Francis A. Boyle's "Protesting Power - War, Resistance and Law

Francis A. Boyle's "Protesting Power - War, Resistance and Law" - by Stephen Lendman

Francis A. Boyle is a distinguished University of Illinois law professor, activist, and internationally recognized expert on international law and human rights. From 1988 to 1992, he was a board member of Amnesty International USA. He was a consultant to the American Friends Service Committee. From 1991 to 1993, he was legal advisor to the Palestinian Liberation Organization, and currently he's a leading proponent of an effort to impeach George Bush, Dick Cheney and other key administration figures for their crimes of war, against humanity and other grievous violations of domestic and international law. Boyle also lectures widely, writes extensively and authored many books, including his latest one and subject of this review: "Protesting Power - War, Resistance and Law."

Boyle's book is powerful, noble and compelling, and he states its purpose upfront: Today, a "monumental struggle (is being waged) for the heart and soul of (America) and the future of the world...." It matches peacemakers on one side, war makers on the other, and all humanity hanging in the balance. The book provides hope and ammunition. It's a urgent call to action and demonstrates that "civil resistance (is) solidly grounded in international law, human rights (efforts), and the US Constitution." It "can be used to fight back and defeat the legal, constitutional, and humanitarian nihilism of the Bush administration" neocons and their chilling Hobbesian vision - imperial dominance, homeland police state, and permanent "war that won't end in our lifetimes," according to Dick Cheney.

Boyle has the antidote: "civil resistance, international law, human rights, and the US Constitution - four quintessential principles to counter....militarism run amuk." Our choice is "stark and compelling." We must act in our own self-defense "immediately, before humankind exterminates itself in an act of nuclear omnicide." The threat today is dire and real, it demands action, and civil resistance no longer is an option. With survival at stake, it's an obligation.

The Right to Engage in Civil Resistance to Prevent State Crimes

Post-WW II, US foreign policy adopted the political "realism" and "power politics" principles that Hans Morganthau explained in his seminal work on the subject - "Politics among Nations: the Struggle for Power and Peace (1948)." For decades, it was the leading international politics text from a man eminently qualified to produce it and whose experiences under Nazism influenced him.

His cardinal tenet was darkly Hobbesian - that international law and world organizations are "irrelevant" when it comes to conflicts between nations on matters of national interest. Ignore "reality" and perish, but consider the consequences. They've has been disastrous for America, at home and abroad, in a world of our making where life is "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short." No law or justice exists, no sense of right or wrong, no morality, just illusions of what might be, and a "struggle for survival in a state of war" by every nation against all others for one unattainable aim - absolute power and national security at the expense of other states and most people everywhere.

Political "realists" believe that when nations respect international laws and norms and ignore the "iron law" of "power politics," they invite disaster at the hands of aggressors. Boyle believes otherwise and eloquently states it: "Throughout the twentieth century, the promotion of international law, organizations, human rights, and the US Constitution has consistently provided the United States with the best means for reconciling the idealism (and aspirations) of American values....with the realism of world politics and historical conditions."

It can work the way Boyle documented it in his 1999 book, Foundations of World Order: The Legalist Approach to International Relations, 1898 - 1922. In it, he offers a comprehensive analysis of US foreign policy achievements through international law and organizations to settle disputes, prevent wars and preserve peace. It included:

-- an obligatory arbitration system for settling disputes between states - the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) in 1899 that's still operating at The Hague as the oldest international dispute resolution institution;

-- the Permanent Court of International Justice (World Court) in 1922 that was replaced by the International Court of Justice in 1946 after the UN was established in 1945;

-- the codification of important areas of international law in treaty form;

-- promoting arms reduction after relaxing international tensions by legal techniques and institutions; and

-- convoking periodic peace conferences for all internationally recognized states; the League of Nations was established for this purpose and later the United Nations with its functional agencies like the International Labour Organization, WHO, UNESCO, and IAEA. Other affiliated institutions included the IMF, World Bank, GATT, WTO and regional organizations like the OAS, Arab League, African Union, ASEAN, OSCE and EU. To these add NATO, the Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance (the Rio Pact), SEATO, ANZUS and various bilateral self-defense treaties under Article 51 of the UN Charter.

These organizations should have worked. In practice they don't, and Boyle explains why: compared to America's early "legalist, humanitarian, and constitutionalist approach to international relations, geopolitical (realpolitik) practioners of the Hobbesian" school prevailed - men like Johnson, Kissinger, McNamara, Nixon, Byzezinski, Carter, Reagan, GHW Bush, GW Bush, his neocon ideologues and countless others. They disdain democracy, constitutional government and their essential principles: commitment to the rule of domestic and international law, human rights, equal justice and peace.

Consider the cost. It's beyond measure and even worse looking back, in spite of all efforts toward conflict resolution. Since the nation's founding, America has been at war with one or more adversaries every year in our history (without exception), and note the consequences:

-- we glorify wars and violence in the name of peace;

-- have the highest domestic homicide rate in the western world by far;

-- our society is called a "rape culture" and three-fourths of all women are victims of some form of violence in their lifetimes, many repeatedly;

-- millions of children are violence or abuse victims and get no help from the state;

-- in a nominal democracy under constitutional law, aggressive wars and domestic violence are normal and commonplace; peace, tranquility and public safety are illusions and so are human rights, civil liberties, the rule of law, and common dignity, and the reason it's so is simple - it benefits the privileged few at the expense of the greater good.

What can be done? Plenty, according to Boyle. "Concerned citizens" and people of conscience are obligated to use our available tools - domestic and international law and human rights as "checks and balances against" government abuses of power in the conduct of domestic and foreign policies. Otherwise, administrations can run amuck and literally get away with murder and other major crimes of war, against humanity, peace and the general welfare.

Consider the alternative and what can be gained. By respecting the law, human rights and other nations' sovereignty, US administrations could defend the nation, conduct its foreign and domestic affairs, and achieve its goals successfully without wars, violence and disdain for the common good. At worst under an anti-Hobbesian construct, short-term objectives might be sacrificed in part for more vital ones in the long run, and isn't that what survival is all about.

At his book's end, Boyle quotes Hans Morgenthau's comments in 1979, just months before his death, and it's appropriate to mention them here. Boyle asked him "what he thought about the future of international relations" at the time Jimmy Carter was President. His response: "Future, what future?....In my opinion the world is moving ineluctably toward a third world war - a strategic nuclear war. I do not believe that anything can be done to prevent it. The international system is simply too unstable to survive for long." Arms reduction treaties are mere stopgaps and will be unable to "stop the momentum."

If Morganthau is right, the choice is stark and clear. Continue our present path and perish or unite at the grassroots to change an ugly, unsustainable system and let humankind survive. There's no middle ground, time may be short, and who knows if enough still remains.

Yet Boyle eschews that notion and dedicates his book to hope through resistance. We must try and use our available tools - the Constitution; UN Charter; Nuremberg Charter, Judgment and Principles; Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide; Universal Declaration of Human Rights; Hague Regulations; Geneva Conventions; Supreme (and lower) Court decisions; US Army Field Manual 27-10; The Law of Land Warfare (1956); and our own profound commitment to resist and prevail whatever the odds and consequences. Apathy isn't an option.

History, moreover, shows these tactics work when enough people commit to them. They ended the Vietnam war, and, in the 1980s, anti-nuclear and anti-war resisters forced the Reagan and GHW Bush administrations to conclude the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty in 1987 and the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) in 1991.

Conditions today are far more grave under neocon rule that disdains the law and all binding peace and international arms reduction treaties. It:

-- claims the right to develop new type nuclear weapons, not eliminate the ones Morganthau believed will destroy us;

-- ignores the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and intends to test new weapons developed;

-- ended Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty protection;

-- rescinded and subverted the Biological and Toxic Weapons Convention;

-- spends more on the military than the rest of the world combined, and it's getting worse; on February 4, the largest ever defense budget since WW II, in inflation-adjusted dollars, was proposed for fiscal 2009 at a time the nation has no adversaries, should be at peace, but chooses wars without end instead;

-- disdains a Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty to prevent additional nuclear bombs to be added to present stockpiles already dangerously too high; and

-- claims the right to wage preventive wars under the doctrine of "anticipatory self-defense" using first strike nuclear weapons against any other state. Morganthau would say I warned you.

Boyle says civil resisters like the ones he testifies for represent hope. They're "the archetypical American heros" whose names few people know - Richard Sauder, Jeff Paterson, David Mejia, Ehren Watada, Kathy Kelly, Daniel Berrigan, his late brother Philip and many other courageous, dedicated people for peace and equal justice. They risk their lives and freedom for the greater good, pay hugely for it, and Ramzy Clark once saluted them saying: "Our jails are filling up with saints." We have a constitutional right and personal duty to support them, join them, and resist our government's criminal acts. They must be stopped or the alternative may be WW III and the end of humanity.

Constitutional law supports resistance (not disobedience that violates the law). The First Amendment protects the right to "peaceably....assemble and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." It doesn't have to be lawful, just peaceable, so it's incumbent to resist when governments act criminally and endanger public safety and welfare, and the law is on our side. Resisters have the same statutory and common-law defenses as criminal defendants - defense of self, others, necessity, choice of evils, prevention of crime, execution of public duty, citizen's arrest, prevention of a public catastrophe, and other defenses. If not us, who then?

Federal courts abdicated their power and defer to presidential lawlessness under doctrines of "political question, state secrets, standing, judicial restraint, (and) national security." Congress as well has power, but won't use it. If it did, imagine how constructively it could exercise its appropriation authority under Article 1, Section 9, Clause 7 of the Constitution saying: "No money shall be drawn from the treasury, but in consequence of appropriations made by law...."

Congress alone is empowered to do it. It controls the federal budget that includes defense and supplementary military spending. Foreign wars will end and new ones not begun if Congress won't fund them. It's how Vietnam ended. Congress stopped funding it under the Church-Case June 1973 amendment that cut off appropriations after August 15. Legislative power is the same today, but post-9/11, Congress abdicated its authority and defers to Bush administration demands on nearly everything, including aggressive foreign wars.

If the courts and Congress won't act, the public must and if charged and prosecuted are protected under the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments to the right of trial by a jury of peers. Boyle explains that the "American criminal jury system (ultimately may be) the last bastion of democracy, the rule of law, human rights and the US Constitution" against a criminal administration and whichever one succeeds it if it continues lawless policies.

From his experience, Boyle is hopeful because when American juries understand government crimes, "they usually refused to convict" civil resisters trying to stop them. Two precedent-setting 1985 cases stand out as examples: People v. Jarka and Chicago v. Streeter. In both cases, defendants used a common-law defense called "necessity" and were acquitted. They were absolved of criminal liability because their actions caused less injury than the greater one they hoped to avoid. Winning these cases makes them applicable to more serious ones like crimes of war, and against humanity and peace.

Ahead, achieving victories or hung juries is crucial to preserving our constitutional system under threat. A strong message will be sent that ordinary people can confront government crimes and prevail. As such, we have to try. Surrender or apathy aren't options. The stakes are far too great.

Defending Civil Resisters: Philosophy, Strategy, and Tactics

In an age of lawless government, resisters represent hope. They're the "sheriffs," government officials the "outlaws," and it highlights the importance of seeking counsel and who to choose. The person must believe in the accused and their cause and work cooperatively with an international law expert to introduce these principles into the proceedings as evidence.

