anti-imperialist popular entity;"

-- in cases where property is appropriated for the public good, fair and timely compensation to be paid for it;

-- protecting the loss of one's home in cases of bankruptcy; and

-- enacting social security protection for the self-employed.

The National Assembly also approved 15 important transitional dispositions. They relate to how constitutional changes will be implemented if approved until laws are passed to regulate them. One provision is for the legislature to pass 15 so-called "organic laws" that include the following ones:

-- a law on "popular power" to govern grassroots communal councils (that may number 50,000 by year end) that Chavez called "one of the central ideas....to open, at the constitutional level, the roads to accelerate the transfer of power to the people (in an) Explosion of Communal (or popular) Power;" five percent of state revenues will be set aside to fund it;

-- another promoting a socialist economy for the 21st century that Chavez champions even though he remains friendly to business; and

-- one relating to the country's territorial organization; plus others on education, a shorter workweek and more democratic changes.

Under Venezuelan law, and in the true spirit of democracy, these proposed changes will be for citizens to vote up or down on December 2. The process will be in two parts reversing an earlier decision to do it as one package, yea or nay. One part will be Chavez's 33 reforms plus 13 National Assembly additions, and the other for the remaining 23 articles.

Coup D'Etat Rumblings Must Be Taken Seriously

Now battle lines are drawn, opposition forces are mobilized and events are playing out violently on Venezuela's streets. The worst so far was on November 7 when CNN falsely reported "80,000" anti-Chavez students demonstrated "peacefully" in Caracas to denounce "Hugo Chavez's attempts to expand his power." The actual best estimates put it between 2000 and 10,000, and long-time Latin American expert James Petras calls the protesters "privileged middle and upper middle class university students," once again being used as an imperial tool.

In their anti-government zeal, CNN and other dominant media ignore the many pro-Chavez events writer Fred Fuentes calls a "red hurricane" sweeping the country. An impressive one was held on November 4 when the President addressed hundreds of thousands of supporters who participated in an 8.5 kilometer Caracas march while similar pro-reform rallies took place at the same time around the country. They're the start of a "yes" campaign for a large December 2 turnout that's vital as polls show strong pro-reform support by a near two to one margin.

In an effort to defuse it, orchestrated opposition turned violent and officials reported eight people were injured in the November 7 incident. No one was killed, but one was wounded by gunfire when at least "four (masked) gunmen (who looked like provocateur plants, not students) fir(ed) handguns at the anti-Chavez crowd." In an earlier October demonstration, opposition students clashed with police who kept them from reaching the National Assembly building and a direct confrontation with pro-Chavez supporters that might have turned ugly.

It did on November 7 when violence erupted between pro and anti-government students, but it wasn't as reported. Venezuelan and US corporate media claimed pro-Chavez supporters initiated the attack. In fact, they WERE attacked by elements opposing the President. They seized this time to act ahead of the referendum to disrupt it and destabilize the government as prelude to a possible planned coup.

One pro-Chavez student explained what happened. She and others were erecting posters supporting a "yes" referendum vote when they were attacked with tear gas and crowds yelling they were going to be lynched. Avila TV had the evidence. Its unedited footage showed an opposition student mob surrounding the School of Social Work area where pro-Chavez students hid for safety. They threw Molotov cocktails, rocks, chairs and other objects, smashed windows, and tried to burn down the building as university authorities (responsible for security) stood aside doing nothing to curtail the violence. Another report was that corporate-owned Univision operatives posing as reporters had guns and accompanied the elements attacking the school in an overt act of complicity by the media.

The pattern now unfolding on Caracas streets is similar to what happened ahead of the April, 2002 aborted coup attempt, and Petras calls it "the most serious threat (to the President) since" that time. The corporate media then claimed pro-government supporters instigated street violence and fired on "unarmed" opposition protesters. In fact, that was later proved a lie as anti-Chavez "snipers" did the firing as part of the plot that became the coup. A similar scheme may now be unfolding in Caracas and on other campuses around the country as well.

In his public comments, Foreign Minister Maduro accused the major media and CNN of misrepresenting events and poisoning the political atmosphere. It's happening in Venezuela and the US as the dominant media attacks Hugo Chavez through a campaign of vilification and black propaganda.

US Corporate Media on the Attack

On November 12, The Venezuela Information Office (VIO) reported that growing numbers of "US print newspapers lodged attacks against Venezuela" using "outdated cold-war generalizations" and without explaining any of the proposed democratic changes. Among others, they came from the Houston Chronicle that claimed:

-- constitutional reforms will "eliminate the vestiges of democracy" in Venezuela when, in fact, they'll strengthen it, and the people will vote them up or down;

-- Chavez controls the electoral system when, in fact, Venezuela is a model free, fair and open democracy that shames its US equivalent. The Chronicle falsely said reforms will strip people of their right to due process. In fact, that's guaranteed under article 337 that won't be changed.

VIO also reported on a Los Angeles Times editorial comparing Chavez to Bin Laden. It compounded that whopper by claiming reforms will cause a global recession due to higher oil prices that, of course, have nothing to do with changes in law. In another piece, the LA Times inverted the truth by falsely claiming a public majority opposes reforms. Then there's the Miami Herald predicting an end to freedom of expression if changes pass and the Washington Post commenting on how high oil prices let Chavez buy influence.

The Post then ran an inflamatory November 15 editorial headlined "Mr. Chavez's Coup" if which it lied by saying November 7 student protesters "were fired on by gunmen (whom) university officials later 'identified'....as members of government-sponsored 'paramilitary groups' when, in fact, there are no such groups. The editorial went on to say Chavez wants to "complete his transformation into an autocrat (to be able to) seize property....dispose of Venezuela's foreign exchange reserves....impose central government rule on local jurisdictions and declare indefinite states of emergency" as well as suspend due process and freedom of information. Again, misinformation, deliberate distortion and outright lies from a leading quasi-official US house organ.

Rupert Murdock's Wall Street Journal weighed in as well with its lead anti-Chavez attack dog and all-round character assassin extraordinaire, Mary Anastasia O'Grady. This writer has tangled with her several times before and earlier commented how one day she'll have a serious back problem because of her rigid position of genuflection to the most extreme hard-right elements she supports. Her latest November 12 column was vintage O'Grady and headlined "More Trouble for Chavez (as) Students and former allies unite against his latest power grab."

Like most of her others, this one drips with vitriol and outrageous distortions like calling Chavez a "dictator" when, in fact, he's a model democrat, but that's the problem for writers like O'Grady. Absent the facts, they use agitprop instead. O'Grady writes: "Mr. Chavez has been working to remove any counterbalances to his power for almost nine years (and) has met strong resistance from property owners, businesses, labor leaders, the Catholic Church and the media." Now add opposition well-off students. Omitted is that the opposition is a minority, it represents elitist interests, and Chavez has overwhelming public support for his social democracy and proposed reform changes including from most students O'Grady calls "pro-Chavez goons."

Once again, she's on a rampage, but that's her job. She claims the absurd and people believe her - like saying the media will be censored, civil liberties can be suspended, and government will be empowered to seize private property. He's a "demagogue," says O'Grady, waging "class warfare," but opposition to reform "has led to increased speculation (his) days are numbered." Wishing won't make it so, and O'Grady uses that line all the time.

The New York Times is also on the attack in its latest anti-Chavez crusade. It's been a leading Chavez critic for years, and Simon Romero is its man in Caracas. On November 3, he reported "Lawmakers in Venezuela Approve Expanded Power for Chavez (in a) constitutional overhaul (to) enhance (Chavez's) authority, (allow) him to be reelected indefinitely, and (give) him the power to handpick rulers, to be called vice-presidents, (and) for various new regions to be created in the country....The new amendments would facilitate expropriations of private property (and allow state) security forces to round up citizens (stripped of their) legal protections" if Chavez declares a state of emergency - to make him look like Pakistan's Musharraf when he's mirror opposite.

Romero also quoted Jose Manuel Gonzales, president of Venezuela's Fedecamaras (chamber of commerce), saying "Venezuelan democracy was buried today" and anti-Chavez Roman Catholic church leaders (always allied with elitists) calling the changes "morally unacceptable." Then on November 8, Romero followed with an article titled "Gunmen Attack Opponents of Chavez's Bid to Extend Power" and implied they were pro-Chavez supporters. Again false. Still more came on November 10 headlined "Students Emerge as a Leading Force Against Chavez" in an effort to imply most students oppose him when, in fact, these elements are a minority.

His latest so far is on November 17 titled "Chavez's Vision Shares Wealth and Centers Power" that in fairness shows the President addressing a huge crowd of supporters in Maturin on November 16. But Romero spoiled it by calling his vision "centralized, oil-fueled socialism (with) Chavez (having) significantly enhanced powers." Then he quotes Chavez biographer Alberto Barrera Tyszka who embarrassed himself and Romero saying the President is seizing and redirecting "power through legitimate means (and this) is not a dictatorship but something more complex," the 'tyranny' of popularity." In other words, he's saying democracy is "tyranny." The rest of the article is just as bad with alternating subtle and hammer blow attacks against a popular President's aim to deepen his socially democratic agenda and help his people.

Romero's measured tone outclasses O'Grady's crudeness that's pretty standard fare on the Journal's notorious opinion page. He's much more dangerous, however, with a byline in the influential "newspaper of record" because of the important audience it commands.

One other notable anti-Chavez piece is in the November 26 issue of the magazine calling itself "the capitalist tool" - Forbes. It shows in its one-sided commentary and intolerance of opposing views. The article in question, headlined "Latin Sinkholes," is by right wing economist and long-time flack for empire, Steve Hanke. In it, he aims right at Chavez with outrageous comments like calling him a "negative reformer (who) turned back the clock (and) hails Cuba, the largest open-air prison in the Americas, as his model. His revolution's enemy is the marketplace." He then cites a World Bank report saying "Venezuela is tied with Zimbabwe as this year's champion in smothering economic freedom," and compounds that lie with another whopper.

Point of fact - Venezuela and Argentina have the highest growth rates in the region and are near the top of world rankings in recent years. Following the devastating oil management 2002-03 lockout, Venezuela's economy took off and grew at double digit rates in 2004, 05 and 06 and will grow a likely 8% this year. Hanke, however, says "Venezuela's economic performance under Chavez has been anemic (growing) at an average rate of only 2% per year. In the same article, he aims in similar fashion at Ecuador's Raphael Correa calling him "ruthlessly efficient (for wanting to) pull off a Bolivarian Revolution in Ecuador." Hanke and most others in the dominant media are of one mind and never let facts contradict their opinions. Outliers won't be tolerated even when it's proved their way works best.

There's lots more criticism like this throughout the dominant media along with commentators calling Chavez "a dictator, another Hitler (and) a threat to democracy." Ignoring the rules of imperial management has a price. This type media assault is part of it as a prelude for what often follows - attempted regime change.

Further Venezuela Information Office (VIO) Clarification of Facts on the Ground

On November 15, VIO issued an alert update to dispel media inaccuracies "about Venezuela's constitutional reforms and the student protests" accompanying them. They're listed below:

-- Caracas has a student population of around 200,000; at most 10,000 participated in the largest protest to date, and VIO estimates it was 6000;

-- the major media ignore how the government cooperates with students and made various accommodations to them to be fair to the opposition;

-- Venezuelan police have protected student protesters, and article 68 of the Constitution requires they do it; it affirms the right of all Venezuelans to assemble peacefully;

-- in addition, student protest leaders linked to opposition parties were granted high-level meetings with government officials to present their concerns;

-- on November 1, their student representatives met with directors of the National Electoral Council (CNE) and presented a petition to delay the referendum;

-- on November 7, they again met with National Tribunal of Justice officials and presented the same petition;

-- on November 12, Minister of Interior and Justice Minister, Pedro Carreno, met 20 university presidents to assure them the government respects university autonomy and their students' right to assemble peacefully;

-- VIO reported what really happened at another November 1 protest after students met with CNE officials; some of them then tried to chain themselves to the building while others charged through police lines and injured six officers; in addition, one student had 20 liters of gasoline but never got to use it criminally; after the incident, the CNE president, Tibisay Lucena, issued a public statement expressing his disappointment about this kind of response to the government's good faith efforts; and

-- VIO said students and university presidents from across the nation filed a document with the Supreme Court on November 14 supporting constitutional reform. Chief justice Luisa Estela Morales praised their coming and said the court's doors are open to anyone wanting to give an opinion. The dominant media reported nothing on this. It also ignored the government's 9000 public events throughout the country in past weeks to explain and discuss proposed reforms and that a hotline was installed for comments on them, pro or con.

-- finally, when protests of any kind happen in the US, police usually attack them with tear gas, beatings and mass arrests to crush their democratic spirit and prevent it from being expressed as our Constitution's First and most important amendment guarantees. In Venezuela, the spirit of democracy lives. It never existed in the US, and we want to export our way to everyone and by force if necessary.

Here's a November 15 breaking news example of our way in action. At 8:00AM, 12 FBI and Secret Service agents raided the Liberty Dollar Company's office in Evansville, IN and for the next six hours removed two tons of legal Ron Paul Dollars along with all the gold, silver and platinum at the location. They also took all location files and computers and froze Liberty Dollar's bank accounts in an outrageous police state action against a legitimate business. This move also seems intended to impugn the integrity of a presidential candidate gaining popularity because he defies the bellicose mainstream and wants more people empowerment.

Chavez champions another way and answered his critics at a November 14 Miraflores Presidential Palace press conference where he denounced them for lying about his reform package. He explained his aim is to strengthen Venezuela's independence and transfer power to the people, not increase his own. "For many years in Venezuela," he said, "they weakened the powers of the state as part of the neoliberal imperial plan....to weaken the economies of countries to insure domination. While we remained weak, imperialism was strengthened," and he elaborated.

He then continued to stress his most important reform "is the transfer of power to the people" through an explosion of grassroots communal, worker, student and campesino councils, formations of them into regional and national federations, and the formation of "communes (to) constitute the basic nucleus of the socialist state." Earlier Chavez stated that democratizing the economy "is the only way to defeat poverty, to defeat misery and achieve the largest sum of happiness for the people." He's not just saying this. He believes and acts on it, and that's why elitists target him for removal even though he wants equity for everyone, even his critics, and business continues to thrive under his government. But not like in the "good old" days when it was all one-way.

Venezuelan Business is Booming - So Why Complain?

Business in Venezuela is indeed booming, and in 2006 the Financial Times said bankers were "having a party" it was so good. So what's the problem? It's not good enough for corporate interests wanting it all for themselves and nothing for the people the way it used to be pre-Chavez. Unfair? Sure, but in a corporate-dominated world, that's how it is and no outliers are tolerated. Thus Hugo Chavez's dilemma.

Last June, Business Week (BW) magazine captured the mood in an article called "A Love-Hate Relationship with Chavez - Companies are chafing under the fiery socialist. But in some respects, business has never been better." Writer Geri Smith asked: "Just how hard is it to do business in Venezuela" and then exaggerated by saying "hardly a day passes without another change in the rules restricting companies." Hardly so, but what is true is new rules require a more equitable relationship between government and business. They provide more benefits to the people and greater attention to small Venezuelan business and other commercial undertakings like an explosion of cooperatives (100,000 or more) that under neoliberal rules have no chance against the giants.

Nonetheless, the economy under Chavez is booming, and business loves it even while it complains. It's because oil revenues are high, Chavez spends heavily on social benefits, and the poor have seen their incomes more than double since 2004 when all their benefits are included. The result, as BW explains: "Sales of everything from basics" to luxury items "have taken off....and local and foreign companies alike are raking in more money than ever in Venezuela." In addition, bilateral trade has never been higher, but American business complains it's caught in the middle of a Washington - Caracas political struggle.

The article continues to show how all kinds of foreign business is benefitting from cola to cars to computer chips. Yet, it restates the dilemma saying "As Chavez continues his socialist crusade, there are signs of rising discontent," and it's showing up now on the country's streets with the latest confrontation still to be resolved, one way or another.

Events Are Ugly and Coming to A Head

Through the dominant media, Washington and Venezuelan anti-Chavez elements are using constitutional reform as a pretext for what they may have in mind - "to arouse the military to intervene" and oust Chavez, as Petras notes in his article titled "Venezuela: Between Ballots and Bullets." He explains the opposition "rich and privileged (coalition) fear constitutional reforms because they will have to grant a greater share of their (considerable) profits to the working class, lose their monopoly over market transactions to publicly owned firms, and see political power evolve toward local community councils and the executive branch."

Petras is worried and says "class polarization....has reached its most extreme expression" as December 2 approaches: "the remains of the multi-class coalition embracing a minority of the middle class and the great majority of (workers) is disintegrating (and) political defections have increased (including 14) deputies in the National Assembly." Add to them former Chavez Defense Minister, Raul Baduel, who Petras believes may be "an aspirant to head up a US-backed right-wing seizure of power."

The situation is ugly and dangerous, and lots of US money and influence fuels it. Petras puts it this way: "Venezuelan democracy, the Presidency of Hugo Chavez and the great majority of the popular classes face a mortal threat." An alliance between Washington, local oligarchs and elitist supporters of the "right" are committed to ousting Chavez and may feel now is their best chance. Venezuela's social democracy is on the line in the crucial December 2 vote, and the entire region depends on it solidifying and surviving.

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 Mondays at noon US Central time.

Denial of Due Process to Muslims Disgraces Us All

DENIAL OF DUE PROCESS TO MUSLIMS DISGRACES US ALL

By Katherine Hughes 

First published, November 2007, in "Guild Practitioner," Volume 64, No. 2: www.nlg.org

“One cannot level one’s moral lance at every evil in the universe. There are just too many of them. But you can do something, and the difference between doing something and doing nothing is everything.” Daniel Berrigan

"We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth…. Is this the part of wise men, engaged in a great and arduous struggle for liberty? Are we disposed to be of the number of those, who having eyes, see not, and having ears, hear not..? For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it might cost, I am willing to know the whole truth; to know.. it — now."  Patrick Henry
      
Since the events of September 11, 2001, the U.S. Government has pursued its “war on terror” on two fronts. The obvious one is the military front, which has taken American soldiers to battle in places like Afghanistan and Iraq; less obvious is the financial front. The government has instituted a strategy of tracking and freezing money internationally as a way to stem the flow of the “terror-dollar” which it sees as the “lifeblood” of terrorist operations.1 

Thomas Naylor, a McGill University professor and author of Satanic Purses: Money, Myth and Misinformation in the War on Terror, accuses the U.S. government of fueling the myth of “coordinated global terror” by providing local groups across the world with an “Al Qa’idah brand name” that gives these groups a global significance they don’t deserve.2 He challenges the idea of “great terror treasuries” and “huge sums of terror-dollars” washing through global financial systems.3 Using the 1993 World Trade Center attack as an example, Naylor shows that enormous sums of money are not required to commit horrendous acts. Materials for this attack, which killed six people and did $500 million in damage, cost only around $400.4 Even the spectacular 9/11 attacks needed a relatively small amount of money: funds for accommodation in cheap motels and airline tickets. What was crucial to the attack was “four committed individuals with some basic knowledge of how to fly, fifteen dupes who were just along for the ride, so to speak, and publicly accessible airline schedules, plus the freak occurrence of airlines actually running on time,”5 not a huge cash reserve.
      
This notion has been used to justify targeting Muslim charities in the U.S. and since September 11, 2001, six major U.S. Muslim charities and several smaller Muslim charities have been shut down.6 Naylor compares this strategy to someone “furiously throwing lethal punches in the air and hoping there are not too many innocent bystanders, or at least no independent witnesses, in the general vicinity.”7, 8
     
 In Satanic Purses, he explores the reasons that Islamic charities have suffered this fate. Although bigotry and political opportunism play a significant role, Naylor finds this is not the whole story. The problem is compounded by a profound ignorance of Islamic culture and the Qur’an.
     
 In many ways, the Qur’an lays out an early blueprint for a welfare state. Prosecuting attorneys and “national security experts” often have no basis for understanding an economic ideology so contrary to the one prevalent in the West; this in turn leads to both misinterpretation and misrepresentation. According to Naylor:
Part of the West’s confusion over Islamic charities arises because the Qur’an supports an economic ideology very different from the canons of savage capitalism so beloved of today’s bond brokers and televangelists. Islamic ethic imposes on Muslims as their primary duty the creating of a just society that treats the poor with respect. It favors equity over economic hierarchy, cooperation over unscrupulous competition, and charitable redistribution over selfish accumulation.9
      
The first wave of attacks on U.S. Muslim charity came in December 2001 when the government closed down the three largest charities, Holy Land Foundation (HLF), Global Relief Foundation (GRF) and Benevolence International Foundation (BIF), accusing each of supporting terrorism. In each of these cases, the charities’ assets were frozen and their principals imprisoned without bail.10
     
 In its report “Muslim Charities and the War on Terror,” OMB Watch voices its concerns about the treatment of Muslim charities and the people involved with them, along with the questionable evidence used to shut them down. The closures have resulted in blocking humanitarian assistance to people who desperately need it, denying these charities the right to due process, and holding the individuals associated with their humanitarian work “guilty until proven innocent.”  The report concludes that, despite their expanded investigative powers, the authorities have failed to produce evidence of terror financing by U.S.-based charities.11
      
The government assault on U.S.-based Muslim charities has left many Muslim communities with some of their most esteemed members behind bars. Associates of charities are often held without bail and subjected to smear campaigns by the government and press long before their cases come anywhere near a court of law.12 They are denied the most basic rights of due process: the right to liberty, to be secure in their persons from unreasonable search and seizure, to a speedy trial by an impartial jury, to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusations, and to be presumed innocent until and unless proven guilty.13 Many Muslims have been virtually forced to accept plea agreements, either because they did not believe they could get fair trials in the post-9/11 climate and the consequences of losing at trial under present draconian federal sentencing laws was too big a gamble to take, or because they were threatened with being declared “enemy combatants” and stripped of their rights under the Geneva Conventions and the U.S. Constitution. 
      
Those few who chose to go to trial, trusting in the integrity of the U.S. legal system, faced gross impediments to achieving even a measure of justice. In addition to being held without bail, they were bankrupted, denied access to their own records and counsel, and subjected to trials that were not really about what they were ostensibly about.14 Where no link to terrorism could be found, the government prosecuted for routine white-collar crimes and then declared successes in the “war on terror.”15
      
When Attorney General John Ashcroft announced his resignation in November of 2004, he gave as evidence of success in the war on terror 211 criminal prosecutions, 478 deportations, and $124 million in frozen assets.16 A 2006 publication, “Terrorist Trial Report Card” (NYU School of Law’s Center on Law and Security) lists many of the cases he cited.17 But what Ashcroft neglected to mention, and the Center on Law and Security failed to address, was that almost none of these cases involved any actual terrorism convictions. Indeed, at the time of Ashcroft’s resignation there had been only one bona fide terrorism conviction, that of the British shoe-bomber, Richard Reid.18
     
Naylor points out that the government is aware of the discrepancy between what people are convicted of and what they are sentenced for:
When reporters queried these oddities, a federal prosecutor responded: “Bona fide terrorism is a matter of semantics. I don’t think you can draw conclusions based on what a person is convicted of.” Indeed. In a further explanation of the inner workings of the justice system, he noted: “We charge them with readily provable offenses … rather than what they might actually have done.”19

INNOCENT BYSTANDERS AND SEMANTICS

That the government is set on a “terrorist” prosecution from the outset in many of these cases is illustrated clearly in a 2003 “Terrorist Financing” paper by Jeff Breinholt, Deputy Chief of the Department of Justice’s Counterterrorism Section.20 Under a section titled, “’clean money’ cases” Breinholt listed not only people who had already signed a plea agreement, but many who had yet to have their days in court. In other words, regardless of the defense strategy, whether plea agreement or trial, the result would be heralded as a “win” for the government in its “War on Terror.”
      
At the time the article was published, July 2003, Enaam Arnaout, of Benevolence International Foundation (BIF), had been held without bail for more than a year and had already accepted a plea agreement to a charge that had nothing to do with supporting terrorism.21
      
Others named in the 2003 report, more recently arrested, included: Dr. Rafil Dhafir, of Help the Needy (HTN); Sami Omar Al-Hussayen, associated with the Islamic Assembly of North America (IANA); and Dr. Sami al-Arian, a Palestinian professor from Florida,22 who had been held without bail for four months. They had not accepted plea agreements and none of the cases had come to court.23
 
Arnaout accepted a plea deal after being held for 16 months of solitary confinement in 23-hour lockdown. He and his lawyer believed this was his best option, given the political climate. Furthermore, going to trial would have been very costly and carried the risk of a 90-year prison term.24 For pleading guilty to a single count of “racketeering conspiracy,” in which he admitted using BIF donations to provide boots, tents, uniforms, and an ambulance to units of the Bosnian army at a time when Muslims in Bosnia were attempting to defend themselves against Serbian atrocities, he received a sentence of more than 11 years – over and above the 16 months he had already spent in solitary confinement.25
     
 Dr. Rafil Dhafir, founder of the charity Help the Needy, was arrested along with other HTN associates in a high-profile operation on February 26, 2003.26 His charity had a history of collecting donations and sending aid to starving Iraqi civilians during the brutal embargo on that country. The government exerted great pressure on Dhafir, including its refusal to release HTN money to pay for wheelchairs for handicapped Iraqis, to persuade him to accept a plea bargain.27 Despite all the pressure and the possibility of a 250-year prison sentence, Dhafir chose to go to trial. He was subjected to a show trial that lasted four months and resulted in his conviction for conspiring to violate the embargo on trade with Iraq and for “money laundering” (forwarding the charitable contributions), as well as multiple counts of submitting inaccurate Medicare billings and of “tax evasion” (deducting his own generous contributions to HTN). Any mention that the government had prosecuted on these charges only after trying unsuccessfully to tie him to terrorist groups was strictly forbidden. After being held without bail for 31 months, he was sentenced to 22 years in prison. His appeal to the Second Circuit is pending.
     
 Writing about Dhafir’s case and the money-laundering charges in Satanic Purses, Professor Naylor says: “Yet all the money he had sent went not in cash but first by check to a local bank, then by cashiers’ check to Jordan, where it was used to buy emergency supplies. Not only was it completely open, but Dhafir kept a careful ledger, which the government seized and used as evidence. This is strange behavior for a dedicated money-launderer.”28
     
 Meanwhile, Sami Omar Al-Hussayen, a graduate student from Saudi Arabia, was arrested on an unrelated matter in Boise, Idaho, on February 26, 2003, the same morning that associates of the Help the Needy (HTN) charity were arrested in Syracuse, New York. Yet his name appears on the same press release in which the DOJ announced “funders of terrorism” had been arrested.29 After being held without bail under 23-hour lockdown for 17 months, Al-Hussayen was cleared of all charges at trial – which focused on his maintenance of the Islamic Assembly of North America (IANA)30 website -- and deported to Saudi Arabia on July 21, 2004.31
     
 Regarding the case of Sami Omar Al-Hussayen, Naylor writes,
      â€œOn the surface that might seem another embarrassing failure [for the government].  But it succeeded in demonstrating to Muslim males that the Justice Department had the power to destroy lives.  Prior to his legal vindication, al-Hussayen’s wife and children were deported; his friends were scared off; his reputation was ruined; and of course, he had spent eighteen months under lock and key.  Ultimately the government agreed to drop the immigration charge, too, if he in turn agreed not to appeal his deportation order.”32
      
Professor Sami al-Arian, a Palestinian, was arrested on February 20, 2003, and held without bail for 28 months prior to a 6-month trial that included 80 government witnesses. The verdict, on December 7, 2005, was “not guilty” on the most serious charges of abetting terrorism, and the jury was hung on other lesser charges because the judge interrupted deliberations.33 The government refused to release him. Last year, believing it was the only way he could secure his release, Al-Arian accepted a plea agreement that included a few extra months in jail and his deportation upon release. Despite this agreement he was given a maximum 57-month sentence. He is currently being held in contempt of court for refusal to testify in front of a Grand Jury. While he is held on “contempt” charges his original criminal sentence is not running.34
      
Unfortunately these four cases are not unique; rather, they are just a sampling of how these prosecutions – even when unsuccessful – have wrecked so many people’s lives.35

THE COSTS TO ONE MUSLIM COMMUNITY
      
The assault on Muslim charities and their principals has had enormous detrimental psychological and financial impact on Muslim communities. Not only do many Muslims live in fear of a knock at the door, but their communities are also burdened with the financial support of those families with breadwinners in prison and with colossal legal bills for defending their members against a government with unlimited finances, a government unwilling to let facts get in the way of its pursuit of success stories in the “war on terror.”36
      
Dr. Dhafir, mentioned above, is a founding member of the mosque in Syracuse, New York, and an esteemed member of that community. An Iraqi-born oncologist, he had been a U.S. citizen for almost 30 years when he was indicted. He and his American wife were very active in the local community and Dhafir often spoke at events and on local TV and radio about cancer care. In the early 1990s, in direct response to the humanitarian catastrophe created by the U.S. and U.K.-sponsored UN sanctions on Iraq, he founded the charity HTN and for 13 years openly sent food and aid to starving civilians who were the sanctions’ victims.37,38
      