Many times, international law is the only defense, there's plenty to draw on, and Boyle believes when a peace-loving, law-abiding jury hears compelling evidence citing it, "there is almost no way the government will be able to convict" resisters on trial. The jury will either acquit, be hung, or charges will be dismissed before or during trial. It's thus clear that a successful defense requires a jury trial because too many judges support state authority and may deny evidence and convict. That's particularly true for federal judges who are nominated by the President, confirmed by the Senate, and over two-thirds on the bench now come from the extremist Federalist Society.

Proper representation and effective courtroom proceedings are crucial and follow from civil resistance acts that at times means spending time in jail. A good lawyer's job and Boyle's book are to prevent it, and he devotes considerable space explaining how. It begins with a good lawyer. After that comes:

-- a proper defense that aims to win or at least get a hung jury;

-- introducing international law as evidence and relating it to traditional common-law, statutory, procedural, and constitutional defenses that usually include one or more of the following: defense of self, others, property, necessity, prevention of a crime or public catastrophe, citizen's arrest, and other legal choices; international law is part of domestic law under Article VI of the Constitution (the supremacy clause);

Article VI also includes treaties as the "supreme law of the land;" so are Supreme Court decisions like The Paquete Habana (1900) that stated "International law is part of our law, and must be ascertained and administered by the courts of justice of appropriate jurisdiction...." In United States v. Belmont (1937) and United States v. Pink (1942), the Court ruled that the supremacy clause applies to international executive agreements that don't receive formal Senate advice and consent (the Senate does not ratify treaties as such);

US presidents take an oath under Article II, Section 1, Clause 7 to "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution...." International treaties and agreements are included. In addition, Article II, Section 3 requires the president to "take Care that the Laws be faithfully exercised;"

-- introducing the burden of proof in affirmative defenses to force the prosecution to prove guilt by disproving this type defense; the idea is to create a reasonable doubt about criminal intent;

-- distinguishing "specific intent crimes" (that many resisters are charged with) from general intent ones;

-- defending the crime of unlawful "trespass" by arguing it was done to uphold domestic and international law to prevent the commission of a crime;

-- establishing a pattern of criminal government behavior to justify resistance against it; it may include but not be limited to: Nuremberg crimes against peace, humanity, war crimes, breaches of Geneva, Hague, the UN Charter, genocide, torture and other crimes including inchoate ones, such as planning, preparing or aiding and abetting them;

-- using appropriate international criminal law standards in the US Army Field Manual 27-10 (that incorporates Nuremberg Principles, Judgment and the Charter) and The Law of Land Warfare (1956); the Field Manual paragraph 498 states that any person, military or civilian, who commits a crime under international law is responsible for it and may be punished; paragraph 499 defines a "war crime;" paragraph 500 refers to conspiracy, attempts to commit it and complicity with respect to international crimes; paragraph 509 denies the defense of superior orders in the commission of a crime; and paragraph 510 denies the defense of an "act of state;" and so forth;

-- pro se resisters (representing themselves without counsel) must take special care to prepare a proper defense with one aim - to convince one juror of their innocence; these and other considerations are vital to an effective defense when it's you v. the state and judges may be hostile. Resistance, however, is crucial because in Boyle's words: "Today is our Nuremberg moment!"

Trident on Trial

In this and succeeding chapters, Boyle reviews cases in which he testified pro bono for the defense. In each one, he explains the issue, who was on trial, followed by a summation of the crucial portions of his testimony that are text book examples of a proper and effective defense.

The Trident II strategic nuclear missile submarine is the first example and is described as follows: it's the "most hideous and nefarious weapon of mass destruction (WMD) ever devised" because of its unimaginable destructive power. The US Navy deploys 14 Tridents, the UK four others, and just one of them has enough nuclear kilotonnage to destroy much of planet earth and maybe all of it from nuclear fallout - around 270 or more times the destructive power of the low-yield bombs that incinerated Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Further, NAVSTAR satellite communications give Delta V multiple warhead MIRVs on board pinpoint accuracy to make Trident ideal for an offensive near-omnicidal first-strike capability. At patrol depth, the extremely low frequency (ELF) system is the only way to communicate with these submarines. For that reason, Plowshares defendant George Ostensen (in 1987) engaged in civil resistance against the Ashland, Wisconsin ELF facility and was charged with two counts of "sabotage." He faced a possible 40 year prison sentence if found guilty as charged.

Boyle testified for him and used the transcript as a text for other Plowshares resisters to contest similar charges against them. It paid off with two outright acquittals in 1996 and another in a 1999 Scotland case because juries were convinced that ELF/Trident II was as dangerous as described above and thus criminal under well-established international and domestic law principles. These verdicts led to a "stunning" victory when the Navy announced it would shutter its Wisconsin and Michigan ELF systems in September 2004. "Civil resistance had triumphed over the Trident II," but these weapons are still deployed and threaten all humanity by their existence.

Brief excerpts of Boyle's testimony in his Ostensen defense follow. The laws he cites are mentioned above so comments on them are brief and not repeated for succeeding chapters.

In Ostensen and other testimonies, Boyle explains domestic and international laws relevant to the cases:

-- the US Constitution; the supremacy clause under Article VI stating that all forms of international treaties and agreements to which the US is a signatory are binding on "all American citizens, government officials, (the military and) courts of law;"

-- The Paquette Habana (1900) Supreme Court decision affirming that international law is US law;

-- The Law of Naval Warfare (1955) and The Law of Land Warfare (1956) both state that international laws bind all members of the US military, government officials and American citizens; they clearly say that international law limits the threat or use of nuclear weapons because these weapons are so deadly;

-- the Navy, Army and Air Force manuals incorporate the Nuremberg Principles as binding US law; they include crimes of war, against peace and humanity as well as planning, preparing, or waging an aggressive war; also applicable is conspiracy, incitement, and/or aiding and abetting the commission of these crimes; Nuremberg also rejected the defense of superior orders; the UN General Assembly unanimously approved these Principles as recognized international law in Resolution 95(I) in December 1946;

-- the Army, Navy and Air Force field manuals are issued to all members of the military today who are told they are fully accountable for any Nuremberg violations;

-- an outstanding DOD policy states that nuclear weapons are to be developed according to international law requirements;

-- Jimmy Carter's Presidential Directive 59 involves the targeting of nuclear weapons as first-strike options; at the time of the Ostensen case, no such official first-strike policy existed; that changed under the December 2001 Nuclear Policy Review; it affirmed the right to declare and wage future preventive wars using first- strike nuclear weapons; Trident II/Delta V submarines are nuclear first-stike WMDs; so is the ELF communication system;

-- the first-strike option is clearly illegal under Nuremberg Principles as well as the 1907 Hague Regulations that require an ultimatum or formal declaration of war; no nation has the "right" to affirm a policy of "deterrence" to threaten or destroy another one, let alone all humanity by nuclear weapons; that's very clear under Nuremberg.

The Constitutionality of President George HW Bush's War against Iraq on Trial (The Gulf War)

Boyle testified at the trial of Marine Corps Corporal Jeffrey Paterson. Over time, his military obligations increasingly conflicted with his moral beliefs. Things came to a head when he was told he'd likely be sent to the Persian Gulf as part of the military buildup prior to the Gulf War. On grounds of conscientious objection, he applied to be discharged and was refused even though the law states:

"To qualify for discharge from military service as a conscientious objector, an applicant must establish that:

(1) he or she is opposed to war in any form - Gillette v. United States (1971);

(2) his or her objection is founded in deeply held moral, ethical, or religious beliefs - Welsh v. United States (1970); and

(3) his or her convictions are sincere - Witmer v. United States (1955)."

Marine Corps Order 1306.16E requires that reasonable efforts be made to assign minimally-conflicting duties while an application is being processed. Nonetheless, Paterson was ordered to deploy to Saudi Arabia on August 29, 1990. He refused to go, was arrested, incarcerated, then freed pending court-martial.

Paterson has an honored distinction. He was the first military or civil resister to GHW Bush's "unconstitutional and criminal" Gulf War. He was charged under article 86 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) alleging his refusal to muster to deploy to the Gulf. On November 1, his lawyer filed a motion to dismiss three charges on grounds they were illegal. A special hearing was then held on November 19 before a Marine Corps judge. He ruled for Paterson by concluding that the government bore the burden of proof that must be beyond a reasonable doubt.

It was "a great victory for peace, justice, international law, the US Constitution, and civil resistance." On December 5, 1990, Paterson was administratively released from the Marine Corps with an "other than honorable discharge." His case was precedent-setting, "of great historic significance," and it's applicable to all cases of military and civil resistance against government crimes, including waging wars of aggression.

The US is a signatory to the UN Charter, it's the law of the land under the supremacy clause, and its Chapter VII empowers the Security Council alone to "determine the existence of any threat to the peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression," and, if necessary, take military or other action to "restore international peace and stability." It lets a nation use force only under two conditions:

-- under authorization by the Security Council; or

-- under Article 51 that permits the "right of individual or collective self-defense if an armed attack occurs against a Member....until the Security Council has taken measures to maintain international peace and security."

In addition, both houses of Congress, not the president, have exclusive power to declare war under Article I, Section 8, Clause 11 of the Constitution that's known as the war powers clause. Nonetheless, that procedure was followed only five times in our history, it was last used for WW II in 1941, and Congress addressed the issue in 1973 when it passed the War Powers Resolution.

It requires the president to get congressional authorization for war or a resolution passed within 60 days of initiating hostilities. It also states in Section 4(a)(3): "In the absence of a declaration of war, in any case in which United States Armed Forces are introduced -- (3) in numbers which substantially enlarge the United States Armed Forces equipped for combat already located in a foreign nation; the president shall submit within 48 hours to the Speaker of the House of Representatives and to the President pro tempore of the Senate a report, setting forth" necessitating circumstances, a request for "constitutional and legislative authority," and the "estimated scope and duration of the hostilities or involvement."

Congress gave GHW Bush this authority on January 14, 1991. It did not give it to George W. Bush, yet he went to war anyway in violation of a host of laws, domestic and international. On January 15, 1991, Congressman Henry Gonzales, Ramsey Clark and Francis Boyle launched a national campaign to impeach GHW Bush. Five articles of impeachment were prepared.

They apply as well today to GW Bush's illegal wars against Iraq and Afghanistan, and Boyle states why as follows: "the House can, should, and must impeach President Bush for commencing this war, lying about this war, and threatening more wars. All that is needed is one member of the House of Representatives with courage, integrity, principles, and a safe seat" to do it. If not, the alternative is dire - wars without end, a homeland police state and the end of the republic that's already on life support.

In testifying for Corporal Paterson, Boyle reviewed the relevant laws already covered above. He also cited pertinent Supreme Court decisions going back to Little v. Barreme (1804) and Mitchell v. Harmony (1851) as well as Colonel William Winthrop's Military Law and Precedents (1880, 1886 and revised and enlarged in 1920).

Winthrop specifically states that soldiers are obligated to disobey illegal orders defined as follows: ones unauthorized by law or that are clearly illegal acts. In the Paterson case, there was no authorized law, and he had no duty to obey a clearly unlawful order.

President Clinton's Invasion of Haiti and the Laws of War

Noam Chomsky believes that every US president since WW II could be impeached because "they've all been either outright war criminals or involved in serious war crimes." Bill Clinton was one of them. In November 1993, he sent troops to Somalia, supposedly for humanitarian intervention, got no congressional authorization, and killed about 10,000 Somalis. He was then complicit in the 1994 Rwandan massacres (involving no US troops), and on September 19, 1994 again acted illegally - he invaded Haiti without congressional authority and violated the Constitution's war powers clause.