A devout man, he devoted much of his life to prayer and charity and, according to the government, donated half his income to charity each year. In his oncology practice he treated those without medical insurance for free, paying for expensive chemotherapy medicine out of his own pocket and telling patients to pay whatever they could whenever they could.39,
      As he was arrested on his way to work, just weeks before the U.S. invasion of Iraq,40 other agents broke down the door of his home and held guns to Mrs. Dhafir’s head. Both Ayman Jarwan, Executive Director of HTN, and Osameh Al-Wahaidy, were arrested the same morning, agents having awakened their families, including young children.41 At the same time, between the hours of 6:00 and 10:00 a.m., 150 Muslim families who had donated to the HTN were interrogated.42, 43 It was later that same day that Attorney General Ashcroft made his announcement about “funders of terrorism” having been arrested.44
      
In a statement handed to the press on the day of his sentencing, Dhafir said:
What was the result of Feb 26, 2003 besides imprisoning of innocent people? Scores of innocent elderly American cancer patients died needlessly, innumerable tens of thousands of Iraqi needy (children, women and men) died, and more than that suffered malnutrition and the humiliation of poverty. An entire segment of our society here was treated as criminals, intimidated, interrogated and threatened. Never in the history of the Islamic Society of Central New York had we had so many cases of depression and suicide that the mosque had to engage the services of a psychiatrist to help out. The dream of this Republic being a sanctuary for the oppressed was shattered on that day and a new sad reality was erected in its place.45
 Although not under arrest, Mrs. Dhafir spent much of the day in her nightclothes and was not allowed to go to the bathroom without an escort. Meanwhile, approximately 85 agents collected “evidence” at the Dhafir home.46 
      
After his arrest, Al-Wahaidy was taken to the Justice Center in Syracuse and spent all day in his pajamas handcuffed to a wall bar.47 
 Jarwan was held without bail for two weeks and then released when the judge granted him bail. Prosecutors tried to deny bail to Jarwan because he had a degree in nuclear physics and suggested that he was capable of making a “dirty bomb,” but the judge, fortunately, agreed with Jarwan’s lawyer that this was a ludicrous suggestion.48
      
The government did eventually press a charge against Mrs. Dhafir and she accepted a plea bargain, pleading guilty to lying to a government agent because she had said in a claim for Medicare reimbursement that her husband was physically present in the office of his oncology practice when he was not.49 She received two years’ probation and a $10,000 fine. In addition she had to pay Medicare $62,000 and do 150 hours of community service.
      
Dr. Dhafir’s associate Osameh Al-Wahaidy, a math instructor at Oswego State University, was initially told that there was no problem with his job because “he hadn’t been arrested on a sexual harassment charge.” The following day he was fired. The judge did not allow him to return to work at Auburn Prison, where he had a position as imam; yet the prison guard union supported him and he was put on paid leave and thus could continue to support his family.
      
Al-Wahaidy, like all the other HTN defendants except for Dr. Dhafir, accepted a plea bargain.50 He pled guilty to conspiracy to violate the International Economic Emergency Powers Act (IEEPA, commonly known as the Iraq sanctions) but reserved the right to challenge the legality of the Presidential Proclamation imposing sanctions against Iraq. 51 Two co-workers from Auburn Prison testified on his behalf at his sentencing and he received two years’ probation, a $5,000 fine and 100 hours of community service. On appeal, the Second Circuit upheld the validity of the Proclamation and thus of Al-Wahaidy’s sentence.
      
Ayman Jarwan’s attorney, Jim McGraw, advised him to accept a plea bargain; although he was “facing substantial prison time for something he was not guilty of,” the anti-Muslim climate made a fair trial unlikely.52 Jarwan pled guilty to violation of IEEPA and cooperated fully with the government, traveling the country to educate the FBI and other government agencies about Muslim culture. Yet he was unexpectedly sentenced to 18 months, and McGraw felt that the government had gone back on its part of the bargain.53 Jarwan’s wife and children returned to Jordan just after his sentencing; after serving 15 months, Jarwan was released on December 22, 2006. He was then held in county jail in immigration custody until February 2007 when he was finally deported to Jordan, where he now lives with his family. Apart from Dhafir, Jarwan was the only other HTN defendant to get prison time. 
      
As a consequence of Dr. Dhafir’s refusal to accept a plea bargain the government piled on charges, and when his case came to trial 19 months after his arrest, he faced a 60-count indictment of white-collar crime charges. The government employed many tools to impair his ability to defend himself. Despite the facts that the Muslim community in Syracuse put up $2.3 million in bond money and that Dhafir offered to wear an electronic tag, he was never granted bail. His assets were frozen, making it more difficult to secure defense counsel, 54 and while being held, he was denied access to both his own records55 and, at one point, to his counsel.56
     
Just prior to the start of the trial, New York Governor Pataki – who of course had no official interest in the matter -- denounced Dhafir’s activities as a “money laundering case to help terrorist organizations.”57 And while state and national level officials smeared Dhafir in the press, local prosecutors successfully petitioned Judge Norman Mordue, the presiding judge who had denied Dhafir bail on four occasions, to prevent the accusation of terrorism from being part of the trial. This ruling turned into a brick wall that the defense kept hitting; throughout the trial the government could hint at more serious charges but the defense was never allowed to address them.58 
      
Although he was not convicted of any terrorism-related crime, the government continues to tout Dhafir’s case as yet another success in its “war on terror.”59 In the sentencing phase, where the rules of evidence do not apply, he was labeled a “national security threat” because he had violated IEEPA,60 and a government pre-sentencing memorandum linked him with people who, although at the time were allies of the U.S., later became enemies: 
In the 1980s Rafil Dhafir traveled repeatedly to Pakistan where he worked as a volunteer doctor in the mujihadin refugee camps on the border of Afghanistan. Photographs and videotapes seized from his home show that, during that time, he met and interviewed Abdalla Azzam, the founder of Al Queda, and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, the future Taliban Prime Minister of Afghanistan. At the same time, Rafil became more involved in Salafism in the United States, becoming the Vice President of the Islamic Assembly of North America (IANA), which styled itself as an umbrella organization for Salafists in North America.61 
      
The government neglected to mention that the reason Dhafir went repeatedly to Pakistan during the 1980s was as a volunteer for Doctors Without Borders, although it did acknowledge in a footnote that at the time Dhafir met these people, it was “U.S. policy to support the mujihadin who were engaged in jihad against the Soviet Union.” 62
      
Barrie Gewanter, Executive Director the American Civil Liberties Union, Central New York Chapter, issued a statement on Dhafir’s case the day after he was sentenced. She expressed deep concern about selective prosecution, questioning whether Muslims in the U.S. could truly receive a fair trial. She reiterated an ACLU concern about impediments that denial of bail placed on the legal defense and criticized his unequal treatment under the law. She stated that Dhafir “was presumed guilty long before the trial began, and of much more than indicated in the charges against him.” The statement continued:
The federal government has repeatedly tried to pitch this as a case with national security implications. Both the US Attorney General and the NY State Governor referred publicly to this case in the context of a terrorism prosecution. However, federal prosecutors never filed any charges related to terrorism nor did they prove any link to terrorists. Instead, this turned out to be a case of white-collar crime; the trial process was filled with descriptions of financial statements and details of financial transactions. The government should not have engaged in inflammatory publicity before the trial, nor introduced highly prejudicial allegations of terrorist links through the back door of sentencing.63
 
Within weeks of Dhafir’s sentencing Jeff Breinholt, author of the article on “Terrorist Financing,” mentioned supra, and Greg West, one of the prosecutors in the HTN case, presented a lecture to faculty and students at Syracuse University Law School entitled “A Law Enforcement Approach to Terrorist (sic) Financing,” in which they talked about this case.64
      
Breinholt asserted that Dhafir’s case had been “under-prosecuted.”65 In the context of the lecture’s title, his implication was clear. Although prosecuted for “money laundering” of voluntary charitable contributions, tax evasion, and Medicare fraud, Breinholt insinuated Dhafir’s real offense was money laundering for terrorist organizations. He compared the government’s strategy towards Muslim charities with its prosecution of the early 20th Century Mafia boss Al Capone for tax evasion when everyone knew that was not his “real” crime, that he was guilty of much more serious things, although those could not be easily proven. 
     
 Addressing this shopworn comparison in Satanic Purses, Naylor suggests that: “A better analogy would be if the U.S. decided to curb bootlegging in the 1920s by charging everyone with an Italian surname with vagrancy, then locking them up on Ellis Island.”66
     
 Dhafir was recently sent to the federal “correctional” institution in Terre Haute, Indiana and is being held in a new program there, the Communications Management Unit (CMU). Most of his fellow CMU residents are other Arab and Muslim prisoners who were not convicted of any serious terrorism offense.67 In a recent letter, Dhafir wrote about the nationally coordinated plan, ordered by the Attorney General himself, to put all these Muslims/Arabs in one place.68 Prisoners are held completely segregated from the general population and all communication is heavily monitored. All ingoing and outgoing mail is screened and inmates are allowed one 15-minute phone call per week, in English, and one four-hour non-contact visit a month.69 (Ordinarily, medium-security federal prisoners have extensive contact visits, regular access to the mails, and 300 minutes each month for telephone use.)

“THE PRICE OF LIBERTY IS ETERNAL VIGILANCE”70
      
Today in the U.S., Muslims and Arabs are being subjected to an ad hoc redefinition and contraction of their basic freedoms.71 It is obvious that Dhafir and the others mentioned in Breinholt’s “Terrorist Financing” paper were not afforded the protections the Bill of Rights guarantees to all, and yet there is little outcry against, or public debate about, such blatant aberrations. What happened in Nazi Germany and Europe during the 1930s did not happen overnight; there was a gradual erosion of freedoms from the late 1920s through to 1945. Afterwards, people looked back in horror at what had been done in their name.
     
 In his new book Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic, Chalmers Johnson decries the lack of political will to confront the grave threats facing our democratic republic. He likens the United States of today to a cruise ship on the Niagara River: upstream from the falls a few people on board have begun to detect a slight hiss in the background, and notice a faint haze of mist in the air and on their glasses, and a slightly faster current in the river, but none has realized that it’s almost too late to head for the shore.72 Whether we are a society willing to struggle to regain the protection of our freedoms and the equitable application of the law remains to be seen.
      
The government still hounds Dhafir; it recently demanded reconsideration of an appeals court order allowing Dhafir copies of his trial transcripts at the expense of the court.73 Completely unverifiable insinuations of personal wealth persuaded the court to place some $15,000 in additional costs on the defense. As a result, the Dr. Dhafir Support Committee was forced to raise these additional funds, at risk of seeing the appeal dismissed before it could even be briefed. Fundraising continues in order to repay the most dedicated donors who borrowed most of the amount needed to pay the court reporter and for the anticipated high costs of printing the brief and appendix. Dr. Dhafir is now represented by nationally respected criminal appeals attorneys Barry Boss, of Cozen & O’Connor in Washington, DC, and Peter Goldberger, who is also a longtime member of the NLG Military Law Task Force.
      
If you care about the Constitution’s guarantee of civil liberties, please help by sending a donation in any amount to: Dr. Dhafir Appeal Fund, c/o Peter Goldberger, Esq., Attorney at Law, 50 Rittenhouse Place, Ardmore, PA 19003. Make checks payable to “Dr. Dhafir Appeal Fund.” Please note that donations are not tax deductible.
For more information go to: www.dhafirtrial.net.
________________________________________________________________
Katherine Hughes is a student at Syracuse University. She attended almost every day of the seventeen-week Dhafir trial, taking notes for five hours each day. For the last three years she has tried to educate people about the Help the Needy case and the plight of Islamic charities in the U.S.

1 Thomas Naylor, “Satanic Purses: Money, Myth and Misinformation in the War on Terror” (hereafter Naylor, Purses), McGill-Queens University Press, 2006, p.5

2 Naylor, Purses, p.6

3 Naylor, Purses, p. 337.

4 Naylor, Purses, p. 339.

5 Naylor, Purses, p.338.

6 L. Al-Marayati, “American Muslim Charities: Easy Targets in the War on Terror,” presented on December 3, 2004 at Pace University Law Symposium, Anti-Terrorist Financing Guidelines: The Impact on International Philanthropy (hereafter Al-Marayati, Easy Targets): http://www.library.law.pace.edu/PLR/25-2/Al-Maryati.pdf.

7 Naylor, Purses, pp. 8 & 337

8 Naylor, Purses, p. 168

9 L. Al-Marayati and B. Abdelkarim, “The Crime of Being a Muslim Charity” (hereafter Al-Marayati, Crime), Washington Post, March 12, 2006: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/10/AR2006031001859.html

10 OMB Watch, “Muslim Charities and the War on Terror” (hereafter OMB Watch Report), revised March 2006: http://www.ombwatch.org//npadv/PDF/MuslimCharitiesTopTenUpdated.pdf

11 Naylor, Purses, p. 339; OMB Watch Report

12 “The Bill of Rights Defense Committee (BORDC) is creating a Human Rights Abuse Database with the stories of hundreds of individuals whose lives have been harshly affected or ruined entirely by U.S. government policies since 9/11.” See information on this Database in the Bill of Rights Defense Committee newsletter, November 2006: http://www.bordc.org/newsletter/bordcnews5-7.php

13 Naylor, Purses, p.339 and The Bill of Rights: http://usinfo.state.gov/usa/infousa/facts/funddocs/billeng.htm

14 See Michael Powell’s Washington Post article where he describes the government’s approach to this case as “shadow boxing” for a description of the arrest. “High-Profile N.Y. Suspect Goes on Trial: Arrest Was Called Part of War on Terrorism, but Doctor Faces Other Charges” (hereafter Powell, Washington Post), The Washington Post, October 19, 2004: www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A43278-2004Oct18.html

15 Dr. Rafil Dhafir, an upstate New York oncologist, was charged for white-collar crimes but sentenced to 22 years as a national security threat.

16 Naylor, Purses, p. 332

17 The Center on Law and Security at the NYU School of Law “Terrorist Trial Report Card: US Edition,” September 11, 2001 – September 11, 2006: http://www.lawandsecurity.org/publications/TTRC_US_2006_Appendix_B.pdf

18 Naylor, Purses, p. 332

19 Naylor, Purses, p.332

20 Jeff Breinholt, “Terrorist Financing,” U.S. Attorney Bulletin, July 2003, Volume 51, number 4 (hereafter Breinholt); http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/eousa/foia_reading_room/usab5104.pdf.

21 To one count of racketeering conspiracy:
http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/iln/pr/chicago/2003/pr021003_01.pdf

22 Al-Arian’s involvement with charity organizations was prior to 1992. Listen to Amy Goodman’s interview of Al-Arian from prison. Democracy Now, February 2007: http://www.democracynow.org/streampage.pl

23 Dhafir’s case went to court in October 2004; Al-Arian’s case went to court in July 2005.

24 All other HTN defendants accepted plea bargains for the same reason. A video interview with Ayman Jarwan’s lawyer, Jim McGraw, is available (15 minutes in two parts): PART 1:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i123mRoBtEo 
PART 2:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZJIJTf5mak
(Hereafter, McGraw Video.)

25 A statement issued after the plea agreement was made stated, “The plea agreement entered into today is an acknowledgment by the government that neither Mr. Arnaout nor BIF ever provided any support to al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden, or any other terrorist organization.  The agreement further demonstrates that Mr. Arnaout and BIF never supported any activity that was contrary to the interests of the United States.” Statement of Enaam Arnaout: http://islam.about.com/library/weekly/aa021103b.htm

26 For a description of the arrest see Powell, Washington Post.

27 HTN’s lawyer Scott Porter offered a deal whereby all of HTN’s assets would go to buy wheelchairs (the vendor offered two for one price) for handicapped Iraqis. The prosecution blocked this because Dhafir would not enter a guilty plea. The money was dispersed to other charities unrelated to the donors’ intentions after Dhafir was sentenced. See http://www.dhafirtrial.net/2005/12/06/please-write-to-judge-mordue/#more-218

28 Naylor, Purses, p. 229. 

29 Powell, Washington Post.

30 http://www.iananet.org/

31 Al-Hassayen’s defense lawyer, David Nevin, said he asked a pool of about 150 potential jurors to raise their hands if they had ever known a Muslim. Only about four or five raised their hands and they were all vetoed as jurors by the prosecution. Nevin compared the trial that followed to the “Far Side” cartoon in which a dog faces a jury of cats. From Amy Waldman’s “Prophetic Justice:” Atlantic Monthly, October Issue: http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200610/waldman-islam/3 (hereafter Waldman, Prophetic).

32 Naylor, Purses, p.333. Here Naylor also contrasts treatment of Muslim males with a case involving a non-Muslim male.

33 Listen to a February 2005 interview of Professor Sami Al-Arian by Amy Goodman of Democracy Now: http://www.democracynow.org/streampage.pl Al-Arian spoke by telephone from prison.

34 Peter Erlinder, “The Ordeal of Dr. Sami Al-Arian: Despite Acquittal on Terrorism Charges, No Prospect of Release for Dr. Al-Arian,” Washington Report On Middle East Affairs, April 2007: http://www.wrmea.com/archives/April_2007/0704024.html

35 See this author’s correspondence with John O’Brien, the local reporter on the Dhafir trial: http://www.dhafirtrial.net/2005/02/09/strongdisagreement-over-correctionstrong/#more-73

36 It is estimated that the prosecution cost of Sami Al-Arian’s case is somewhere in the region of $80 million: http://www.freesamialarian.com/home.htm

37 See A. Arnove, “Iraq Under Siege: The Deadly Impact of Sanctions and War,” South End Press, 2002 and R. Clark, “The Impact of Sanctions on Iraq: The Children Are Dying,” a report by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization. World View Forum, Inc. 1996.

38 At trial the defense showed that a 1990 New York Times article had mentioned humanitarian exception to the sanctions. Susan Hutner of the Office of Foreign Assets Control said in her testimony that mosques and Iraqis were not targeted for education about the sanctions, although she personally gave lectures to members of the oil and banking industries. From this author’s witness of the proceedings. (Hereafter, Hughes Witness.)

39 See Kristen Hinman, “The Iraqi Doctor: Patients Revere Him, the Government Wants to Put Him Away:” http://www.jrn.columbia.edu/studentwork/801mag/2004/801_IRAQIDR.pdf Hinman’s grandmother was a patient of Dhafir.

40 This was part of a government operation ahead of the Iraq war. Code named “Imminent Horizon,” its stated purpose was to “disrupt and rattle” potential terrorist operations ahead of the invasion of Iraq. Reported by ABC news March 5, 2003, see newshttp://www.jubileeinitiative.org/DhafirOperationImminentHorizon.htm

41 Hughes Witness. A detailed description of the arrests can be found in court transcripts. 

42 See R. Gadoua, “Up to 150 Questioned; Doctor Is Denied Bail; Muslims Afraid to Speak Out Publicly,” The Post-Standard (Syracuse, NY), March 1, 2003, available here: http://www.freedhafir.org/ and McGraw Video

43 The ACLU-CNY expressed concerns about how the interrogations had been handled among other questions, families were asked how often they prayed and whether they celebrated Christmas: http://www.cnyclu.org/. At one meeting I attended, a man recounted that the government had gone back 20 years in his bank records because he had donated $150 to HTN.

44 See the government press release from that day: http://www.dhafirtrial.net/court-documents/indictment-from-arrest/

45 Dr. Dhafir’s sentencing statement: http://www.dhafirtrial.net/about-dr-dhafir/dhafir-sentencing-statement/, p. 36.

46 Hughes Witness. 

47 Hughes Witness.

48 Hughes Witness. Fuller descriptions of the arrests of Jarwan and Al-Wahaidy are available in court transcripts. 

49 The whole Medicare part of the case, 25 counts, revolved around the “incident to” rule, which decided how billing should be handled “incident to” the doctor’s treatment. For coverage of this part of the trial see, Katherine Hughes, “Dr. Dhafir’s trial concluded today, Wednesday, January 26, 2005:” http://www.dhafirtrial.net/2005/01/26/strongdr-dhafirs-trial-concluded-todaystrong-today/#more-19

50 Other defendants in the case include William Hatfield, Dhafir’s accountant and Ahmed Yusef Ali, head of Somali Relief Network, the charity that had shared its tax-exempt status with HTN. On the day of the arrests government agents went to Hatfield’s office in Oneida, New York, blocked the street at both ends and entered the office where he and his secretary worked. He was told that it would be better for him if he did not call a lawyer but cooperated with government agents. Hatfield accepted a plea agreement, pleading guilty to helping Dhafir file a false statement to the IRS; he received 2 years probation, a $15,000 fine, and 150 hours community service. 
Ahmed Ali accepted a plea agreement and pleaded guilty to impeding IRS collection; he received 2 years probation and a $10,000 fine. Two others arrested on the morning of February 26, 2003 are former HTN associate, Walid Smari, of Idaho, and Danya Wellmon, Dhafir’s laboratory technician at his medical practice. Both accepted immunity in exchange for their testimony at Dhafir’s trial. Jean Karp, a former Catholic nun and Dhafir’s nurse for many years, had left Dhafir’s practice to start a free clinic for the poor. She was grandfathered into a new Medicare program and received her own Medicare number that meant she could bill Medicare directly. She was not charged with any crime by the government, but when Dhafir was arrested her Medicare number was taken from her; as a consequence the free clinic closed. She had no idea why it had been taken and it had not been reinstated when she testified at Dhafir’s trial.

51 See a New York Times article mentioned in the cross testimony of Susan Hutner, the Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC), which the defense cited as an example of information suggesting that humanitarian aid was exempt from the sanctions on Iraq. P. Lewis, “The Iraqi Invasion; U.N. Expected to Approve Iraq and Kuwait Trade Ban,” New York Times, August 6th, 1990. Hutner stated that in an effort to educate the public, OFAC had contacted the press, the banking and oil industries and that she had given presentations to these industries. OFAC did not notify mosques and Hutner could not remember if she had taken any calls from mosques or Muslim charities. Susan Hutner’s testimony O3-CR-64, volume XII, filed on January, 11, 2005. Executive order 13224, issued on September 23, 2001, changed the guidelines for humanitarian aid. For a more detailed description of the effects of these new regulations, see Al-Marayati, Easy Targets.

52 Mike McAndrew “Fund-Raiser for Iraq Now Helps Iranians: Man Involved in Help the Needy Case Urges People to Aid Earthquake Victims,” Syracuse Post Standard, http://dontsmeardhafir.blogspot.com/2004/11/islamophobia-syracuse-post-standards.html

53 McGraw Video.

54 The government presented its case in minute detail, spending days and days following checks from bank to bank, followed by days and days of people from Dhafir’s office verifying their signatures on Medicare forms. Because Dhafir had been bankrupted in the course of seeking justice, the defense was able to call one witness for 15 minutes. The defense lawyers felt that they had successfully defended the case using government witnesses. Having sat through almost all of the 17-week trial, I agree and do not understand the jury verdict. At the very least, the defense gave cause for reasonable doubt on each of the charges. There was a core group of about 12 court watchers, several of whom attended almost every day of the trial, who also felt the defense had successfully defended the case.

55 Dhafir was charged with only white-collar crime. In his sentencing statement, he said, “My computers were confiscated, my documents were seized, my bank records hid from me, my personal library was ransacked; books which have nothing to do with the allegations were taken. To this date I am denied to see for myself what was actually taken so that I can retrieve evidences that will refute all the allegations beyond the shadow of the doubt:” http://www.dhafirtrial.net/about-dr-dhafir/dhafir-sentencing-statement/

56 See ACLU-CNY Chapter Statement on Dhafir Case, 10/28/05: http://www.dhafirtrial.net/2005/01/26/strongdr-dhafirs-trial-concluded-todaystrong-today/#more-19 http://www.cnyclu.org/issues.htm

57 See Naylor, Purses, p. 229

58 Hughes, Witness.

59 Department of Justice Examples of Terrorism Convictions Since Sept. 11, 2001: http://www.usdoj.gov/opa/pr/2006/June/06_crm_389.html

60 See J. Van Bergen, “How Government Forfeitures are Shutting Down U.S.-Based Muslim Charities: Going After Terrorism Financiers Is the Right Strategy, But the Law Needs Reform.” Findlaw, May 1, 2006: http://writ.news.findlaw.com/commentary/20060501_bergen.html. She discusses the fact that many forfeiture laws were reformed in 2000 because they have always been constitutionally and ethically problematic, but this was not the case with IEEPA.

61 Sentencing Memorandum Of The United States. Criminal Action No. 03-CR-64 (NAM), p.3 (Hereafter, Sentencing Memo.) That Dr. Dhafir followed the Salafi tradition did not play any part in the trial. However, during the proceedings the government did made the jury aware that Osama bin Laden was also a Salafi.

62 Sentencing Memorandum, p.3

63 To read the full statement go to, ACLU-CNY Chapter Statement on Dhafir Case, 10/28/05: http://www.cnyclu.org/issues.htm

64 This author attended the lecture. The other two Help the Needy prosecutor’s, Michael Olmsted and Steve Green, also attended.

65 In July 2007, Jeff Breinholt joined the International Assessment Strategy Center (IASC) as a Senior Fellow and Director of National Security Law for a one-year assignment from the Department of Justice, National Security Division. Until June 2007, he served as Deputy Chief of the Counterterrorism Section at the U.S. Department of Justice: http://www.strategycenter.net/about/

66 Naylor, Purses, p. 333

67 J. Van Bergen, “Documents show new secretive US prison program isolating Muslim, Middle Eastern prisoners,”   http://www.rawstory.com//news/2007/Documents_show_new_secretive_new_US_0216.html 

68 Prisoners across the country were awakened at 7:00 a.m. on December 7, held in the “hole” for two days, and then transported to Terre Haute, Indiana. Rafil Dhafir, letter from prison, written between December 17, 2006 and January 18, 2007: http://www.dhafirtrial.net/2007/02/07/a-letter-from-dr-dhafir-about-his-transfer-and-new-prison-situation/#more-887 

69 Id. Government documentation http://www.pegc.us/archive/DOJ/THCMU_Explan_VisRuls_20061222.pdf
http://www.pegc.us/archive/DOJ/THCMU_InstSupp_20061130.pdf
http://www.pegc.us/archive/DOJ/THCMU_Notice_to_Inmate.pdf
It is likely that the program as it now stands grew out of the program mentioned here in a “Coalition Letter to Bureau of Prisons Re: Suppression of Prisoner Contacts,” http://multiracial.com/site/content/view/1110/49/ See also D. Eggen, Washington Post, February 25, 2007, “Facility Holding Terrorism Inmates Limits Communication:” http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/24/AR2007022401231.html

70 C. Johnson, Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic, Metropolitan Books (2007), p.17. (Hereafter, Johnson, Nemesis). Johnson says, “It is not clear who first spoke these immortal words—Patrick Henry, Thomas Jefferson, or the anti-slavery abolitionist Wendell Philips—but during the Cold War and its aftermath, Americans were not particularly vigilant when it came to excessive concentration of power in the presidency and its appendages, and we are now paying a very high price for that.”

71 A. Waldman, “Prophetic Justice,” The Atlantic Monthly, October 2006: http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200610/waldman-islam/3 p.13

72 Johnson, Nemesis, p.13

73 At the same time government lawyers challenged the appeal court decision, they put a lien against the Dhafir family home so, even if they wanted to, the Dhafir’s could not put up their house as a guarantee for a loan against money for transcripts.

Thanksgiving Hypocrisy

Thanksgiving Hypocrisy - by Stephen Lendman

In the US, Thanksgiving is celebrated on the fourth Thursday of November to give thanks for the year's blessings and bounty. At least that's how it began. It's not, however, the current practice. Most people defile the day's spirit in how they spend it over a full four day holiday weekend - with overindulgent eating, parades, "can't miss" football from Thursday through Sunday, and, key for merchants, the "official" start of the Christmas holiday shopping season. It begins Thanksgiving Friday, is now an orgy of holiday consumerism, continues through Christmas eve, ebbs for a day, then builds again for a final celebratory new year's welcome with more overindulgent eating, drinking, partying, and binge-shopping for nonessentials.

This holiday, like all others, is also replete with myths, and young minds are filled with them. They're taught the Pilgrims invited Native Indians to share their bounty in a show of brotherhood and friendship with an array of foods early settlers never heard of that were indigenous to the Americas and introduced to them by Native peoples. The Pilgrims had nothing to do with this tradition. It began with Eastern Indians observing fall harvest celebrations centuries before the first settlers arrived. After they did, there was no such observance as "Thanksgiving."