The 10th US Army Mountain Division from Fort Drum, New York was part of the force sent. Capt. Lawrence P. Rockwood II was a fourth generation soldier and career military officer with 15 years service. Yet he jeopardized his safety, career and personal liberty to aid incarcerated Haitians.

He learned about horrific human rights violations inside Haiti's prisons under its military dictator. They were especially bad at the National Penitentiary in Port-au-Prince, he informed his superiors, and then pressured them to take control and stop the abuses. Nothing was done, so Rockwell acted on his own as the US Army Field Manual 27-10 and international law require.

On September 30, he went to the prison alone, inspected conditions inside, saw firsthand how bad they were, and compiled a list of prisoners' names to deter their deaths or "disappearance." Subsequently, he was court-martialed in May 1995 and faced up to 10 years in prison if found guilty of multiple charges.

In fact, he was convicted of five specifications on three charges under the UCMJ, including:

-- failure to report for duty under article 86;

-- disrespect for a superior officer under article 89;

-- willful disobedience of superior orders under article 90; and

-- conduct unbecoming an officer under article 133.

-- He was acquitted of two specifications of an additional charge of failing to obey an order and dereliction of duties under article 92.

The court abstained from imposing a prison sentence and instead dismissed Rockwood from the army with forfeiture of pay. In so doing, the military jury affirmed his defense that he acted properly under international law to stop grievous abuses inside Haiti's prison. He left the army "an acknowledged and eternal hero to the worldwide human rights movement."

Appearing for the defense at his trial was an expert witness, an authentic human rights hero in his own right - Hugh Thompson. As a Vietnam helicopter pilot, he saved lives at the infamous My Lai massacre by threatening to kill Lt. Calley and his soldiers if they didn't cease slaughtering innocent civilians. Thirty years later, he won a medal for it, and he told the court that Rockwood also deserved one as for his heroic act. He fought for human rights and won, and Boyle relates his testimony for him to laws of war and human rights violations applicable to the Bush administration's Iraq war, its oppressive occupation, and the actions of its puppet government in Baghdad for which Washington is fully accountable under international law.

It began with an illegal March 19, 2003 "decapitation strike" against Saddam Hussein in violation of a 48 hour ultimatum he'd been given to leave the country with his sons. That crime and trying to assassinate a country's leader are also illegal under earlier cited international laws.

Next came "shock and awe," Baghdad was targeted, and Article 6(b) of the Nuremberg Charter was grievously violated. It defines war crimes to include the "wanton destruction of cities, towns or villages, or devastation not justified by military necessity." Fallujah and other Iraqi cities were similarly victimized (as were Afghan targets) in spite of a May 8, 2003 joint US-UK pledge to the president of the Security Council: that Coalition states "will strictly abide by their obligations under international law, including those relating to the essential humanitarian needs of the people of Iraq." Instead, laws are ignored and Iraqis continue to suffer grievously under an illegal, brutish occupation.

It includes the widespread use of torture that became de facto US policy after George Bush's September 17, 2001 "finding" authorizing CIA to kill, capture and detain "Al Qaeda" members anywhere in the world and rendition them to secret black site prisons for interrogation, presumed to include torture. Soon after on January 25, 2002, White House Counsel, Alberto Gonzales called the Geneva Conventions "quaint and obsolete," and it was all downhill from there to Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, Bagram in Afghanistan and countless other torture prison sites. Included also is a newly revealed secret Guantanamo one called "Camp 7" for "high-value" detainees. It's gruesome to imagine the barbarity inside under a president claiming "Unitary Executive" powers to do as he pleases outside the law.

In his testimony, Boyle again explained relevant laws that were covered above. US governments and the Pentagon willfully ignore them, George Bush flaunts them, and accountable civilian and military officials to the highest levels are guilty under domestic and international laws of crimes of war and against humanity and peace.

President George W. Bush's War against Iraq on Trial

US Army Reserve Staff Sergeant Camilo Mejia was the first Iraq War veteran to refuse further involvement in the war as a matter of conscience after serving in it from April to October 2003. Following leave on return, he failed to rejoin his National Guard unit and filed for discharge as a conscientious objector on grounds that the invasion and occupation were illegal and immoral. The army, in turn, deliberately overcharged him with desertion to send a strong message to other military personnel that they, too, would be severely punished if they acted similarly.

Mejia's May 2004 court-martial was a kangaroo-court show trial to drive home the point. It was widely broadcast and reported to all military personnel worldwide on internal Pentagon television, radio and newspaper outlets. Acting improperly, the military judge disallowed prepared defense testimony under the army's Field Manual 27-10, the Constitution and established international law.

Mejia was found guilty, a year in prison was imposed, and Amnesty International declared him a prisoner of conscience, its highest honor. Only after the verdict was Boyle allowed to testify during the sentencing phase - but under strict limitations imposed by the (hanging) judge. Again, he cited relevant domestic, international and military law, reviewed crimes of war and against humanity under them, and explained the culpability of commanders and government officials at the highest levels for abusing and torturing prisoners.

Other military resisters came after Mejia. One was First Lt. Ehren Watada in June 2006 when he refused to deploy to Iraq and publicly stated why - "as an officer of honor and integrity, (he could not participate in a war that was) "manifestly illegal....morally wrong (and) a horrible breach of American law." By his courageous act, Watada became the first US military officer to face court-martial for refusing to deploy to Iraq. He was charged with:

-- one specification under UCMJ article 87 - missing movement;

-- two specifications under article 99 - contempt toward officials (for making public comments about George Bush); and

-- three specifications under article 133 - conduct unbecoming an officer.

If convicted on all charges, Watada faced possible dishonorable discharge, forfeiture of all pay and allowances, and seven years in prison. A military equivalent of a grand jury convened on August 17, 2006 to inquire into charges and decide if they were justified. Watada called three expert witnesses in his defense, and chose them well:

-- former UN Iraq Humanitarian Coordinator (1997 - 1998) Denis Halliday who resigned under protest because he was "instructed to implement a policy that satisfies the definition of genocide (and already) killed well over one million individuals, children and adults;"

-- US Army Colonel Ann Wright who resigned her commission as a foreign service officer in the State Department in March 2003 to protest a "war of aggression (in) violat(ion) of international law;" and

-- distinguished Professor Francis Boyle, international law and human rights expert, activist and author of this and many other books on these topics.

On August 22, the Army reported on the proceding and recommended all charges be referred to a general court-martial. It began in February under very constricted rules - denying a First Amendment defense and disallowing one questioning the legality of the war. However, legality issues were impossible to exclude, they directly related to charges brought, and the prosecution introduced them at trial. In addition, Watada firmly stated before testifying that he refused to deploy because of the war's illegality.

Unable to pressure him not to so testify, the presiding judge declared a mistrial. He'd lost control of the proceeding, knew Watada was on solid ground, and had to prevent his evidence from being introduced to avoid the embarrassing possibility of an acquittal on one or all charges. If it happened, the war's illegality would have been exposed and its continuation jeopardized.

Under the Fifth Amendment "double jeopardy" clause, Watada cannot be retried on the same charges. It states that no person shall be "subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb." Watada's triumph by mistrial was a powerful tribute to his convictions and redoubtable spirit. It's also an inspiration to civil resisters and all members of the military to follow in his courageous footsteps.

Boyle explains the urgency in his final paragraph that's a powerful message for everyone: The causes of both world wars "hover like the sword of Damocles over the heads of all humanity." Civil resistance is our only hope "to prevent WW III and an (inevitable) nuclear holocaust....Toward that end this book has been written." Read it and act. Apathy isn't an option.

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 Global Research News Hour on RepublicBroadcasting.org Mondays from 11AM to 1PM US Central time for cutting-edge discussions on world and national topics with distinguished guests.

AUDIO: The Global Research News Hour on RBN

Washington v. Cuba After Castro

Washington v. Cuba After Castro - by Stephen Lendman

On February 18, at 5:30PM in Havana an era ended when Fidel Castro's written statement announced it. It was read on early Tuesday morning radio and television and reprinted in the Cuban newspaper Granma as follows:

"....I will neither aspire to nor accept, I repeat, I will neither aspire to nor accept the positions of President of the State Council and Commander in Chief....it would be a betrayal to my conscience to accept a responsibility requiring more mobility and dedication than I am physically able to offer....Fortunately, our Revolution can still count on cadres from the old guard and others....who learned together with us the basics of the complex and almost unattainable art of organizing and leading a revolution.

The path will always be difficult....We should always be prepared for the worst....The adversary to be defeated is extremely strong; however, we have been able to keep it at bay for half a century....

I was able to recover the full command of my mind (and am able to do) much reading and meditation. I had enough physical strength to write for many hours....My wishes have always been to discharge my duties to my last breath. That's all I can offer.

This is not my farewell to you. My only wish is to fight as a soldier in the battle of ideas. I shall continue to write under the heading of 'Reflections by comrade Fidel.' It will be just another weapon you can count on....

Thanks.

Fidel Castro Ruz"

The world press reacted, and here's a sampling:

The New York Times cautioned that "Castro May Not Be Exiting the Stage Completely....but whether the surprise announcement represented a historic change or a symbolic political maneuver remained unclear....It was not clear what role, if any, Fidel Castro would play in a new government (because) he signaled that he was not yet ready to completely exit the stage....There was little evidence in the streets of the capital and in other cities to suggest that a monumental change was taking place in the Cuban hierarchy."

The Washington Post.com was almost passive in stating: "Fidel Castro retires....he said on Tuesday that he will not return to lead the communist country....Cuba's National Assembly, a rubber-stamp legislature, is expected to nominate....Raul Castro as president (who's) been running the country since emergency intestinal surgery forced his brother to delegate power on July 31, 2006." The Bush administration earlier announced it would not negotiate with any Cuban government headed by either Castro brother. More on that below.

The Wall Street Journal was vintage Murdoch on its editorial page. It called Castro's legacy "ruthless....but less widely appreciated is that he was also an economic incompetent....the island is a malnourished backwater....staples are rationed, severe shortages exist in the medical system and electricity is a luxury....Cuba begs at the feet of Venezuela....young Cubans routinely take their chances with the security police and shark-infested waters rather than face life under the Castro brothers."

Phew, and the shame is that readers believe this stuff because the Journal and rest of the major media suppress the truth about Cuba, Venezuela and other regimes that successfully challenge Washington. In Cuba's case, it defeated a US invasion, a 49 year economic embargo, over 600 attempts to kill Castro, repeated US state terrorism to destabilize the country, and relentless efforts to isolate the island politically and economically.

In spite of it, Castro survived. He's now 81, an icon and living legend throughout Latin America, and most world nations have normal diplomatic and trade relations with him. In addition, Cuba is a member of the Latin American Economic System (SELA), the Organization of American States - OAS (but excluded from active participation since 1962), the Association of Caribbean States (ACS), the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), and in September 2006, it assumed leadership of the 118 member nation Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) that states it's united to ensure "the national independence, sovereignty, territorial integrity and security (of its members) in their "struggle against imperialism, colonialism, neocolonialism, racism, Zionism, and all forms of foreign aggression, occupation, domination, interference or hegemony...."

Latin American expert James Petras explains Cuba's "great virtue" - that "it survived (and maintains) many of its positive social achievements (while other) reformist or revolutionary regimes were defeated or overthrown or collapsed" - Iran under Mossadegh, Guatemala under Arbenz, Chile under Allende, the Congo under Lumumba, Indonesia under Sukarno, Nicaragua under the Sandinistas, Haiti under Aristide twice and many others.

Still, 49 years of US hammering took its toll. Cubans, indeed, endure hardships that wouldn't exist or would be less severe under more ideal conditions. Incomes are low, housing shortages chronic, embargoed products scarce or unavailable and many services, like public transport, inadequate. Yet, Cuban advances under Castro have been impressive, and his support remains strong after five decades in power.

The country is a biotech industry leader and does state-of-the-art research at the Cuban Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology Center. The government also encourages small retail and light manufacturing enterprises, fosters joint ventures in tobacco, citrus and other homegrown products, invested in advanced computer science schools, and developed a thriving tourism industry after it changed its constitution in 1995 to encourage it through offshore private investment.

Then consider Cuba's social services, especially its education and health care ones. These alone, institutionalized the revolution in the hearts and minds of the people who never before had a government that provided them and much more.

Take health care for example. It's world-class, and Article 50 of the 1976 Constitution mandates it for all Cubans. They get free medical, hospital and dental care including prophylactic services with emphasis on public health, preventive care, health education, programs for periodic medical examinations, immunizations and other preventive measures. The Constitution also guarantees worker health and safety, help for the elderly and pregnant working women, and paid leave before and after childbirth. In addition, Cuba's Public Health Law obligates the state to assure, improve and protect the health of all citizens, including providing rehabilitation services for physical and mental disabilities.

Compare this to World Health Organization's (WHO) rankings for America - 37th in the world in "overall health performance," 54th in health care fairness, worst of all western countries overall, and only developed nation besides South Africa with no single-payer national health insurance system. Except for seniors under Medicare, the indigent under Medicaid, veterans through the Veterans Administration (VA), no national program exists and benefits under existing ones are dramatically eroding.

The US spends more than twice as much on health care on average as other industrialized states. Yet, it's performance is poor by comparison - on life expectancy, infant mortality, immunization rates and more. In addition, over 47 million Americans are uninsured and over 80 million are without coverage during some portion of every year.

Then consider education. In Cuba, it's first-rate because the Constitution's Article 51 assures it free for everyone to the highest level. It's Latin America's best, and it outdoes most parts of America's public school system. It stresses math, reading, the sciences, arts, humanities, social responsibility, civics, and participatory citizenship. It virtually eliminated illiteracy and compare it to America where US Department of Education figures show a 20% functional illiteracy rate that, in fact, is much higher based on inner-city math and english achievement test scores.

Consider Cuba's other achievements as well. Major US media won't report them, but James Petras does - low rents and utility costs, worker pensions at retirement, food subsidies for the needy combined with rationing that's never desirable but needed to assure adequate distribution to all, and an emphasis on "cultural, sports and recreational activities (in spite of) sharp cutbacks in funding." Impressively, "despite general scarcities and social deprivation, crimes rates (are) far below Latin American and US levels."

Petras observes that: "Even more noteworthy" is Cuba's transition to a mixed economy that aids its growth and provides jobs for its people. Unlike Eastern Europe, including Russia, however, "Cuba did not suffer the massive outward transfer of profits, rents and illegal earnings from large-scale networks of prostitution, narcotics and arms sales." Nor have there been crime syndicates that corrupted the economies of Bulgaria, Poland, Romania, Albania, NATO-occupied Kosovo, and other emergent "capitalist democracies." And most impressively, Cuba is growing its economy, if modestly, while remaining a vibrant social state that delivers essential services and remains committed to its revolutionary principles. That won't change under a new cadre of leaders after Castro.

So far, Petras explains that Cuba's survival, economic gains and "formidable national defense" are largely the result of "popular perseverance, loyalty to revolutionary leaders (and their dedication to) common values of egalitarianism, solidarity, national dignity and independence." Some dictatorship, but at the same time Cuba's no paradise. Its problems are huge, and as Petras puts it, it faces new "challenges and contradictions:"

-- less skilled tourism-related jobs pay better than ones for doctors, scientists and many others in the country;

-- new tourist enterprises created inequality and an unrevolutionary "nouveau riche bourgeoisie;"

-- "hustlers," prostitutes, drugs trafficking and other enterprise-related fallout; and

-- tourist infrastructure investments divert funds from essentials like agriculture; output thus declined, and Cuba now depends on imports.

On the plus side is the hard currency Cuba needs for everything it imports outside its ALBA-related trade. Cuba and Venezuela founded the system in 2004, Bolivia and Nicaragua joined it, and it stands for the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas. It's an integrative, cooperative system of goods and services exchanges outside the exploitive WTO-international banking one. So it lets Cuba get Venezuelan oil, for example, by providing doctor services and literacy programs to teach Venezuelans to read and write.

Looking Ahead

In spite of five decades of achievements, Cuba's problems are huge, and its new leaders must address them. They include growing inequality, corruption and public theft, a flourishing black market, productivity-sapping inefficiencies, an imbalance between an educated population and enough skilled jobs, its agriculture in decline, and more.

In addition, Cuba is no democracy, but it's no dictatorship either the way Washington and Murdoch describe it. Castro came to power as Prime Minister in February 1959. He kept the title of premier until 1976, and then became President of the Council of State and Council of Ministers as Head of State and its ruling Communist Party of Cuba (PCC).

The PCC has governed Cuba since it was formed in 1965 and is the country's only legally recognized party. Others exist as well as opposition groups, but their activities are minimal and the state calls them illegal. Cuba is a socialist state. It recognizes no other economic or political system.

Its Constitution allows free speech, but Article 62 states: "None of the freedoms which are recognized for citizens can be exercised contrary to....the existence and objectives of the socialist state, or contrary to the decision of the Cuban people to build socialism and communism. Violations of this principle can be punished by law."

Cuba now begins a new era, its challenges are huge, and consider the biggest of all - Washington's relentless pressure the way Deputy Secretary of State (and veteran state terrorist) John Negroponte put it: Castro stepping down means nothing, US policy won't change, "I can't imagine that happening any time soon."

George Bush was even more hostile by calling for international efforts to isolate Cuba and force it to accept democracy US-style. And he added: "The United States will help the people of Cuba realize the blessings of liberty." Of course, Cubans fought a revolution against that type "liberty" and won't tolerate returning to it. Remaining free, however, will be daunting, and the section below explains why.

US Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba

Washington-style freedom is Orwell's kind from his classic novel "1984." In it, he described a totalitarian state where "war is peace, freedom is slavery, and ignorance is strength." Iraqis know it. So do Afghans. It's rooted in America, and the Bush administration wants to export it everywhere, including to Cuba under and after Castro.

So it set up the Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba to plot how. In July 2006, it delivered its 93 page report to the president that calls for regime change. Not surprisingly, Bush embraced it, it got an initial $80 million budget, and an open-ended one for as much more as needed.

The report is public but has a classified attachment with a secret plan to topple Cuba's government or co-opt its new leaders post-Castro. It also targets Venezuela and mentions the country nine times with comments like: "Cuba can only meet its budget needs with the considerable support of foreign donors, primarily Venezuela." It uses Chavez "money....to reactivate its networks in the hemisphere to subvert democratic governments," meaning, of course, any that opt out of Washington's orbit.

The report's aim is clear. Cuba and Venezuela threaten US interests so "friendlier" regimes must replace them and soon. How is left out, but what's said is ugly, and here's a sample. It calls for "Hastening the End of the Castro Dictatorship: Transition not Succession." America "stand(s) with the Cuban people against (Castro's) tyranny (and will) identify (any) means by which the United States can help the Cuban people" free themselves.

Regional "friends of Cuba" are also targeted and will be dealt with by unspecified political, economic, legal and military means. The message, however, is clear, and America's record leaves no doubt what it is.

It recommends new "more proactive, integrated, and disciplined (policies) to undermine (Castro's) survival strategies" and outlines a six part strategy to do it:

-- "Empower Cuban Civil Society:" It calls it "weak...divided (and) impeded by pervasive and continuous repression." But that's changing, "public opinion has turned, Cubans are....losing their fear (so by) supporting the democratic opposition....the US can help the Cuban people....effect positive political and social change....;"

-- "Break the Cuban Dictatorship's Information Blockade:" It claims Castro "controls all formal means of mass media and communication....through the regime's pervasive apparatus of repression." It also "impede(s) pro-democracy groups and the larger civil society....to effectively communicate their message to the Cuban people." So, Washington will step up efforts to export propaganda to Cuba and suppress whatever information Cubans now get;

-- "Deny Resources to the Cuban Dictatorship:" The report claims Castro ignores his peoples' needs to keep his grip on power. It sounds like Murdoch as it denounces Castro for "exploit(ing) humanitarian aspects of US policy (and) siphon(ing) off hundreds of millions of dollars for (himself)." This refers to funds and other donations Cubans outside the country send relatives back home. The report says Castro steals them to help "keep the regime afloat;"

-- "Illuminate the Reality of Castro's Cuba:" Stated here is that Cuba depends on "project(ing)....a benign international image" and hides its true nature as a "sponsor of terrorism (under the) erratic behavior of its leadership;"

-- "Encourage International Diplomatic Efforts to Support Cuban Civil Society and Challenge the Castro Regime:" Claimed here is a "growing international consensus" that "fundamental political and economic change on the island" is needed. Thus, "multilateral diplomatic efforts" must be encouraged to support "pro-democracy groups in Cuba....to hasten an end to the Castro regime;" and

-- "Undermine the Regime's 'Succession Strategy:" - It refers to Raul Castro replacing his brother as an "unelected and undemocratic" leader, calls the "ruling elite....an impediment to a democratic and free Cuba," and recommends unspecified pressures to remove it.

It then lists "Selected Recommendations" with the main ones kept classified. It mentions budgets, enlisting third-country allies, "democracy-building" efforts, training and funding opposition, beaming in propaganda, and various other measures to make Cuba scream and topple the regime. These efforts and others have failed for 49 years. Nineteen months after this report was issued, they've still failed, but remain in place nonetheless and may be toughened under Cuba's new leadership.

America's three leading presidential candidates provide hints of it from their February 19 comments. John McCain said now is a "great opportunity for Cuba to make a transition to a democracy, to empty their political prisons, to invite human rights organizations into their country and begin the transition to a free and open society....anything short of that....might....prop up a new regime...." He also hoped Castro would die and have "the opportunity to meet Karl Marx very soon," and added that Raul will be a worse leader.

Hillary Clinton said Cuba's "new leadership....will face a stark choice - continue with the failed policies of the past....or take a historic step to bring Cuba into the community of democratic nations. The people of Cuba want to seize this opportunity for real change and so must we....The United States must pursue an active policy that does everything possible to advance the cause of freedom, democracy and opportunity in Cuba."

Barack Obama's statement was equally unfriendly: "Today should mark the end of a dark era in Cuba's history. Fidel Castro's stepping down is an essential first step, but it is sadly insufficient in bringing freedom to Cuba."

We know the type "freedom" he means. So do Cubans who want none of it. So does Raul Castro in his late 2007 comments when he said: "The challenges we have ahead are enormous, but may no one doubt our people's firm conviction that only through socialism can we overcome the difficulties and preserve the social gains of half a century of revolution."