While George Washington had days for national thanksgiving, modern holiday celebrations date from the Civil War in 1863 when Abraham Lincoln wanted a way to boost morale and patriotic fervor of the Union Army. His idea was to proclaim a national Thanksgiving holiday for the first time ever. It had nothing to do with the Pilgrims nor were they ever mentioned until 1890, and the term Pilgrim was never even used until the 1870s. So much for tradition and what passes for history that, in fact, is pure myth.

The Thanksgiving holiday is also a way to promote what Edward Herman calls our "indispensable state," our innate goodness and the illusion of American exceptionalism, moral and cultural superiority, and the belief that the Almighty made us special the way ideological Zionists feel Jews are "the chosen people." It's a short step from these views to judging others inferior, especially those ranked low in the racial, religious, ethnic or cultural pecking order - blacks, Latinos, and today's number one target of choice for a nation at war and an enemy needed to justify it - Muslims hatefully portrayed as "radicals, extremists, gunmen, insurgents," and "Islamofascists."

Thanksgiving also serves another purpose. It has special religious significance in a nation with three-fourths of the population Christian, and the traditional separation of church and state now weakened. The US was founded as a secular state, and First Amendment constitutional law affirms it stay that way with freedom of religion guaranteed. In 1802, Jefferson called for a "wall of separation" between them, and earlier Supreme Courts agreed. They ruled this separation is required to prohibit any state religion and require government avoid undue religious involvement, its trappings or expressions. That's now changed under radicalized right wing rule.

Today, the extremist Christian Right jeopardizes religious freedom with frightening implications to consider. Their movement became dominant in the Reagan 1980s and reemerged even more virulently under George Bush. It's close to the seat of power with ideologues like Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell while he was living, James Dobson, and radical Zionist Muslim hate-preacher John Hagee having enormous influence on the administration and Congress.

Religious freedom was jeopardized by the introduction of the "Constitution Restoration Act of 2004" that was reintroduced in near-identical form in 2005. So far it's gone nowhere, but if introduced again and adopted in the 110th or a later Congress, it would turn the US into a de facto theocracy even though its supporters deny that intent. Don't believe them.

Dominionists like Pat Robertson and others support the bill as do influential sponsoring members of both Houses. Their goal is simple, but they won't admit it - tear down the sacred wall between between church and state so the US can be governed by their extremist Christian dogma. It would make believers of other faiths, or none at all, lawbreakers with their version of Christian canon the new law of the land - a very scary prospect for about 75 million non-Christians in the country and many of Christian faith who won't go along.

If it's ever adopted, this bill will prevent the Supreme Court from challenging the right of anyone in or affiliated with federal, state or local government to affirm "God as the sovereign source of law, liberty, or government" - an extremist Christian God, that is. Any judge at any level interpreting the law otherwise would henceforth be subject to impeachment and prosecution in the new USA ruled by the empowered Pat Robertson types in it. It would also likely make Thanksgiving an obligatory Christian observance, even for non-Christians, and make its religious overtones mandatory.

As it's now celebrated, Thanksgiving is already shameful. While barely giving thanks, if at all, we forget millions of poor, deprived and oppressed peoples everywhere and our government's role in their condition. We also ignore the systematic dismantling of our constitutional rights and denial of essential social services to growing millions without them. And we're too distracted by bread, circuses and overindulgence to oppose injustice and support the rights and needs of people everywhere.

This day and others should be times of reflection, thanks and much more. Blessings aren't given. They're earned and just as easily lost when rogue leaders threaten our freedoms, and democracy is an illusion. But it's not something new. Our tradition is long and disturbing with conflict, violence, and our framers design that the "supreme Law of the Land" give government unlimited power, the Executive unchecked amounts of it, and "we the people" meant only the privileged. It's pure fantasy thinking we have limited government, constitutionally constrained and one of, by and for the people. Look at the record.

Along with war, militarism, expansionism and free market fundamentalism, we're a nation addicted to privilege. It's always been this way despite our prevailing fiction of an egalitarian country respecting everyone's rights. That's nonsense in a nation glorifying wealth and power and those with it claiming a divine right for more.

It's always been that way and especially since WW II when the US emerged unchallenged as the world's only superpower. Since then we've had imperial wars, CIA-instigated coups, political assassinations, and disdain for the law to defend unfettered capitalism from beneficial social change. On November 22, we should do more than give thanks. We should ask for forgiveness and demand accountability.

Journalism Professor Robert Jensen is right calling for a "No Thanks to Thanksgiving" in his earlier writing. He suggests we'd be hugely uplifted by replacing our overindulgent "white supremicist" Thanksgiving ritual with a "National Day of Atonement" and have it include self-reflective fasting for our forefathers' "original sin" no matter where our own came from. Establishing that tradition would be an important step forward - toward a day to give thanks every day in a land with leaders resolved never to repeat the crimes of the past and equally committed to public service instead of just for the elite part of 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 Mondays at noon US central time.

Torturing Palestinian Detainees

Torturing Palestinian Detainees - by Stephen Lendman

B'Tselem is the conservative Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories with a well-deserved reputation for accuracy. A group of prominent academics, attorneys, journalists and Knesset members founded the organization in 1989 to "document and educate the Israeli public and policymakers about human rights violations in the Occupied Territories, combat the phenomenon of denial prevalent among the Israeli public, and help create a human rights culture in Israel" to convince government officials to respect human rights and comply with international law.

Its work covers a wide range of human rights issues that include detentions and torture. In May, 2007, it prepared a detailed 100 page report titled "Absolute Prohibition: The Torture and Ill-treatment of Palestinian Detainees" that's now available in print for those who request it. This article summarizes its findings that represent a joint effort by B'Tselem and HaMoked: Center for the Defense of the Individual that was founded in 1988 to support Palestinian rights during the first intifada in the late 1980s.

Since the early 1990s, B'Tselem published more than ten reports on Israelis' use of torture and mistreatment of Palestinian detainees. This is the latest one in an effort to raise public awareness and help abolish these abhorrent practices. The findings are based on testimonies solicited from a small "unrepresentative" sample of 73 Palestinian West Bank residents who were arrested between July, 2005 and January, 2006, agreed to tell their stories, and who met predetermined criteria for the study.

They were chosen from the names of 4460 Palestinian detainees whose relatives contacted HaMoked for help to locate their whereabouts. HaMoked provides this service because Israel violates international law and its own military regulations by denying family members any information about who was detained or where they're being held. From its many years investigating Israeli torture, B'Tselem believes the information in this report accurately reflects the types and extent of Israeli abusive practices.

Torture, abuse or degrading treatment are abhorrent in any form for any reason, and long-standing international law forbids these practices under all circumstances. The four 1949 Geneva Conventions banned any form of "physical or mental coercion" and affirmed sick, wounded, war prisoners and civilians must be treated humanely. All four conventions have a common thread called Common Article Three that requires all non-combatants to be treated humanely at all times. There are no exceptions for any reasons, and violations are grave breaches of Geneva and other international law that constitute crimes of war and against humanity.

Nonetheless, the 1987 Landau Commission (headed by retired Israeli Supreme Court Chief Justice Moshe Landau) cited the "necessary defense" provision in the Penal Law to recommend using "psychological and moderate physical pressure," to obtain evidence for convictions in criminal proceedings. Its justification was that coercive interrogation tactics were necessary against "hostile terrorist activity" it defined to include not just threats or acts of violence but all activities related to Palestinian nationalism.

Later in September, 1999, Israel's High Court of Justice (HCJ) responded to the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel's petition (PCATI) and issued a landmark decision (reversing Landau recommendations) and barred the use of torture against detainees. It was, however, a hollow gesture as at the same time it ruled pressure and a measure of discomfort were legitimate interrogation side-effects but should not be used to break a detainee's spirit. It then added a giant loophole allowing interrogators to use physical force and avoid prosecutions in "ticking time bomb" cases even though international law allows no exceptions, and Israeli authorities could claim that excuse for anyone in custody.

Since its occupation of Gaza and the West Bank (the OPT) in 1967, Israel imprisoned over 650,000 Palestinians according to the Palestinian peace and justice group MIFTA. That's equivalent to about one-sixth of the OPT's population today. The security services currently hold around ten to twelve thousand Palestinian men, women and children in its prisons under deplorable conditions with many under administrative detention without charge. Based on earlier assessments by Hamoked, B'Tselem estimates as many as 85% of them are subjected to torture and mistreatment in custody even though most of them aren't accused of terrorism. These practices are routinely and systematically used against political activists, students accused of being pro-Islam, sheikhs and religious leaders, people in Islamic charitable organizations, relatives of wanted individuals or any man, woman or child Israel targets for any reason.

B'Tselem's May, 2007 report states that the Israeli Security Agency (ISA - formerly called the General Security Service or GSS) admits to using "exceptional" methods that include "physical pressure" of interrogation in "ticking bomb" cases that can be used as an excuse to abuse anyone. In addition, law enforcement officials openly admit harsh measures are approved retroactively so that Palestinian detainee rights can be freely violated without fear of recrimination. In other words, ISA interrogators know the rules - don't ask permission, use any methods you wish, and don't worry about the consequences after the fact. There won't be any, and it shows in what detainees told B'Tselem.

They reported being "softened up" for interrogation from the moment of their arrest to when ISA agents took over. Abuses at the outset included beatings, painful binding, swearing, humiliation and denial of basic needs. The ISA procedure then included seven key forms of abuse that violated the detainees' dignity and bodily integrity. They were inflicted to break their spirit, but international law calls it torture when it includes verified intent, severe pain or suffering, improper motive, and involvement of the state. All those conditions apply to Israeli abusive practices that included:

-- isolation that prohibited detainees from contact with family, an attorney or ICRC representatives; this exacerbated detainees' sense of powerlessness by creating a situation in which they're completely at the mercy of interrogators; it's also known to cause them serious psychological harm when continued for extended periods;

-- psychological pressure from solitary confinement in "putrid, stifling cells three to six square meters in size" with no windows or access to daylight and fresh air; a fixed overhead light on 24 hours a day; walls made of rough plaster making them uncomfortable or impossible to lean against; a water faucet on one wall and some cells with sinks; a usually dirty and damp mattress and "filthy putrid" blankets on the floor; nothing else in cells; reading and writing materials not allowed; in many cells, toilets were holes in the floor; detainees denied all human contact except for guards and interrogators.

-- physical conditions in solitary confinement cells are regulated in Criminal Procedure Regulations issued by Israel's Minister of Internal Security with the approval of the Knesset Constitution, Law and Justice Committee; they don't apply to "security detainees," however, so cells have no bed, chairs and most often no sink; nothing else provided including use of a telephone and right to have visitors provide items; cells were too small to walk around in, and no daily outside exercise was allowed;

-- detainees weakened from lack of physical activity, sleep deprivation and inadequate food; they're denied basic needs like food and liquids, medicines or the right to relieve themselves; throughout long hours of interrogation, they're shackled to a chair unable to move hands or legs even minimally; they had nutritional deficiencies and food received was inadequate, cold, improperly cooked, flavorless and often repulsive in appearance; many detainees resisted eating as long as possible;

-- shackling in the "shabah" position that's the prolonged and painful binding of detainees' hands and feet to a standard-sized unupholstered, metal frame, rigid plastic chair fixed to the floor with no armrests; hands tightly bound behind the back in adjustable plastic handcuffs and connected to a ring at the back of the seat to stretch them uncomfortably below the backrest; legs bound to the chair's front legs; detainees were unable to get up throughout interrogation that on average lasted eight consecutive hours without a break and on the first day ran 12 hours; later in the interrogation period, sessions shortened to four or five hours;

-- interrogations only for a small portion of this time; for most if it, interrogators were out of the room; at those times air conditioning turned up to uncomfortably cold levels; most often only one meal served during a day's interrogation; very sparing toilet privileges allowed; nearly all detainees complained of severe back, neck, shoulder, arms and wrist pain during interrogation; numbness or loss of sensation in limbs also reported; the Israeli High Court of Justice (HCJ) ruled in 1999 that all "shabah" shackling procedures are unlawful since they violate rules for "reasonable and fair interrogation" and injure detainees' dignity and well-being; ISA interrogators ignore the ruling with impunity;

-- cursing and humiliating strip searches of detainees as well as shouting, spitting in the face and other related abusive practices; detainees forced to strip naked and submit to body searches while being yelled at and mocked;

-- intimidations made to include threats of physical torture (called "military interrogation"), arrest of family members and destruction of homes;

-- using informants ("asafirs") to get information that's not abusive as such but is a very questionable method following preparatory "softening up."

B'Tselem then discussed "special" interrogation methods that mostly involve physical violence:

-- sleep deprivation for 30 to 40 hours during which detainees left painfully shackled in interrogation rooms; guards frequently awakened detainees between midnight and 5AM; various type oppressive noises used at night to interfere with sleep;

-- use of "dry" beatings that included punching, kicking all parts of the body, striking with rifle butts and face slapping; detainees hit with clubs, helmets and other objects; heads slammed against a wall, floor or hard surface; beatings inflicted when detainees' hands were bound behind their back, and they were blindfolded; additional beatings during physical inspections with their hands cuffed;

-- painful binding with handcuffs or other devices tight enough to cut off blood flow circulation and cause swelling;

-- sharp twisting of the head forcefully and suddenly sideways or backwards;

-- forced "frog" crouching on tiptoes with cuffed hands behind the back accompanied by shoving or beating until detainees lost their balance and fell forward or backward; this method inflicts pain by increasing pressure on leg muscles and also hurts wrists after falling;

-- use of forced "banana" position that involves bending the back in a painful arch while the body is extended horizontally to the floor on a backless chair with arms and feet bound beneath it.

Prison killings also occur like the October 22 one at the notorious Ketziot Detention Center in the Negev desert where 2300 Palestinians are held under very harsh conditions. It happened at 2AM when prison guards began searching tents and strip-searching inmates in a deliberate middle of the night provocation. Prisoners resisted and about 550 members of the Israeli Prison Service (IPS) Metsada riot dispersal unit responded with excessive force by beating them with plastic clubs and rifle butts as well as firing rubber-coated bullets, live ammunition, tear gas and stun grenades that set tents ablaze and caused as many as 250 inmate injuries and at least nine serious ones. During the assault, Mohammed Al Ashqar was killed after being shot in the head.

The Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) maintains that prisoner abuse, repressive tactics and killing Palestinians is official Israeli policy that's become even worse under current IPS director, Beni Kaniak. PCHR reports he instituted these punitive measures:

-- reductions in food and cleaning materials rations;

-- additional items prisoners forbidden to have;

-- confiscated prisoners' money and prevented none sent from families to reach them;

-- widespread use of solitary confinement;

-- periodic movement of prisoners to new facilities to prevent any sense of stability;

-- repeated unannounced harsh late night raids like the October 22 one at Ketziot.

These tactics and Palestinian detainee torture and abuse are condoned "under the auspices of the Israeli law enforcement system." B'Tselem reported since 2001, Israel's State Attorney's Office got over 500 complaints of these practices but investigated none of them. Overall, instances of detainee mistreatment are rarely looked into and even fewer ever result in indictments. Further, despite its 1999 ruling, Israel's High Court of Justice (HCJ) aids ISA interrogations by refusing to accept even one of hundreds of petitions brought before it for redress. HCJ also lets ISA conceal information from detainees that abusive orders were issued against them or that legal petitions were filed on their behalf. It further allows evidence obtained under torture to be used in criminal proceedings.

B'Tselem and HaMoked are committed to ending Israel's use of torture against Palestinian detainees. They cite the example of the US Army's September, 2006 Field Manual for Human Intelligence Collector Operations as a proper guide to conducting interrogations even though authorized physical and psychological brutality became official administration policy under George Bush post-9/11. Nonetheless, this manual covers 18 interrogation methods experience showed work under varying situations and conditions. They range from establishing trust between interrogator and detainee to the use of ruses and psychological manipulation. In all cases, they don't involve torture or other unlawful practices.

It's one thing to have rules and laws and another to abide by them. The US under George Bush condones and practices "the harshest interrogation techniques ever used by the Central Intelligence Agency" according to once secret Department of Justice (DOJ) legal opinions. It's no different in Israel where the ISA systematically and routinely uses banned interrogation measures with impunity. B'Tselem and HaMoked want these practices ended and urge the Israeli government to halt them by enacting enforceable laws "strictly prohibiting torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment" in accordance with international law.

They further recommend every complaint of abuse and torture be investigated by an independent body, persons found to have broken the law to be prosecuted, and that "every detainee receives minimum humane conditions." Israel claims to be a civilized state. It's about time it acted like one.

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 Mondays at noon US central time.

Our Man in Islamabad

Our Man in Islamabad - by Stephen Lendman

The Islamic Republic of Pakistan was established in August,1947 when its majority Muslim population separated from British-controlled India and became a sovereign state. Since then, the country has been plagued by wars, political instability, and a series of military coups as it continues stumbling unsuccessfully toward democracy.

Nominally, Pakistan is a federal democratic republic (declared in 1956) under a semi-presidential system and bicameral legislature consisting of a 100 member Senate and larger lower house National Assembly. The President is considered head of state and armed forces commander and chief (in a civilian capacity) and is elected by the Electoral College of Pakistan comprised of both houses of Parliament and the Provincial Assemblies. The Prime Minister is Pakistan's head of government, is elected by the National Assembly, and is usually the largest party's leader.

This is how government is supposed to work in Pakistan, but things are never that simple there. In its entire 60 year history, democracy has been a sham under various elected and military regimes. Musharraf is just the latest military one after he ousted elected Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in an October, 1999 coup. At the time, few people were surprised as tensions between elements of Pakistan's ruling classes had been building for months. Sharif had grown increasingly unpopular and had Musharraf not deposed him other opposition forces might have done it.

Elected as a champion of democracy, Sharif soon disappointed as did his predecessor, Benazir Bhutto, who's now trying to reinvent herself as a democrat. Massive corruption accompanied his repressive right-wing rule that made his tenure widely unpopular. He sacked thousands of workers, cut food subsidies, let utility costs skyrocket, banned state union sectors and restricted workers' rights to demonstrate and strike. At the same time, he and his cronies siphoned off millions of state funds, amassed enormous wealth, and hid it in offshore accounts. Under his rule, state institutions were collapsing, and workers and the poor suffered most. They wanted change, and the army obliged but not the way most people wanted.

Since taking power in 1999 and appointing himself President in June, 2001, Musharraf engaged in a precarious balancing act and ruled repressively. He tried to secure Pakistan's traditional geopolitical and strategic South and Central Asian interests. In addition, he supported the domestic Islamic fundamentalist right against traditional political elites and popular opposition from below. He also aimed to please Washington post-9/11 under threat of being declared a hostile power if he didn't and was summarily told by Deputy Secretary of State Armitage his punishment would be "to be bombed back to the stone age." To avoid that, he stopped supporting the Taliban and provided the Bush administration vital logistical help in its attack and occupation of Afghanistan.

His reward was not being bombed and over $10 billion in military and other aid ever since through a virtual unaccountable blank check and blind eye to human rights abuses under his regime. Since he came to power, Musharraf tried to silence all political dissent and did it through disappearances, arbitrary detentions, extrajudicial killings and torture on the pretext of fighting "terrorism." And as a "war on terror" ally, he launched military assaults against tribal and Taliban forces in Waziristan and Baluchistan, but that caused internal resentment to build against his increasingly unpopular rule. He also angered elements in the military that resent his lust for power and reckless behavior to hold on to it, and that ultimately may be his undoing.

Things came to a boil when Musharraf suspended the nation's Chief Justice, Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry, last March. He accused him of "misconduct and misuse of authority" as cover to remove a key official he thought might block his plan for another five year term as President along with remaining chief of army staff (COAS) that's constitutionally illegal. He named an interim head justice, effectively placed Chaudhry under house arrest, and ordered the judicial council to investigate corruption charges.

The response to the move was outrage across the board from opposition parties, lawyers' organizations and human rights groups. They called the action unconstitutional and rallied in street protests against it. At the same time, Musharraf faces other crises that led to his recent actions. The Bush administration wants more from him against the Taliban as well as assurances he'll be a reliable ally if the US attacks Iran. In addition, Baluchistan's insurgency has continued for the past two years, and the army has lost hundreds of troops confronting it. That's caused mounting defections in its ranks, and public anger over it as well.

There are also economic issues because Musharraf adopted Washington Consensus policies that allowed poverty and discontent to grow hugely under his rule. People needs are ignored, social inequity has increased, food prices have spiraled, unions are cracked down on, and over half of government spending is for the military and debt service. In addition, corruption is rampant, the military practices crony capitalism, and Musharraf gets millions from it according to Pakistani analyst, Ayesha Siddiqa, in her recently published book - Military, Inc.: Inside Pakistan's Military Economy." On top of that, democracy in the country is a joke and always has been.

Nonetheless, Musharraf wants to retain power until 2012 and staged a bogus October 6 election to do it. It violated the law and was stage-managed by the military in a process neither free nor fair because the general's allies dominate the Parliament from having rigged elections five years ago. As expected, Musharraf won easily getting all but five parliamentary votes (252 out of 257) cast and swept the Provincial Assembly balloting as well. Opposition MPs abstained or boycotted the proceeding calling it unconstitutional, and the Supreme Court said no winner could be declared until it rules if Musharraf could run in his joint COAS capacity.

Pakistan has seen increased political upheaval for months. Musharraf wants to keep power by confronting it and intends to stay allied with the Bush administration in the process. At the time though, he said he'd step down as army chief once the Supreme Court certified his election, but the fact remains he has no intention to do it.

Pakistan Post-November 3

That's how things stood before November 3 when the general staged his second coup by declaring a state of emergency and suspending constitutional rule. But that's nothing new in Pakistan's history. The country's first Constitution was adopted in 1956 but was short-lived. It was abrogated in 1958 when martial law was imposed. A new Constitution emerged in 1962 and then annulled in 1969, again under martial law. A third and current Constitution came in 1973. It was suspended in 1977, restored in 1985 with major changes, suspended again in 1999, and restored in 2002 with more changes until Musharraf acted on November 3.

Few in the country with long memories were surprised, and one analyst said it's "back to the past again (in Pakistan." Another put it this way: "Pakistan's constitutional development illustrate(s)....that a constitutional morality (in the country) has not developed. The document is unable to discipline the political elite, especially the bureaucratic and military elite." Put another way, these comments illustrate that the country is not yet ready for prime time.

Washburn University law professor Ali Kahn explained on CounterPunch that article 232 of Pakistan's 1973 constitution "allows the President (as a civilian) to issue a Proclamation of Emergency under grave circumstances." Kahn also said the Constitution doesn't allow a "wholesale termination of services of Supreme Court judges," thus rendering Musharraf's action an "extra-constitutional coup." But it's not the first time he did it. After seizing power in 1999, he ordered all judges to swear a new oath of allegiance to him as military ruler. Thirteen of them on the Supreme Court refused, were sacked, and then replaced by more complaint ones in a blatantly unconstitutional act Musharraf got away with at the time.

Now he's at it again with a brutal crackdown. After his November 3 action, Musharraf deployed his security forces across the capital; occupied Parliament and the Supreme Court; forced private TV stations off the air; suspended free speech and the press as well as free assembly, association and movement; disrupted mobile phone networks; and placed targeted opposition politicians, lawyers and others under "preventive detention" after empowering police to do it.

He further annulled the Supreme Court's authority to rule against him, the Prime Minister, or anyone acting on his behalf and made it a crime to ridicule the President, armed forces, Parliament or the courts. Last July, the full Supreme Court bench reinstated Chief Justice Choudhry to his post, but on November 3 he was removed again along with six other Supreme Court justices because they refused to endorse Musharraf's Provisional Constitutional Order (PCO) emergency decree. They were also placed under house arrest. The president of Pakistan's Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA), Aitzaz Ahsan, and other influential lawyers were also arrested as the general hardens his dictatorial rule.

Why This Measure and Why Now

Musharraf apparently feared an imminent Choudhry Supreme Court ruling against his October 6 reelection and acted preemptively to stop him. Reports in the country were that he likely knew how the Court would rule and decided weeks ago to quash it in his COAS capacity. Benazir Bhutto apparently knew it, too, and left the country to avoid looking complicit so as not to tarnish her pretense to be democratic. She returned to Islamabad November 6, the country is under martial law with the Constitution suspended, and Musharraf, as army chief, is a de facto dictator.

This event is front page news everywhere with Washington and western leaders feigning outrage. Condoleezza Rice calls Musharraf's move "highly regrettable" while affirming the Bush administration's support for his regime nonetheless. She claims it's because he acted up to now to put Pakistan on a "path to democratic rule" that on its face is laughable.

Washington values Musharraf in its "war on terror" because he backs the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, is apparently on board against Tehran, and he lets the Pentagon use Pakistan territory for cross-border incursions against its Iranian neighbor in preparation for something bigger ahead. To prove it means it, the administration signaled on November 4 it will keep aiding the man George Bush calls one of his most important "counterrorism" allies, and America values "stability" over democracy.

After the coup, Tariq Ali wrote on CounterPunch and ZNet that Pakistan's largest independent TV station, Geo TV, continues broadcasting outside the country, and one of its "sharpest journalists," Hamid Mir, reported his sources told him "the US Embassy had green lighted the coup because they regarded (Chaudhry) as a nuisance and 'Taliban sympathiser.' " He was at odds with Musharraf for months over key issues, according to Ali, such as "disappeared prisoners, harassment of women and rushed privatizations." The greater fear, however, was that "he might (also be about to) declare a uniformed President illegal" which is likely true and an easy sell to forces opposed to an unpopular leader.

This has been building for months and was the reason behind Washington's wanting a power-sharing arrangement between Musharraf and Benazir Bhutto. Those plans unravelled on November 3 even though Bhutto's criticism of the coup was muted, and reports are she's back to negotiating a deal while, at the same time, rallying her supporters for an opposition November 9 Rawalpindi rally.

Accomodating Musharraf is her only option to return to power (as Prime Minister) and to assure corruption charges against her are dropped. That part of the deal was sealed October 5 when Musharraf signed a "reconciliation ordinance" absolving her of all outstanding charges of looting up to $2 billion in public funds during her tenure. In her final year in office in 1996, Transparency International, an independent watchdog group, named Pakistan the second most corrupt country in the world even though its standing later improved modestly.

Fast-Moving Events in Pakistan

Pakistan remains in turmoil under martial law. Thousands have been arrested including hundreds of lawyers, opposition politicians, journalists and students according to independent sources although the Interior Ministry acknowledges only 1800. In addition, pitched battles are on the streets, and all George Bush can say is we'll "continue to work with (Musharraf and hope) he will restore democracy as quickly as possible." Military and other aid will continue, so it's business as usual, but that's to be expected from two nations with contempt for the law.

Consider this New York Times November 7 quote from prominent Islamabad lawyer Babar Sattar and relate it to US conditions post-911: "How do you function as a lawyer when the law is what the general says it is?" Consider also what lawyer and former cabinet member Athar Minallah said about Pakistan's Supreme Court: "When the (Court) started acting (independently) for the first time in 60 years, they (Musharraf) came down very hard. In the past, the Supreme Court had always connived with the establishment and the military."

That's the state of things under George Bush. He unconstitutionally usurped "Unitary Executive" power to claim the law is what he says it is and once told Republican colleagues the Constitution is "just a goddamned piece of paper." In addition, federal courts, including the Supreme Court, are stacked with supportive right wing justices, and the nation is about to get a new Attorney General who condones torture and approves of arbitrary executive power.

Where this will lead in the US next year and beyond is open to debate. In Pakistan it's anyone's guess as well as things remain fluid and events are breaking fast. January, 2008 Parliamentary elections are scheduled but are likely to be delayed or suspended even though on November 8 Musharraf is now saying, through his state media, the original timetable will be moved back to mid-February. Maybe not according to some observers who believe the political process is on hold until he secures his position as President for the next five years and most importantly continues as army chief because that's where the real power in the country lies. Pakistan's Constitution allows the legislature's tenure to be extended up to a year so it's possible that's the plan.

In the meantime, the Pentagon, Bush administration, Democrats and corporate media back Musharraf even if some in his own military may not. Washington badly needs him with Afghanistan deteriorating badly and Iraq already a hopeless cause. It's even more important given the reluctance of NATO and "coalition" defense ministers to commit more troops and a growing anxiety of some to pull out of Bush's wars entirely. With this backdrop, Musharraf portrays himself as a rock of stability so who in Washington cares how he solidifies power or if he'll accept Bhutto as Prime Minister. For Bush and Democrats, only the "war on terror" matters so any leader backing it is an ally. Bottom line despite muted criticism - democratic credentials are not an issue. Fact is they never are.

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 Mondays at noon US central time.

Punishing Gaza

Punishing Gaza - by Stephen Lendman

On September 20, Haaretz reported: "The security cabinet voted unanimously yesterday to increase sanctions against the Hamas-run Gaza Strip (and declare) the region a 'hostile entity.' " A further statement read: "We will reduce the amount of megawattage we provide to the Strip, and Hamas will have to decide whether to provide electricity to hospitals or weapons lathes." Israeli officials also decided to punish Gazans by restricting:

-- fuel as well as electricity from Israel to Gaza;

-- the passage of goods and people through border crossings that are already severely restricted; and

-- visits to prisoners even further than how limited they are already.