Fidel also commented in response to presidential candidates demanding change on the island: "One by one....they....proclaim(ed) their immediate demands to Cuba so as not to alienate a single voter....Half a century of economic embargo seemed like not much to these favorites. Change, change, change! they shouted in unison. I agree. Change! But in the United States. The end of one era is not the same as the beginning of an unsustainable system. Cuba changed a while ago and will continue on its dialectical course."

Castro aimed at George Bush as well and stated: "Annexation, annexation, annexation! the adversary responds. That's what he thinks, deep inside, when he talks about change."

Cuban and American Elections

Cuban and US elections have marked similarities and differences. Cuba is a one party state. So is America the way Gore Vidal describes it: the Property or Monied Party with two wings. There's not a dimes worth of difference between them that matters so Americans have no choice. That's not how things are in Cuba, and here's the difference.

Cubans overwhelmingly support their government. They remember or learned what went on before Castro and won't tolerate going back to how people once were treated so the rich could profit. Under Fulgencio Bastista, conditions were nightmarish as a de facto US colony - a combination police state and casino/brothel linked to US crime syndicates. There was systemic corruption, indifference to social needs, disdain for the common good, brutal exploitation, subservience to corporate interests, and a regime keeping power through brute force. When Cubans vote, they remember, and how it works would puzzle Americans. On the local/municipal level:

-- it's through municipal electoral commissions;

-- only ordinary citizen loyalists may nominate candidates;

-- the Communist Party has no role in the process;

-- the commissions select nominees for municipal elections and for half the provincial legislative seats;

-- a secret ballot process then elects 12,000 municipal representatives and half the members of provincial legislatures; Cuba has 169 municipalities and about 15,000 electoral constituencies within them;

The system works because participation is high, and ordinary Cubans alone choose their candidates - not politicians, corporations, the privileged or other monied or influential interests.

The rest of the process works this way to elect members of the National Assembly and remaining provincial seats:

-- it's also through municipal and provincial electoral commissions; Cuba has 14 provinces;

-- only ordinary citizen members again may nominate candidates, but included for this process are all sectors of society - labor, students, youths, women, farmers, scientists, artists, community organizers, educators, health workers and so on as well as members of the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution.

-- the final candidate list exactly equals the number of seats to be filled; it's drawn up by the National Candidature Commission (comprised of student and grassroots organizations) that chooses candidates based on their patriotism, overall merit, and support for the revolution;

-- even with no opposition, those selected must get over 50% of the vote to win;

-- voting isn't mandatory but participation is high; voters, nonetheless, have choices - to vote, not vote or destroy their ballots.

On January 20, Cubans elected National Assembly and half of the provincial legislative members. Turnout was high at around 95% because Cubans support the revolution and want officials who represent it. Look at the results and compare them to American elections discussed below.

Cuba's National Electoral Commission released the data:

-- only 36.78% of newly elected National Assembly members (224 seats) previously served in Cuba's parliament;

-- 63.22% of the winners (391 seats) are first time representatives;

-- racially, 118 parliamentarians are black and another 101 are of mixed race (35.67% in total);

-- women comprise 42.16% (265 seats) of the legislature;

-- educationally, 78.34% (481 seats) are university graduates and 20.68% (127 seats) completed high school or technical education training; and

-- skill areas represented include engineers, economists, doctors, nurses, lawyers, sociologists, the military, scientists, physical culture teachers, meteorologists, historians and theologians. Note that most new parliamentary members aren't politicians.

The rest of the electoral process works this way:

-- the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC) has governed the nation since its formation in 1965 and is the country's only legally recognized party;

-- all legislative power is vested in the country's 614 member National Assembly of People's Power;

-- a 31 member Council of State (that includes ministers) sits at the executive level;

-- 45 days after being elected, National Assembly members elect a President, Vice-President and National Assembly Secretary;

-- they also elect the 31 member Council of State that includes the President, first Vice-President, five Vice-Presidents, a Secretary and 23 other members; this process took place on February 24 on the same day National Assembly members took office and, as expected, elected Raul Castro as Cuba's new President; others elected included:

-- Ricardo Alarcon de Quesada (reelected) President of the National Assembly;

-- Jose Ramon Machado Ventura first Vice-President of the councils of State and Ministers;

-- Juan Almeida Bosque, Abelardo Colome Ibarra, Carlos Lage Davila, Esteban Lazo Hernandez and Julio Casas Regueiro Vice-Presidents;

-- Jose Millar Barruecos Secretary of the Council of State plus 23 other Council of State members;

-- the President of the Council of State is Head of State and government and its ruling PCC.

Overall, Cuba has what Hugo Chavez calls a "revolutionary democracy." It's not perfect, but compare it to America.

Voting in Cuba is participatory. People do it out of choice, not coercion. In America, in contrast, half or more of the electorate abstains. In national elections since 1970, turnout ranged from 36.4% in 1986 and 1998 to 55.3% in 2004 when angry voters failed to oust George Bush, but not for lack of trying.

US elections have never been free, open and fair. Democracy is an illusion, and more people know it and opt out. Others eligible aren't allowed to vote because of how the process works. Overall, monied interests control things, those with most of it have the most say, Americans get the best democracy money can buy, and things really got ugly in 2000 when the candidate who lost became president.

It led to the 2002 Help America Vote Act (HAVA) with federal funding for these stated goals:

-- replace punch card voting systems;

-- create the Election Assistance Commission to help administer federal elections; and

-- establish minimum election administration standards.

That's what it said. Here's what it did. It created a stampede to electronic voting that privatized the process and gave corporate giants unregulated control of it.

In the 2004 election, more than 80% of votes were cast and counted on machines that are owned, programmed and operated by three large corporations with close ties to the administration. The process is secretive, most machines have no verifiable receipts, so recounts are impossible because they'll only tally the same count.

And that's just part of the problem. In 2000 and 2004, the whole process was tainted. Millions of votes cast weren't counted. They included "spoiled ballots," rejected absentee ones and others lost or deliberately ignored in tabulating. In addition, there was massive voter roll purging and other restraints to prevent voters from making "bad choices" like ones less receptive to monied interests or Democrats over Republicans in key states or districts.

In Cuba, every citizen age 16 or over can vote and nearly all of them do. In America, all sorts of restraints and exclusions exist, starting off with a flawed Constitution. It established no universal rules, doesn't explicitly ensure the right to vote, and left most voter eligibility qualifications to the states. So unfair laws are in force, and citizens are denied their most fundamental democratic right - to vote for candidates of their choice in free, open and fair elections. Democracy in America is a sham. In Cuba, the process is flawed, but there's more of it there than here. In addition, Cubans know what they're getting and vote for it. Americans, on the other hand, know the futility of elections so half or more of them opt out of the process.

It shows in polling data with the latest record-setting February 18-published American Research Group numbers for George Bush:

-- he scored an all-time low for a US president at 19%; that compares to other presidential lows as follows: Clinton - 36%; GHW Bush - 29%; Reagan - 35%; Carter - 28%; Nixon - 23% during Watergate; and Harry Truman - 22% during the depths of the Korean War. On the economy, 79% disapprove how Bush handles it.

If Castro's poll numbers were available, they'd tell an opposite story. Most Cubans support him, many love him, but now his era is passing. He's still first PCC secretary, but he'll assume a new role as Cuba's elder statesman, to write, comment and always make his presence felt. So let Fidel have the last word from his commentary called "The Moment Has Come" and a few memorable quotes.

It's (time) to "nominate and elect" new leaders, he says. "For many years (he's) occupied the honorable position of President." But his "critical health position (forced his) provisional resignation on July 31, 2006." His brother and "other comrades....were unwilling to consider (him) out of public life" in spite of it. "It was an uncomfortable situation for (him) vis-a-vis an adversary which had done everything possible to get rid of (him), and (he) felt reluctant to comply."

Now, he's "recover(ed) the full command of (his) mind (and) enough physical strength" to go on.

This is not (a) farewell." His voice will continue to be heard, and here's a sampling:

"A revolution is a struggle to the death between the future and the past."

"I find capitalism repugnant. It is filthy. It is gross, it is alienating....because it causes war, hypocrisy and competition."

"North Americans don't understand....that our country is not just Cuba; our country is also humanity."

"The revenues of Cuban-run companies are used exclusively for the benefit of the people, to whom they belong."

"The revolution is a dictatorship of the exploited against the exploiters."

"They talk about the failure of socialism but where is the success of capitalism in Africa, Asia and Latin America?

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 Global Research News Hour on RepublicBroadcasting.org Mondays from 11AM to 1PM US Central time for cutting-edge discussions of major world and national topics with distinguished guests.

AUDIO: The Global Research News Hour on RBN

Potential Health Hazards of Genetically Engineered Foods

Potential Health Hazards of Genetically Engineered Foods - by Stephen Lendman

This article discusses the potential health risks of genetically engineered foods (GMOs). It draws on some previously used material because its importance bears repeating. It also cites three notable books and highlights one in particular - Jeffrey Smith's "Genetic Roulette: The Documented Health Risks of Genetically Engineered Foods." Detailed information from the book is featured below.

Genetically engineered foods saturate our diet today. In the US alone, over 80% of all processed foods contain them. Others include grains like rice, corn and wheat; legumes like soybeans and soy products; vegetable oils, soft drinks; salad dressings; vegetables and fruits; dairy products including eggs; meat, chicken, pork and other animal products; and even infant formula plus a vast array of hidden additives and ingredients in processed foods (like in tomato sauce, ice cream, margarine and peanut butter). Consumers don't know what they're eating because labeling is prohibited, yet the danger is clear. Independently conducted studies show the more of these foods we eat, the greater the potential harm to our health.

Today, consumers are kept in the dark and are part of an uncontrolled, unregulated mass human experiment the results of which are unknown. Yet, the risks are enormous, it will take years to learn them, and when we finally know it'll be too late to reverse the damage if it's proved conclusively that genetically engineered foods harm human health as growing numbers of independent experts believe. Once GM seeds are introduced to an area, the genie is out of the bottle for keeps. There is nothing known to science today to reverse the contamination already spread over two-thirds of arable US farmland and heading everywhere unless checked.

This is happening in spite of the risk because of what F. William Engdahl revealed in his powerfully important, well documented book titled "Seeds of Destruction: The Hidden Agenda of Genetic Manipulation." It's the diabolical story of how Washington and four Anglo-American agribusiness giants plan world domination by patenting animal and vegetable life forms to gain worldwide control of our food supply, make it all genetically engineered, and use it as a weapon to reward friends and punish enemies.

Today, consumers eat these foods daily without knowing the potential health risks. In 2003, Jeffrey Smith explained them in his book titled "Seeds of Deception." He revealed that efforts to inform the public have been quashed, reliable science has been buried, and consider what happened to two distinguished scientists - UC Berkeley's Ignacio Chapela and former Scotland Rowett Research Institute researcher and world's leading lectins and plant genetic modification expert, Arpad Pusztai. They were vilified, hounded, and threatened for their research, and in the case of Pusztai, fired from his job for doing it.

He believed in the promise of GM foods, was commissioned to study them, and conducted the first ever independent one on them anywhere. Like other researchers since, he was shocked by his findings. Rats fed GM potatoes had smaller livers, hearts, testicles and brains, damaged immune systems, and showed structural changes in their white blood cells making them more vulnerable to infection and disease compared to other rats fed non-GMO potatoes. It got worse. Thymus and spleen damage showed up; enlarged tissues, including the pancreas and intestines; and there were cases of liver atrophy as well as significant proliferation of stomach and intestines cells that could be a sign of greater future risk of cancer. Equally alarming, results showed up after 10 days of testing, and they persisted after 110 days that's the human equivalent of 10 years.

Later independent studies confirmed what Pusztai learned, and Smith published information on them in his 2007 book called "Genetic Roulette: The Documented Health Risks of Genetically Engineered Foods." The book is encyclopedic in depth, an invaluable comprehensive source, and this article reviews some of the shocking data in it.

Compelling Evidence of Potential GMO Harm

In his introduction, Smith cites the US Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) policy statement on GM food safety without a shred of evidence to back it. It supported GHW Bush's Executive Order that GMOs are "substantially equivalent" to ordinary seeds and crops and need no government regulation. The agency said it was "not aware of any information showing that foods derived by these new methods differ from other foods in any meaningful or uniform way." That single statement meant no safety studies are needed and "Ultimately, it is the food producer" that bears responsibility "for assuring safety." As a consequence, foxes now guard our henhouse in a brave new dangerous world.

FDA policy opened the floodgates, and Smith put it this way: It "set the stage for the rapid deployment of the new technology," allowed the seed industry to become "consolidated, millions of acres (to be) planted, hundreds of millions to be fed (these foods in spite of nations and consumers objecting, and) laws to be passed (to assure it)." The toll today is contaminated crops, billions of dollars lost, human health harmed, and it turns out the FDA lied.

The agency knew GM crops are "meaningfully different" because their technical experts told them so. As a result, they recommended long-term studies, including on humans, to test for possible allergies, toxins, new diseases and nutritional problems. Instead, politics trumped science, the White House ordered the FDA to promote GM crops, and a former Monsanto vice-president went to FDA to assure it.

Today, the industry is unregulated, and when companies say their foods are safe, their views are unquestioned. Further, Smith noted that policy makers in other countries trust FDA and wrongly assume their assessments are valid. They're disproved when independent studies are matched against industry-run ones. The differences are startling. The former report adverse affects while the latter claim the opposite. It's no secret why. Agribusiness giants allow nothing to interfere with profits, safety is off the table, and all negative information is quashed.

As a result, their studies are substandard, adverse findings are hidden, and they typically "fail to investigate the impacts of GM food on gut function, liver function, kidney function, the immune system, endocrine system, blood composition, allergic response, effects on the unborn, the potential to cause cancer, or impacts on gut bacteria." In addition, industry-funded studies creatively avoid finding problems or conceal any uncovered. They cook the books by using older instead of younger more sensitive animals, keep sample sizes too low for statistical significance, dilute the GM component of feeds used, limit the duration of feeding trials, ignore animal deaths and sickness, and engage in other unscientific practices. It's to assure people never learn of the potential harm from these foods, and Smith says they can do it because "They've got 'bad science' down to a science."

The real kinds show GMOs produce "massive changes in the natural functioning of (a) plant's DNA. Native genes can be mutated, deleted, permanently turned off or on....the inserted gene can become truncated, fragmented, mixed with other genes, inverted or multiplied, and the GM protein it produces may have unintended characteristics" that may be harmful.

GMOs also pose other health risks. When a transgene functions in a new cell, it may produce different proteins than the ones intended. They may be harmful, but there's no way to know without scientific testing. Even if the protein is exactly the same, there are still problems. Consider corn varieties engineered to produce a pesticidal protein called Bt-toxin. Farmers use it in spray form, and companies falsely claim it's harmless to humans. In fact, people exposed to the spray develop allergic-type symptoms, mice ingesting Bt had powerful immune responses and abnormal and excessive cell growth, and a growing number of human and livestock illnesses are linked to Bt crops.

Smith notes still another problem relating to inserted genes. Assuming they're destroyed by our digestive system, as industry claims, is false. In fact, they may move from food into gut bacteria or internal organs, and consider the potential harm. If corn genes with Bt-toxin get into gut bacteria, our intestinal flora may become pesticide factories. There's been no research done to prove if it's true or false. Agribusiness giants aren't looking, neither is FDA, consumers are left to play "Genetic Roulette," and the few animal feeding studies done show the odds are against them.

Arpad Pusztai and other scientists were shocked at their results of animals fed GM foods. His results were cited above. Other independent studies showed stunted growth, impaired immune systems, bleeding stomachs, abnormal and potentially precancerous cell growth in the intestines, impaired blood cell development, misshaped cell structures in the liver, pancreas and testicles, altered gene expression and cell metabolism, liver and kidney lesions, partially atrophied livers, inflamed kidneys, less developed organs, reduced digestive enzymes, higher blood sugar, inflamed lung tissue, increased death rates and higher offspring mortality as well.

There's more. Two dozen farmers reported their pigs and cows fed GM corn became sterile, 71 shepherds said 25% of their sheep fed Bt cotton plants died, and other reports showed the same effects on cows, chickens, water buffaloes and horses. After GM soy was introduced in the UK, allergies from the product skyrocketed by 50%, and in the US in the 1980s, a GM food supplement killed dozens and left five to ten thousand others sick or disabled.

Today, Monsanto is the world's largest seed producer, and Smith notes how the company deals with reports like these. In response to the US Public Health Service concerning adverse reactions from its toxic PCBs, the company claims its experience "has been singularly free of difficulties." That's in spite of lawsuit-obtained records showing "this was part of a cover-up and denial that lasted decades" by a company with a long history of irresponsible behavior that includes "extensive bribery, highjacking of regulatory agencies, suppressing negative information about its products" and threatening journalists and scientists who dare report them. The company long ago proved it can't be trusted with protecting human health.

In his book, "Seeds of Destruction," Engdahl names four dominant agribusiness giants - Monsanto, DuPont, Dow Agrisciences and Syngenta in Switzerland from the merger of the agriculture divisions of Novartis and AstraZeneca. Smith calls these companies Ag biotech and names a fifth - Germany-based Bayer CropScience AG (division of Bayer AG) with its Environmental Science and BioScience headquarters in France.

Their business is to do the impossible and practically overnight - change the laws of nature and do them one better for profit. So far they haven't independent because genetic engineering doesn't work like natural breeding. It may or may not be a lot of things, but it isn't sex, says Smith. Michael Antoniou, a molecular geneticist involved in human gene therapy, explains that genetic modification "technically and conceptually bears no resemblance to natural breeding." The reproduction process works by both parents contributing thousands of genes to the offspring. They, in turn, get sorted naturally, and plant breeders have successfully worked this way for thousands of years.

Genetic manipulation is different and so far fraught with danger. It works by forcibly inserting a single gene from a species' DNA into another unnaturally. Smith puts it this way: "A pig can mate with a pig and a tomato can mate with a tomato. But this is no way that a pig can mate with a tomato and vice versa." The process transfers genes across natural barriers that "separated species over millions of years of evolution" and managed to work. The biotech industry now wants us to believe it can do nature one better, and that genetic engineering is just an extension or superior alternative to natural breeding. It's unproved, indefensible pseudoscience mumbo jumbo, and that's the problem.

Biologist David Schubert explains that industry claims are "not only scientifically incorrect but exceptionally deceptive....to make the GE process sound similar to conventional plant breeding." It a smoke screen to hide the fact that what happens in laboratories can't duplicate nature, at least not up to now. Genetic engineering involves combining genes that never before existed together, the process defies natural breeding proved safe over thousands of years, and there's no way to assure the result won't be a deadly unrecallable Andromeda Strain, no longer the world of science fiction.

The industry pooh-pooh's the suggestion of potential harm, and unscientifically claims millions of people in the US and worldwide have eaten GM food for a decade, and no one got sick. Smith's reply: How can we know as "GM foods might already be contributing to serious health problems, but since no one is monitoring for this, it could take decades" to find out. By then, it will be too late and some industry critics argue it already may be or dangerously close.

Today, most existing diseases have no effective surveillance systems in place. If GM foods create new ones, that potentially compounds the problem manyfold. Consider HIV/AIDS. It went unnoticed for decades and when identified, many thousands worldwide were infected or had died.

Then there's the problem of linkage. In the US and many countries, GM foods are unlabeled so it's impossible tracing illness and diseases to specific substances ingested even if thousands of people are affected. It can plausibly be blamed on anything, especially when governments and regulatory agencies support industry claims of reliability and safety.

It's rare that problems like the L-Tryptophan epidemic of the late 1980s are identified, but when it was thousands were already harmed. L-Tryptophan is a natural amino acid constituent of most proteins and for years was produced by many companies including Showa Denko in Japan. The company then got greedy, saw a way to increase profits from a product designed to induce sleep naturally, and gene-spliced a bacterium into the natural product to do it. The result was many dozens dead, over 1500 crippled, and up to 10,000 afflicted with a blood disorder from a new incurable disease called Eosinophilia Myalgia Syndrome or EMS.

It's a painful, multi-system disease that causes permanent scarring and fibrosis to nerve and muscle tissues, continuing inflammation, and a permanent change in a person's immune system. It cost the company two billion dollars to settle claims. Hundreds have since died, in all likelihood from contracting EMS.

This is the known toll from a single product. Consider the potential harm with Ag biotech wanting all foods to be unlabeled GMOs worldwide and governments unable to balk because WTO Agreement on Agriculture (AoA) and Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) rules deny them. They're also prevented under WTO's Sanitary and Phytosanitary Agreement (SPS). It states that national laws banning GMO products are "unfair trade practices" even when they endanger human health. Other WTO rules also apply - called "Technical Barriers to Trade." They prohibit GMO labeling so consumers don't know what they're eating and can't avoid these potentially hazardous foods.

The 1996 Biosafety Protocol was drafted to prevent this problem, and it should be in place to do it. Public safety, however, was ambushed by Washington, the FDA and the agribusiness lobby. It sabotaged talks and insisted biosafety measures be subordinate to WTO trade rules that apply regardless of other considerations, including public health and safety. The path is thus cleared for the unrestricted spread of GMO seeds and foods worldwide unless a way is found to stop it.

Independent Animal Studies Showing GMO Harm

Rats fed genetically engineered Calgene Flavr-Savr tomatoes (developed to look fresh for weeks) for 28 days got bleeding stomachs (stomach lesions) and seven died and were replaced in the study.

Rats fed Monsanto 863 Bt corn for 90 days developed multiple reactions typically found in response to allergies, infections, toxins, diseases like cancer, anemia and blood pressure problems. Their blood cells, livers and kidneys showed significant changes indicative of disease.

Mice fed either GM potatoes engineered to produce Bt- toxin or natural potatoes containing the toxin had intestinal damage. Both varieties created abnormal and excessive cell growth in the lower intestine. The equivalent human damage might cause incontinence or flu-like symptoms and could be pre-cancerous. The study disproved the contention that digestion destroys Bt-toxin and is not biologically active in mammals.

Workers in India handling Bt cotton while picking, loading, weighing and separating the fiber from seeds developed allergies. They began with "mild to severe itching," then redness and swelling, followed by skin eruptions. These symptoms affected their skin, eyes (got red and swollen with excessive tearing) and upper respiratory tract causing nasal discharge and sneezing. In some cases, hospitalization was required. At one cotton gin factory, workers take antihistamines daily.

Sheep grazing on Bt cotton developed "unusual systems" before dying "mysteriously." Reports from four Indian villages revealed 25% of them died within a week. Post mortems indicated a toxic reaction. The study raises questions about cottonseed oil safety and human health for people who eat meat from animals fed GM cotton. It's crucial to understand that what animals eat, so do people.