An increased monitoring of funds was also announced as well as stating border crossings would be closed for up to 48 hours in response to (crude small homemade) Qassam rocket fire, and that Israel would supply nothing further to Gaza residents "except for (whatever Israel considers) humanitarian needs." Hamas' response was swift and sharp. Spokesman Fawzi Barhoum called the cabinet's decision and sanctions a "declaration of war" and said "we must unite the ranks to come together in the conflict with the cruel enemy....This is another attempt to force us to surrender (our sovereignty)."

At first, the world community hardly blinked with UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon acting as irresponsibly as his predecessor. He urged Israel to reconsider its decision but denounced Hamas for its "continued indiscriminate rocket fire....into Israel (and that he) understand(s) Israel's security concerns over this matter." Nothing in his statement mentioned Israel's daily attacks and killings of Palestinians or the deepening humanitarian crisis in Gaza after Israel closed its borders last June, isolated the Territory from the outside world, and cut off most essential supplies and services to its people.

Karen Koning-Abu Zayd is the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) Commissioner-General for Palestine Refugees. On October 30, she showed more concern than her boss by saying Israel's decision to cut fuel and electricity to Gaza violates international law. She noted Israel's concern, but stressed "how can you want to punish people, all of them in Gaza (as) most of them....are not behind these activities....if you don't have electricity, you don't have water, you probably don't have food." This action will have a "very serious" effect on the population.

Two other UN officials also went public with their criticisms. UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, Jean Ziegler was one of them. He called on the European Commission to suspend commercial relations with Israel until it stops preventing Palestinians from receiving food without restrictions. He reported to the General Assembly that 22% of Palestinian children already suffer from malnutrition because they lack access to food.

UN Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories, John Dugard, also weighed in. He called on State Members in their capacity as High Contracting Parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention. He asked them to ensure Israel complies with its provisions regarding the protection of civilians in times of war. One of them under article 54 states: "Starvation of civilians as a method of warfare is prohibited," as well as "attack(ing), remov(ing), or render(ing) useless objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population such as foodstuffs, agricultural areas (for their production), crops, livestock, drinking water installations and supplies and irrigation works.... " Article 55 then obligates an occupying power to ensure "the food and medical supplies of the population."

Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) chief Walter Fust also expressed alarm after a recent Gaza visit. He called conditions "untenable" and "shocking" with 30% of children (in his judgment) malnourished and hospitals and health centers in a precarious state.

Things then changed on October 30. Haaretz reported Israel's "High Court of Justice ordered the state to respond within five days to a petition submitted by dozens of human rights groups (10 of them according to other reports) to halt its (Gaza fuel and electricity) cutoff," but it stopped short of banning the action. Justices may have been concerned after the European Union (EU) criticized Israel's move on October 29 calling it an act of "collective punishment." EU commissioner for external relations, Benita Ferraro-Waldner, said she was "very concerned" about the decision, that it's not a solution, and that the EU doesn't "want the population to suffer."

It's hard knowing if this signals change or whether to take the commissioner's concern seriously. The European community, along with Israel and the US, denounced Hamas' democratic election in January, 2006 as the legitimate Palestinian government. It's response ever since was to end all outside aid and impose crushing sanctions and an economic embargo on the Territories as well as politically isolate the new Hamas government.

The results were devastating. Even before the latest crisis, Gaza's industrial production had fallen 90% and its agricultural output was half its pre-2007 level. In addition, nearly all construction had stopped, unemployment is around 80%, and the level of poverty is shocking based on World Bank data showing over 80% of Gazans live on less than $2.40 a day. Further, the Palestinian Al Huq association of jurists called Israel's summer, 2005 Gaza disengagement fraudulent as "Israel retains full control of the Gaza Strip's land borders, population registry, airspace and territorial sea," and the IDF invades the Territory at will.

The EU was silent about this and Israel's overall repressive rule, land expropriations, daily incursions, and regular attacks and killings in the Territories. It was unconcerned about the internal violence on Gaza streets last spring and gave tacit support to anti-Hamas US and Israeli-armed Fatah (Protective Security Force) paramilitary death squads led by warlord Mohammed Dahlan. It ignored Hamas' months-long unilateral cease-fire, its ending all suicide bombings, its call for peace, and its willingness to recognize the Jewish state if Israel accepts and recognizes a Palestinian one.

Its founder, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin said at the time Hamas would end its struggle "if the Zionists ended its occupation of Palestinian territories and stopped killing Palestinian women, children and innocent civilians." Israel and the West rejected the offer and all good faith efforts. They opted instead to punish Palestinians collectively and deny them their legitimate rights.

After Hamas defeated Fatah paramilitaries, the EU backed Mahmoud Abbas' quisling West Bank government. It ignored Gaza's punishing isolation and Oxfam Great Britain's grim warning of the "increasing desperation of Gazans as shortages of fuel, water and food are reported." It failed to denounce Israel and the US for creating the crisis affecting 1.5 million people. It stood allied instead with Washington and the Olmert government and did so ever since. The same is true of the UN. It's hard thinking that's changed, and it'll take more than occasional high-sounding comments from a few officials to prove it.

In the meantime, Israel began reducing fuel supplies on October 28, and Gaza's deputy Petroleum Authority director, Ahmed Ali, said diesel fuel and gasoline deliveries were 30% lower than usual. He then added: "This is a serious warning (and) the people of Gaza....are now in danger. The hospitals, water pumping station and sewage will be affected by the lack of fuel." Israel's Dor Alon energy company confirmed the reduction, and the Defense Ministry said the Sufa crossing used for transporting fuel to Gaza was closed.

On October 25, Defense Minister Ehud Barak ordered the phased cutoff, and his deputy, Matan Vilnai, said "We will dramatically reduce the flow of electricity (by about two-thirds) from Israel over several weeks" to let Gaza supply its own electricity that's impossible as Israel knows. He added this measure is part of Israel's "deeper, broader disengagement." He neglected to say it's an illegal act of collective punishment as Gaza relies on Israel for all its fuel (that includes diesel, gasoline and natural gas) and most of its electricity.

The Palestinian Center for Human Rights reported Gaza needs over 220 megawatts of electricity and consumes about 200 megawatts, 60% of which is bought from Israel. The Gaza Electricity Generation Plant supplies 65 megawatts and another 17 megawatts are bought from Egypt. When Israel directly controlled the Strip, it let Gazans establish enough electrical capacity for only 38% of their needs. Then during "Operation Summer Rain" in June, 2006, the IDF assaulted the Territory, bombed its only electrical power plant, and destroyed its main transformers with missiles. Months of rebuilding restored less than two-thirds of its original 100 megawatt capacity and made the area mostly dependent on Israel for supply.

After declaring Gaza a "hostile entity" on September 19, that's now in jeopardy unless Israel reverses its stance and reconsiders other collective punishment measures as well. Currently, its authority allows only nine basic materials to enter the Territory. That hit local markets hard, and most ran out of many items causing sharp price rises up to 500% in some cases. Items banned include some medicines, furniture, electrical appliances, cows and cigarettes while others restricted are fruits, milk and other dairy products.

Then there's the energy plan. It's to begin cutting electricity for 15 minutes, then a half hour with daily increases as long as the punitive measure remains in effect that doesn't apply to hospitals and other "vital installations," Vilnai said. Things are now on hold, however, after Attorney General Menachem Mazuz temporarily halted the electricity cutoff following a "debate" in his office on October 29. He was apparently acting on UN and EU comments as well as his own High Court's order to respond to a petition by 10 human rights organizations in five days to stop this punitive action. Mazuz said Israel had a right to sever economic and commercial ties with Gaza, but its government is responsible for the Territory and more "research" was needed before cutting off electricity. What he meant, of course, is he'll await a High Court ruling and then act.

Haaretz reported on November 3 that "State Prosecution on (November 2) defended the government's decision (to cut fuel and electricity in a letter to the High Court) claiming it is not a form of collective punishment." It said that the decision was appropriate and gave the same tired reasons it often uses to justify its harshest actions. Defense Minister Ehud Barak agreed. In a November 4 Jerusalem meeting with Condoleezza Rice, he assured the Secretary that "The sanctions (won't) cause a humanitarian crisis" without further elaboration.

Israel's infrastructure minister, Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, agrees as well and feels these measures are needed and are a final attempt to avoid a military action some observers see coming. Israel's Gaza commander, General Moshe Tamir, already admits to almost nightly incursions into the Territory and practically signaled a planned assault.

Haaretz also reported on October 30 that Israel's Defense Forces (IDF) conducted their largest military drill in the north Galilee region since the 2006 Lebanon war. It ran four days and involved ground, air and naval forces as well as intelligence and S4 units. The paper noted a similar exercise preceded the Lebanon war so it happening now is ominous.

The Jerusalem Post echoed that sentiment on October 31. It quoted Defense Minister Ehud Barak saying a large-scale IDF operation against "Palestinian rocket squads" was drawing near, and "the time is approaching when we'll have to undertake a broad operation in Gaza." The report mentioned Gaza commander Tamir saying Hamas was "building an army" and had smuggled in unprecedented capabilities. Israeli Shin Bet Security Agency chief Yuval Diskin claimed Hamas had accumulated over 112 tons of explosives, and Tamir signaled Israel is prepared to act as a result. The Jerusalem Post earlier quoted IDF Southern Command chief General Yoav Galant saying he's been "pushing for a massive operation for the past year" and now may be close to getting one.

Hamas responded to this growing threat on November 1. It called on all Palestinian resistance factions to declare a high state of alert in anticipation of a large-scale Israeli incursion into the Territory. It issued a statement saying: "Hamas is well-prepared to engage in a battle with the Israeli army, once (Gaza) is invaded, as Hamas is confident of victory, given its strong trust in God."

A major IDF assault may be imminent as Israel continues attacking civilians in Gaza and the West Bank daily. The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights report for the last week of October said 15 Palestinians were killed, 29 others wounded, and 78 more arrested. In addition, during the seven day period, IDF forces made 49 hostile incursions into the Territories, and for the past 16 months maintained a devastating siege on the population.

Washington's Upcoming Annapolis Peace Offensive

Middle East observers know what most honest ones will admit. The intermittent, now revived "peace process" is merely pretense head fake. It's more theater than substance or a serious effort to resolve this long-running conflict, and look at the proof:

-- daily IDF incursions, attacks and killings in the Territories;

-- continued land expropriations;

-- crop destruction and agricultural restrictions;

-- home demolitions;

-- restricted movement through hundreds of checkpoints as well as curfews and border and other closures any time for any reason;

-- building permit restrictions and construction prohibitions;

-- denial of essential services; and

-- other politically motivated daily repression and "matrix of control" harassment.

This all continues without letup with the full acquiescence and support of the West plus billions in annual aid from Washington.

Furthermore, Hamas is barred from the peace process, and without its participation there can be none. Its exclusion and the desperate conditions in the Territories expose the glaring hypocrisy overhanging the staged affair. Just like the fraudulent "road map," this latest incarnation is going nowhere with more proof on November 4 from Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni. She told Secretary Rice Israel's security comes first, and "only then (can there be) a Palestinian state."

Electronic Intifada editor Ali Abunimah compares the process to "one of those big budget Broadway extravaganzas; they go on for years (and) with each revival the cast changes," but the outcome is always the same as intended.

Abunimah notes the "latest revival" has Condoleezza Rice in a lead role play-acting to end the long-running conflict. George Bush is on stage as well trying to cast off his image as a warmonger and enabler of "Israeli colonization" and now pretends to want peace "with an eye on his legacy."

And so it goes with the other key actors in this melodrama pretending the process is real - quisling Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas who agreed to let Washington act as a "neutral arbitrator," Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert who jumped on the idea, and "special guest star" and reinvented war criminal Tony Blair in his new role as Middle East peace envoy. Last June he ended a failed 10 year run as UK prime minister when his audience booed him off the stage. He's been practically invisible since but will resurface in Annapolis later in November once a firm date is announced.

Abunimah notes how reality at times intervenes. It did in mid-October after Abbas' representatives met with Israeli counterparts to arrange a "declaration of principles" for the Annapolis meeting that are still unresolved. The IDF expropriated 300 more acres of Palestinian land near "occupied East Jerusalem (to expand the huge) Jewish-only settlements (bisecting) the West Bank (that) render a contiguous Palestinian state impossible."

Land seizures have been continuous since the 1993 Oslo Accords. For the past 14 years, Israel expropriated an area the size of Washington, DC for Jewish-only development knowing none of the "peace process" participants would object. It's been so extreme that noted Israeli historian Ilan Pappe believes the settlements, army bases, roads and separation wall will let Israel annex almost half the West Bank by 2010 and dispossess Palestinians now living there.

And now Abunimah explains "Rice feigns (gallingly hypocritical) frustration saying: "Frankly it is time for the establishment of a Palestinian state." She knows Israel won't allow one nor will Palestinians accept it under the current bantustan configuration and the condition Pappe describes.

Nor is one possible given the power of extremist elements in the Israeli government led by proto-fascist Deputy Prime Minister Avigdor Lieberman. Haaretz reported he insists any Israeli-Palestinian conflict resolution "include Israel's Arab citizens (on) the basis (of) a land swap and population transfer." He means no peace is possible unless 1.4 million Israeli Arab citizens are ethnically cleansed from the country. Nor will he allow core Palestinian issues to be discussed in Annapolis (or elsewhere) like "borders, settlements and the (right of return for) Palestinian refugees expelled by Israel."

And the beat goes on. Life in occupied Palestine is intolerable and worsening as the latest sham peace extravaganza is heading to Annapolis once its "opening night" is announced with fanfare and phoniness.

A different sort of event will take place in London November 17 and 18 hosted by the London Middle East Institute and organized by the London One State Group and SOAS Palestine Society at London University. It's called "Challenging the Boundaries: A Single State in Palestine/Israel." It will include panel discussions and individual speakers featuring noted participants like author and Middle East expert Gilbert Achcar, Electronic Intifada editor Ali Abunimah, noted author Nur Masalha, and Israeli historian and expert on Israel and Zionism Ilan Pappe who's now teaching at the UK University of
Exeter. The conference is about alternatives to a two-state paradigm and will advance ideas of a one-state vision that can become a workable political agenda for what seems to be the only credible way forward.