Nearly all 100 Filipinos living adjacent to a Bt corn field became ill. Their symptoms appeared when the crop was producing airborne pollen and was apparently inhaled. Doing it produced headaches, dizziness, extreme stomach pain, vomiting, chest pains, fever, and allergies plus respiratory, intestinal and skin reactions. Blood tests conducted on 39 victims showed an antibody response to Bt-toxin suggesting it was the cause. Four other villages experienced the same problems that also resulted in several animal deaths.

Iowa farmers reported a conception rate drop of from 80% to 20% among sows (female pigs) fed GM corn. Most animals also had false pregnancies, some delivered bags of water and others stopped menstruating. Male pigs were also affected as well as cows and bulls. They became sterile and all were fed GM corn.

German farmer Gottfried Glockner grew GM corn and fed it to his cows. Twelve subsequently died from the Bt 176 variety, and other cows had to be destroyed due to a "mysterious" illness. The corn plots were field trials for Ag biotech giant Syngenta that later took the product off the market with no admission of fault.

Mice fed Monsanto Roundup Ready soybeans developed significant liver cell changes indicating a dramatic general metabolism increase. Symptoms included irregularly shaped nuclei and nucleoli, and an increased number of nuclear pores and other changes. It's thought this resulted from exposure to a toxin, and most symptoms disappeared when Roundup Ready was removed from the diet.

Mice fed Roundup Ready had pancreas problems, heavier livers and unexplained testicular cell changes. The Monsanto product also produced cell metabolism changes in rabbit organs, and most offspring of rats on this diet died within three weeks.

The death rate for chickens fed GM Liberty Link corn for 42 days doubled. They also experienced less weight gain, and their food intake was erratic.

In the mid-1990s, Australian scientists discovered that GM peas generated an allergic-type inflammatory response in mice in contrast to the natural protein that had no adverse effect. Commercialization of the product was cancelled because of fear humans might have the same reaction.

When given a choice, animals avoid GM foods. This was learned by observing a flock of geese that annually visit an Illinois pond and feed on soybeans from an adjacent farm. After half the acreage had GM crops, the geese ate only from the non-GMO side. Another observation showed 40 deer ate organic soybeans from one field but shunned the GMO kind across the road. The same thing happened with GM corn.

Inserting foreign or transgenes is called insertional mutagenesis or insertion mutation. When done, it usually disrupts DNA at the insertion site and affects gene functioning overall by scrambling, deleting or relocating the genetic code near the insertion site.

The process of creating a GM plant requires scientists first to isolate and grow plant cells in the laboratory using a tissue culture process. The problem is when it's done it can create hundreds or thousands of DNA mutations throughout the genome. Changing a single base pair may be harmful. However, widespread genome changes compound the potential problem manyfold.

Promoters are used in GM crops as switches to turn on the foreign gene. When done, the process may accidently switch on other natural plant genes permanently. The result may be to overproduce an allergen, toxin, carcinogen, antinutrient, enzymes that stimulate or inhibit hormone production, RNA that silences genes, or changes that affect fetal development. They may also produce regulators that block other genes and/or switch on a dormant virus that may cause great harm. In addition, evidence suggests the promoter may create genetic instability and mutations that can result in the breakup and recombination of the gene sequence.

Plants naturally produce thousands of chemicals to enhance health and protect against disease. However, changing plant protein may alter these chemicals, increase plant toxins and/or reduce its phytonutrients. For example, GM soybeans produce less cancer-fighting isoflavones. Overall, studies show genetic modification produces unintended changes in nutrients, toxins, allergens and small molecule metabolism products.

To create a GM soybean with a more complete protein balance, Pioneer Hi-Bred inserted a Brazil nut gene. By doing it, an allergenic protein was introduced affecting people allergic to Brazil nuts. When tests confirmed this, the project was cancelled. GM proteins in other crops like corn and papaya may also be allergenic. The same problem exists for other crops like Bt corn, and evidence shows allergies skyrocketed after GM crops were introduced.

Another study of Monsanto's high-lysine corn showed it contained toxins and other potentially harmful substances that may retard growth. If consumed in large amounts, it may also adversely affect human health. In addition, when this product is cooked, it may produce toxins associated with Alzheimer's, diabetes, allergies, kidney disease, cancer and aging symptoms.

Disease-resistant crops like zucchini, squash and Hawaiian papaya may promote human viruses and other diseases, and eating these products may suppress the body's natural defense against viral infections.

Protein structural aspects in GM crops may be altered in unforeseen ways. They may be misfolded or have added molecules. During insertion, transgenes may become truncated, rearranged or interspersed with other DNA pieces with unknown harmful effects. Transgenes may also be unstable and spontaneously rearrange over time, again with unpredictable consequences. In addition, they may create more than one protein from a process called alternative splicing.
Environmental factors, weather, natural and man-made substances and genetic disposition of a plant further complicate things and pose risks. They're introduced as well because genetic engineering disrupts complex DNA relationships.

Contrary to industry claims, studies show transgenes aren't destroyed digestively in humans or animals. Foreign DNA can wander, survive in the gastro-intestinal tract, and be transported by blood to internal organs. This raises the risk that transgenes may transfer to gut bacteria, proliferate over time, and get into cells DNA, possibly causing chronic diseases. A single human feeding study confirmed that genes, in fact, transferred from GM soy into the DNA gut bacteria of three of seven test subjects.

Antibiotic Resister Marker (ARM) genes are attached to transgenes prior to insertion and allow cells to survive antibiotic applications. If ARM genes transfer to pathogenic gut or mouth bacteria, they potentially can cause antibiotic-resistant super-diseases. The proliferation of GM crops increases the possibility. The CaMV promoter in nearly all GMOs can also transfer and may switch on random genes or viruses that produce toxins, allergens or carcinogens as well as create genetic instability.

GM crops interact with their environment and are part of a complex ecosystem that includes our food. These crops may increase environmental and other toxins that may accumulate throughout the food chain. Crops genetically engineered to be glufosinate (herbicide)resistant may produce intestinal herbicide with known toxic effects. If transference to gut bacteria occurs, greater problems may result.

Repeated use of seeds like Monsanto's Roundup Ready soybeans results in vicious new super-weeds that need far greater amounts of stronger herbicides to combat. Their toxic residues remain in crops that humans and animals then eat. Even small amounts of these toxins may be endocrine disruptors that can affect human reproduction adversely. Evidence exists that GM crops accumulate toxins or concentrate them in milk or animals fed GM feed. Disease-resistant crops may also produce new plant viruses that affect humans.

All type GM foods, not just crops, carry these risks. Milk, for example, from cows injected with Monsanto's bovine growth hormone (rbGH), has much higher levels of the hormone IGF-1 that risks breast, prostate, colon, lung and other cancers. The milk also has lower nutritional value. GM food additives also pose health risks, and their use has proliferated in processed foods.

Potential harm to adults is magnified for children. Another concern is that pregnant mothers eating GM foods may endanger their offspring by harming normal fetal development and altering gene expression that's then passed to future generations. Children are also more endangered than adults, especially those drinking substantial amounts of rbGH-treated milk.

Conclusion

The above information is largely drawn from Smith's "Genetic Roulette." The data is startling and confirms a clear conclusion. The proliferation of untested, unregulated GM foods in the span of a decade is more a leap of faith than reliable science. Microbiologist Richard Lacey captures the risk stating: "it is virtually impossible to even conceive of a testing procedure to assess the health effects of (GM) foods when introduced into the food chain, nor is there any valid nutritional or public interest reason for their introduction." Other scientists worldwide agree that GM foods entered the market long before science could evaluate their safety and benefits. They want a halt to this dangerous experiment that needs decades of rigorous research and testing before we can know.

Unchecked and unregulated, human health and safety are at risk because once GMOs enter the food chain, the genie is out of the bottle for keeps. Thankfully, resistance is growing worldwide, many millions are opposed, but reversing the tide won't be easy. Washington and Ag biotech are on a roll with big unstated aims - total control of our food, making it all genetically engineered, and scheming to use it as a weapon to reward friends and punish enemies.

Smith is hopeful that people will prevail over profits. Hopefully he's right because human health and safety must never be compromised. Resistance already halted the introduction of new crop varieties, and Smith believes that with enough momentum existing ones may end up withdrawn. He cites an example he calls a "Shift away from GM foods in the United States" in 2007. Leading it is an initiative launched last spring to remove GM ingredients from the entire natural food sector. It's led by a coalition of natural food products producers, distributors and retailers along with the Institute for Responsible Technology (IRT). It's called the Campaign for Healthier Eating in America, and its aims are big - to educate consumers about GM food risks and promote healthy alternatives through shopping guides.

A Pew survey reported that 29% of Americans, representing 87 million people, strongly oppose these foods and believe they're unsafe. That's a respectable start if backed up with efforts to avoid them, and more information how is at ResponsibleTechnology.org. Jeffrey Smith founded IRT in 2003 "to promote the responsible use of technology and stop GM foods and crops through both grassroots and national strategies." It seeks safe alternatives and aims to "ban the genetic engineering of our food supply and all outdoor releases of (GM) organisms, at least until (or unless scientific opinion) believes such products are safe and appropriate based on independent and reliable data."

IRT urges consumers to become educated about the risks, mobilize to combat them and act in our mutual self-interest. It's beginning to happen, and Smith believes "there is an excellent chance that food manufacturers will abandon GM foods in the near future" if a public groundswell demands it. He ends his book saying: "Although GMOs present one of the greatest dangers, with informed, motivated people, it is one of the easiest global issues to solve." Hopefully he's right.

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 Global Research News Hour on RepublicBroadcasting.org Mondays from 11AM to 1PM US Central time for cutting-edge discussions of world and national topics with distinguished guests.

Large Potential Albanian Oil and Gas Discovery Underscores Kosovo's Importance

Large Potential Albanian Oil and Gas Discovery Underscores Kosovo's Importance - by Stephen Lendman

On January 10, Swiss-based Manas Petroleum Corporation broke the news. Gustavson Associates LLC's Resource Evaluation identified large prospects of oil and gas reserves in Albania, close to Kosovo. They're in areas called blocks A, B, C, D and E, encompassing about 780,000 acres along the northwest to southeast "trending (geological) fold belt of northwestern Albania."

Assigned estimates of the find (so far unproved) are up to 2.987 billion barrels of oil and 3.014 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. However, because of their depth, oil deposits may be capped with a layer of gas. If so, Gustavson calculates the potential to be 1.4 billion barrels of light oil and up to 15 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. Further, if only gas is present, the discovery may be as much as 28 trillion cubic feet. In any case, if estimates prove out, it's a sizable find.

In its statement, Gustavson reported: "The probability of success for a wildcat well in a structurally complex area such as this is relatively high (because) it is in a structurally favorable area (and) proven hydrocarbon source and analogous production exists only 20 to 30 kilometers away."

Currently, the Balkans region has small proved oil reserves of about 345 million barrels, of which an estimated 198 million barrels are in Albania. Proved natural gas reserves are much larger at around 2.7 trillion cubic feet.

In December 2007, Albania's Council of Ministers allowed DWM Petroleum, AG, a Manas subsidiary, to assist in the exploration, development and production of Albania's oil and gas reserves in conjunction with the government's Agency of Natural Resources.