In another development, Al-Ahram Weekly reports Hamas will air its views at a "national conference" in Damascus that will coincide with Annapolis. Other Palestinian factions will also attend including the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) in a significant break with Fatah. Participating as well are the Damascas-based PFLP-General Command, the Islamic Jihad organization and senior Fatah members Farouk Al-Qaddumi and Hani Al-Hassan in a show of protest against "Abbas' line" and "his subservience to America and Israel." In addition to organized groups, hundreds of Palestinian and Arab intellectuals may attend that will add credibility to the event.

Conference organizers state they wish to reassert their opposition to "the attempted liquidation of the Palestinian cause" with special emphasis on "the right of return of five million (or more) Palestinian refugees." They also intend "not to give political cover to US-Israeli schemes to terminate the Palestinian cause in Annapolis (that is) hypocritical (and) insincere." And they further state: "The PLO leadership in Ramallah no longer represents the Palestinian people (because) it is a prisoner of the Israeli occupation and has lost whatever semblance of independence and free will it may once have had." In addition, "the PLO leadership (lacks legitimacy as it's) unelected, undemocratic and anachronistic."

Hamas also revealed plans to follow Damascus with meetings in Gaza and the West Bank to further highlight what Hamas and others call "this mockery" of a US-Israeli-Abbas effort to compromise or scrap issues vital to the Palestinian people like the right of return and status of Jerusalem. Ideas to be discussed include selecting "alternative and parallel national bodies" to counter Fatah's disregard for "the Palestinian national consensus." Under consideration is a new National Council and Executive Committee in direct opposition to Abbas who (along with Secretary Rice) tried unsuccessfully to abort Hamas' initiative. Little is expected from Annapolis, and some believe that may trigger a third Intifada and swing momentum to Hamas.

Shin Bet's Yuval Diskin thinks not but others disagree. Oslo came out of the first Intifada, and Israel's Gaza disengagement followed the second one. Nothing is off the table this time. Stay closely tuned.

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 Mondays at noon US central time.

Congressional Shame and Duplicity

Congressional Shame and Duplicity - by Stephen Lendman

The latest October Reuters/Zogby Index shows record low approval ratings for George Bush and Congress - 24% for the president that looks almost giddy compared to the bottom-scraping 11% level for the nation's lawmakers. It's more evidence that the criminal class in Washington is bipartisan and hoping November, 2008 will change things is pure fantasy.

A voter groundswell sent a message last November to end the Iraq war and occupation. Instead, the Democrat-led 110th Congress continues to fund it generously. In May, the House overwhelmingly passed HR 1585, the FY 2008 National Defense Authorization Act. It calls for $506.8 billion for DOD plus $141.8 billion (of the $150.5 billion White House request) for ongoing Iraq and Afghanistan operations. The Senate followed with a similar bill on October 1 with only three opposing votes against it. Neither bill proposed an Iraq withdrawal timeline, and final legislation has yet to be sent to the president.

Add on further amounts like George Bush's latest $46 billion request putting FY 2008 supplemental war-funding above $196 billion and rising. Congress will approve it and more in spite of Democrats signaling a protracted budget showdown ahead. The only showdown will be over how much pork will be added to the final appropriation and for what purpose.

Democrats also back the administration's push to attack Iran by echoing what the Israeli Lobby calls "The Iranian Threat." War with Iran is AIPAC's top priority, and key Democrats in Congress are on board hyping a non-existent threat to prepare the public for what may be coming. Earlier in March, Speaker Pelosi removed a provision from an appropriations bill that would have required George Bush to get congressional approval before attacking Iran. Then in July, the Senate unanimously (97 - 0) passed the Lieberman amendment that practically endorses war if it's declared. It affirmed George Bush's baseless charges that Tehran funds, trains and arms Iraqi resistance fighters "who are contributing to the destabilization of Iraq and are responsible for the murder of members of the United States Armed Forces."

The House added its voice on September 25 by voting 397 - 16 for the Iran Counter-Proliferation Act of 2007 that imposes sanctions on non-US companies investing in Iran's oil sector. The next day the Senate acted again by overwhelmingly (79 - 22) passing the Kyl-Lieberman amendment that calls for US policy to "combat, contain and (stop Iran by use of) diplomatic, economic, intelligence and military instruments." Other bellicose language in the resolution stated:

-- "the United States should designate Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corp as a foreign terrorist organization....and place (it) on the list of Specially Designated Global Terrorists....it should be the policy of the United States to stop inside Iraq the violent activities and destabilizing influence of the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran, its foreign facilitators such as Lebanese Hezbollah, and its indigenous Iraqi proxies."

This measure helped smooth the way for George Bush's October 25 unilateral imposition of sanctions discussed below. It was an unprecendented move against another nation's military Senator Jim Webb (voting no) said provides "a backdoor method of gaining congressional validation for military action, without one hearing (or) serious debate (and that the action) is Dick Cheney's fondest pipe dream."

George Bush acted provocatively twice. At his October 17 news conference, he menacingly said he believes Iran "want(s) to have the capacity, the knowledge in order to make a nuclear weapon....it's in the world's interests to prevent them from doing so....If Iran had a nuclear weapon, it would be a dangerous threat to world peace....So....if you're interested in avoiding World War III" this possibility must be prevented implying war (potentially using first-strike nuclear weapons) is the way to do it.

On October 25 Bush acted again to counter China and Russia's opposition to sweeping UN Security Council measures. He unilaterally imposed harsh new sanctions against Iran's Revolutionary Guard (IRGC), its Quds Force, three state-owned banks and over 20 Iranian companies. The IRGC was named as "proliferators of weapons of mass destruction," and the Quds Force was called a "supporter of terrorism."

Democrats buy this stuff and ignore IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei's latest October 28 statement that repeated his earlier ones. He said he had no evidence Iran is building or seeks to build nuclear weapons and accused the Bush administration of adding "fuel to the fire" with its bellicose rhetoric. The "loyal opposition" prefers instead to accept White House press secretary Dana Perino's October 29 charge that Iran "is a country that is enriching and reprocessing uranium and the reason one does that is to lead towards a nuclear weapon."

This accusation and new administration sanctions ratchet up tension further and amount to what one analyst called "a warning shot across the bow (that stops short of) a signal we're going to war," but it's got other observers thinking the likelihood is greater than ever with Congress on board. The move also caught Vladimir Putin's attention in Lisbon where he was attending an EU leader summit. "Why worsen the situation and bring it to a dead end" with sanctions or military action," he said. He then added a pointed reference to George Bush stating: "Running around like a madman with a razor blade, waving it around, is not the best way to resolve the situation."

Newly imposed sanctions won't affect US companies. They're already barred from doing business directly in Iran, but they do target their foreign subsidiaries and other foreign-based ones with threats of penalties and exclusion from the US market. It remains to be seen how effective they'll be as key EU countries as well as China, Russia, India and others have growing economic ties to Iran. They won't be eager to sever them or join the US campaign for a wider Middle East war. In addition, Iran is a major oil supplier. With the price of crude touching $96 a barrel on November 1 (and December futures up to $125), any cutoff or severe reduction of supply guarantees it'll top $100 and make a global economic slowdown or recession much more likely.

Nonetheless, the Bush war machine presses on with congressional Democrats aboard. Presidential candidates from both parties support Bush's move, and Democrat front runner Hillary Clinton is as hawkish as Joe Lieberman and John McCain. They both endorse attacking Iran, and McCain believes striking Iran's nuclear sites "is a possibility that is maybe closer to reality than we are discussing tonight."

Clinton is just as bellicose, is close to AIPAC, and in an earlier speech said: "The security and freedom of Israel must be decisive and remain at the core of any American approach to the Middle East. (We dare not) waver from this (firm) commitment." She was also quoted in the current issue of Foreign Affairs saying: "Iran poses a long-term strategic challenge to the United States, our NATO allies and Israel. It is the country that most practices state-sponsored terrorism, and it uses its surrogates to supply explosives that kill US troops in Iraq....(Iran) must not not be permitted to build or acquire nuclear weapons. If Iran (won't comply with) the will of the international community, all options must remain on the table."

The only give in her position (that's hardly any at all) is wanting congressional approval for any future military action. Up to now, that's been pro forma rubber stamp. It'll be no different if George Bush orders an attack as congressional Democrat leaders, including Hillary Clinton, have already signaled their approval.

John Richardson wrote on October 18 in Esquire.com that two former high-ranking Bush administration National Security Council officials fear the worst. They're Middle East experts Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann, and they're reacting publicly. They believe war with Iran has been in the cards for years, and we're "getting closer and closer to the tripline." Key for them was the unprecedented move to name Iran's Revolutionary Guard Quds Force a terrorist organization.

Richardson lays out what they think will happen: UN diplomacy will fail because Russia and China won't agree to harsh sanctions. Iran's policies won't change without "any meaningful incentive from the US. That will trigger a....White House (response with) a serious risk (George Bush) would decide to order an attack on the Iranian nuclear installations and probably a wider target zone." This, in turn, "would result in a dramatic increase in attacks on US (Iraq) forces, attacks by proxy forces like Hezbollah, and an unknown reaction from....Afghanistan and Pakistan, where millions admire Iran's resistance." Attacking Iran "could engulf America in a war with the entire Muslim world." The article also quotes former CIA officer and author Robert Baer (from Time magazine) saying an unnamed highly placed White House official believes "IEDs are a casus belli for this administration. There will be an attack on Iran."

The London Times raised the betting odds further for one in its October 21 report. Columnist Michael Smith wrote: UK defense sources disclosed that "British (Special Air Service - SAS) forces have crossed into Iran several times (along with other special forces, the Australian SAS and American special-operation troops) as part of a secret border war against the Iranian Revolutionary Guard's Al-Quds special forces." They engaged in "at least half a dozen intense firefights" along the Iran-Iraq border in what looks like deliberate US-UK efforts to provoke Iran into providing justification for a major American attack.

Speculation one looms has been around for some time, and if it comes, it won't surprise observers like Iran expert Gary Sick. He was a military advisor to three US presidents and was recently quoted in Germany's Der Spiegel magazine saying: The recent shift in US emphasis to "Iran's support for terrorism in Iraq....is a complete change and is potentially dangerous." That's because it's much easier proving (true or not) Iran supports Iraqi resistance fighters than it poses an imminent nuclear threat to the world.

Der Spiegel also reports on a leak "by an official close to" Dick Cheney that he's "already asked for a backroom analysis of how a war with Iran might begin (and in) the scenario concocted by (his) strategists, Washington's first step would be to convince Israel to fire missiles at Iran's (Natanz) uranium enrichment plant." That would provoke Iran to retaliate and give the Bush administration the excuse it needs "to attack military targets and nuclear facilities in Iran." That's OK with Democrats if it comes including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi Black Agenda Report writer Margaret Kimberly calls a "Quisling" and an "absolute disaster for the Democrat Party and....the entire nation (because of her) eagerness to cooperate with the Bush regime (and) her incompetence in leading Congress."

Other key Democrats share those qualities and that assures extremist Attorney General nominee Michael Mukasey's confirmation won't be challenged. That's in spite of reports top Senate Judiciary Committee Democrats Chairman Leahy and Majority Whip Durbin say their votes depend on his admitting waterboarding is torture. During his confirmation hearing, Mukasey was evasive and noncommittal.

When asked during questioning, he incredulously claimed not to know what waterboarding is even though it's been around for centuries and what it entails is common knowledge. Mukasey would only say "IF (waterboarding) is torture, it is unconstitutional." He then repeated the White House line "We don't torture" even though he knows DOJ legal opinions confirm the Bush administration condones the practice by endorsing "the harshest interrogation techniques ever used by the Central Intelligence Agency."

He should also know about the ACLU's new "Administration of Torture" book based on FOIA requested evidence. It documents that "marching orders" for torture came from Donald Rumsfeld so the White House had to be involved as well. That includes George Bush and Alberto Gonzales, who in 2002 as White House Counsel, called the Geneva Conventions "quaint" and "obsolete" and as Attorney General authorized physical and psychological brutality as official administration policy.

Mukasey promises business as usual as AG and confirmed it by claiming "I don't think (Guantanamo prisoners) are mistreated." He also supports the president's right to imprison US citizens without charge and deny "unlawful enemy combatants" their habeas rights, but that's OK with Democrats on the Judiciary Committee with a large party majority sure to agree.

In a follow-up letter Senator Leahy requested, Mukasey was just as evasive and noncommittal as during his confirmation hearing. He sidestepped commenting on presidential surveillance powers limits beyond what FISA allows and continued to avoid admitting waterboarding is torture. Instead he said: ...."there is a real issue (whether) the techniques presented and discussed at the hearing and in your letter are even part of any program of questioning detainees."

He then added if confirmed he'll concentrate on "solving problems cooperatively with Congress," advise George Bush appropriately on any "technique" he determines to be unlawful, and the president is bound by constitutional and treaty obligations that prohibit torture. This man and the president defile the law and practically boast about it, but Democrats will confirm him anyway as the next Attorney General.

House Democrats Pass New Terrorism Prevention Law

Almost without notice, the House overwhelmingly (404 - 6) passed the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007 (HR 1955) on October 23 some are calling "the thought crime prevention bill." It now moves to the Senate where if passed and signed by George Bush will establish a commission and Center of Excellence to study and act against thought criminals.

The bill's language hides its true intent as "violent radicalization" and "homegrown terrorism" are whatever the administration says they are. Violent radicalization is defined as "adopting or promoting an extremist belief system (to facilitate) ideologically based violence to advance political, religious or social change." Homegrown terrorism is used to mean "the use, planned use, or threatened use, of force or violence by a group or individual born, raised, or based and operating primarily with the United States or any (US) possession to intimidate or coerce the (US) government, the civilian population....or any segment thereof (to further) political or social objectives."

Along with other repressive laws enacted post-9/11, HR 1955 may be used against any individual or group with unpopular views - those that differ from established state policies even when they're illegal as are many under George Bush. Prosecutors henceforth will be able to target anti-war protesters, believers in Islam, web editors, internet bloggers and radio and TV show hosts and commentators with views the bill calls "terrorist-related propaganda."

If this legislation becomes law, which is virtually certain, any dissenting anti-government action or opinion may henceforth be called "violent radicalization and homegrown terrorism" with stiff penalties for anyone convicted. This bill now joins the ranks of other repressive post-9/11 laws like Patriot I and II, Military Commissions and Protect America Acts that combined with this one are grievous steps toward a full-blown national security police state everyone should fear and denounce.

Blame it on Congress and the 110th Democrat-led one that was elected to end these practices but just made them worse....and there's still 14 months to go to the term's end with plenty of time left to vaporize Iran and end the republic if that's the plan.

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 Mondays at noon US central time.