This development further underscores Kosovo's importance and the cost that's meant for Serbia. Since the 1999 US-led NATO war, it's been all downhill for the nation, the region and its people:

--Kosovo is part of Serbia; at least it was; since 1999 it's been a Washington-NATO occupied colony stripped of its sovereignty in violation of international law;

-- it's been run by three successive US-installed puppet Prime Ministers with known ties to organized crime and drugs trafficking;

-- it's the home of one of America's largest military bases in the world, Camp Bondsteel; the province/country is more a US military base than a legitimate political entity;

-- its part of Washington's regional strategic objective to control and transport Central Asia's vast oil and gas reserves to selected markets, primarily in the West;

-- on February 17 during a special parliamentary session, Kosovo unilaterally declared its independence; the action violates international law; Kosovo is as much part of Serbia as Illinois is one of America's 50 states; to no surprise, Washington and dominant western countries support it; opposed are Serbia, Russia, Spain, Greece, Portugal, Slovakia, Malta, Bulgaria, Romania and Cyprus;

-- might makes right; the issue is a fait accompli; the February 17 declaration ignores EU division pitting one-third of its 27 members in opposition; and

-- unilateral western-supported independence mocks the 1999 UN Security Council Resolution 1244; it only permits Kosovo's self-government as a Serbian province; the resolution recognizes the "sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia;" only a new UN resolution in compliance with international law can change that legally; nonetheless, it happened anyway on another historic day of infamy when Washington again trashed international law and the rules and norms of civil society.

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 Global Research News Hour on RepublicBroadcasting.org Mondays from 11AM to 1PM US Central time for cutting-edge discussion of world and national topics with distinguished guests.

Bush and ExxonMobil v. Chavez

Bush and ExxonMobil v. Chavez - by Stephen Lendman

Since the Bush administration took office in January 2001, it's targeted Hugo Chavez relentlessly. From the aborted two-day April 2002 coup attempt to the 2002-03 oil management lockout to the failed 2004 recall referendum to stoking opposition rallies against the constitutional reform referendum to constant pillorying in the media to funding opposition candidates in elections to the present when headlines like the Reuters February 7 one announced: "Courts freeze $12 billion Venezuela assets in Exxon row." Call it the latest salvo in Bush v. Chavez with ExxonMobil (EM) its lead aggressor and the long arm of the CIA and Pentagon always in the wings.

EM temporarily won a series of court orders in Britain, New York, the Netherlands and Netherlands Antilles to freeze up to $12 billion of state-owned PDVSA assets around the world. Hugo Chavez called it Bush administration "economic war" against his government. Energy Minister and PDVSA president, Rafael Ramirez, said it was "judicial terrorism" and that "PDVSA has paralyzed oil sales to Exxon (and) suspend(ed) commercial relations" in response to actions it "consider(s) an outrage....intimidating and hostile."

PDVSA's web site went further. It explained that the company will "fully honor existing contractual commitments relating to investments in common with ExxonMobil on the outside, reserving the right to terminate those contracts" under terms that permit. This likely refers to a Chalmette, Louisiana joint venture between the two companies that refines 185,000 barrels of oil daily into gasoline. It also reflects a commitment to supply 90,000 barrels of oil daily to Exxon that continues unaltered.

EM sought the injunctions ahead of an expected International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) arbitration ruling. It's over a compensation claim owed Exxon after Venezuela nationalized its last privately-owned oil fields last May in the Orinoco River region. PDVSA now has a majority interest, Big Oil investors have minority stakes, but the government offered fair compensation for the buyouts. Chevron, UK's BP PLC, France's Total SA and Norway's Statoil ASA agreed to terms and will continue operating in the country.

ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips balked, and it led to the current action. In Exxon's case, it refused a generous settlement offer for its 41.7% stake, but that's the typical way this bully operates. The company is the world's largest, had 2007 sales topping $404 billion, it's more than double Venezuela's GDP, and it places EM 25th among world nations based on World Bank GDP figures.

It's too early to predict what's ahead, but one thing is sure. As long as George Bush is president, he'll go after Chavez every way possible with one aim in mind - to destabilize the country and remove the Venezuelan leader from office. Once again, battle lines are drawn as the latest confrontation plays out judicially, economically and geopolitically. The stakes are huge - the most successful democracy in the Americas and the "threat" of its good example v. the world's most powerful nation and biggest bully.

The next judicial hearing is on February 22, but it's unclear where things now stand with Exxon and the Chavez government having different views. The oil giant claims PDVSA's assets are frozen, but on February 9 Minister Ramirez denied it saying: "They don't have any asset frozen. They only have frozen $300 million" in cash through a New York court. On February 13, it heard the case, and to no one's surprise affirmed the freeze until a final arbitration settlement is reached. PDVSA has no "assets in that jurisdiction (or in Britain) that even come close to those" billions that are about 16 times the value of Exxon's Venezuelan $750 million investment.

Ramirez also added that EM's action is a "transitory measure" while PDVSA pressed its case in New York and will do it again in London. The current status has no "affect on our cash flow (or) operational situation at all." Exxon wants to undermine the government and "create a situation of anxiety in the country, a situation of nervousness."

Ramirez expressed confidence that his government will prevail. It's arbitrating fairly, offered just compensation, and that in the end may defeat the latest Bush administration assault against the right of a sovereign state to its own resources. He also explained that Exxon violated ICSID arbitration proceedings by seeking separate court orders, and that PDVSA is considering a response. It may sue the oil giant for damages that caused Venezuela's dollar-denominated bonds to record their biggest drop in six months on the prospect of a long legal battle.

On February 8, PDVSA declared its position on its web site to put the facts in context, clarify the situation, and dispel how the dominant media portrays it ExxonMobil's way. Below is a summary.

The company states it's been "in arduous level agreements and negotiations with" its joint venture partners - "Total, Statoil, (Italy's) ENI, ConocoPhillips, Petrocanada, (China's) CNPC, Petrochina, (Venezuela's) Ineparia, British Petroleum (and) Exxon Mobil." The US giant is the "only case in which we have a clear situation of conflict" so it was "envisioned that these strategic issues....could be settled in international (arbitration) tribunals." It appears that agreement has been reached or "in the process of agreeing" with every company (including ConocoPhillips) except ExxonMobil, and the situation with them is this: "this company has not complied with the terms of arbitration....and introduced an arbitration against the Republic (in) the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID)."

PDVSA awaits its ruling "which, we are confident, will promote the interests of the Republic." In addition, Exxon sued PDVSA. As a result, "we see a clear position (of this company) to go against the sovereign interest of an oil-producing country such as Venezuela," deny its legal right to its own resources, and get overt US backing for it from State Department spokesperson Sean McCormack saying: "We fully support the efforts of ExxonMobil to get a just and fair compensation package for their assets according to the standards of international law" that Washington defiantly trashes.

PDVSA's statement explained that the national media have "such ignorance of the situation (by reporting that) our company has (assets of) 12 billion dollars (frozen and) that is completely untrue....we do not have any court decision that is final with respect to all of our assets. We have an interim measure in a court in New York, we have the right - and so we are going to....respond. This is a transitional measure while (PDVSA) presents its case; defend(s) ourselves....defend(s) the interests of the Republic and we are confident we will remove this measure."

Exxon also got injunctions in London and the Netherlands. "I must report we have no assets in those jurisdictions...."The same status is true for the Netherlands Antilles" where another injunction was gotten.

"We are no longer surprised (about) the attitude of ExxonMobil, as it is the typical American transnational company which....historically has tried to attack the oil-producing countries and impose their views on the management of (their) national resources....On behalf of workers and our oil industry, we are not going to (be) frightened, intimidated, or retreat in the sovereign aspirations of our people to manage their natural resources."

We must "warn our country because they could continue this type of action....the position of our people and our Government is firm in defence of our decisions." We will defend our interests. We won't "yield to this (action), we will defeat them (on the) ground(s) that (are) raised...."

In a February 12 interview, Ramirez repeated Hugo Chavez's message two days earlier on his weekly Sunday television program, Alo, Presidente: "If you end up freezing (our assets) and it harms us, we're going to harm you. Do you know how? We aren't going to send oil to the United States. Take note, Mr. Bush, Mr. Danger....I speak to the US empire, because that's the master: continue and you will see that we won't send one drop of oil to the empire of the United States....The outlaws of ExxonMobil will never again rob us....If the economic war continues against Venezuela, the price of oil is going to reach $200 (a barrel) and Venezuela will join the economic war....And more than one country is willing to accompany us in the economic war."

PDVSA spokesperson, Eleazar Diaz Rangel, then said on Latest News on February 12 that "we are ready" to stop supplying oil to the US if their hostile actions continue. He explained that Washington is waging economic war, and Venezuela is seeking to develop new customers like China. He added that the cash flow of the company is sound because it's based on daily crude oil sales.

On February 12, Venezuela's deputy oil minister, Bernard Mommer, said on state-owned Venezolana de Television that Exxon knows it will lose in arbitration and its "maneuver represents a way to intimidate" other countries against standing up to its will. It's trying to "create panic and anxiety with the banking and the oil sector."

Venezuela is America's third or fourth largest oil supplier after Canada, Saudi Arabia and at times Mexico. It accounts for between 10 to 12% of US imports and averages around 1.2 million barrels a day, sometimes as much as 1.5 million. PDVSA's assets total around $109 billion, according to its web site. It calls itself "the most creditworthy company in Latin America" which is likely considering its enormous oil reserves and at their current elevated prices.

Views from the US Media

It's no surprise how the US media portray Chavez and the Exxon dispute. Bloomberg.com called it his way to use the "Exxon Battle to Stoke Anti-US Sentiment" as though he's the aggressor and poor USA and giant Exxon his victims.

Then, there's the Washington Post's editorial view on February 15. It's astonished that "Mr. Chavez himself threatened to cut off exports of crude oil to America" over Exxon's having "moved to freeze" its assets. It lamentes how "regrettable" the US "voracious consumption of oil" is because it "underwrites Venezuela's Chavez regime....If the Bush administration were really as committed to overthrowing Mr. Chavez as Mr. Chavez claims (it ought to boycott) Venezuelan oil (to) devastate" its economy. "Two cheers for ExxonMobil. In standing up to Mr. Chavez through 'peaceful, legal means,' it has once again exposed the hollowness of the anti-imperialism with which he justifies his rule."

The Chicago Tribune was just as hostile by asking "Where is the king of Spain when we need him?" Chavez "says the 'bandits' at Exxon are trying to rob Venezuela. From where we sit, it looks like the other way around."

Then there's the Houston Chronicle in Exxon's home city. It blasted Chavez for "making a fool of himself on the floor of the UN General Assembly last year," called him a "clown," and said "his buffoonery is neither amusing nor benign." Ignoring Exxon's shenanigans in cahoots with Washington, it stated that Chavez "was in full bluster (and that he) and his henchmen (were launch(ing) a war of words in response (that is) little more than political theater, sound bites for the loyalists back home, and You Tube fodder abroad."

This type bluster gets supplemented with outrageous comments about how Chavez "seized power," shuts down his opposition, control's Venezuela's media, took over American oil fields, is a "destructive menace" to the region, and even worse a communist and a dictator with a terrible human rights record. Is it any wonder that Americans know almost nothing about Venezuelan democracy and the man who shaped it for the past nine years. Under his leadership, it's the real thing, is impressive and improving. Compare it to America where "The People" have no say, democracy is nowhere in sight, and under the Bush administration it's pretense, lawless, and corrupted.

What's Going On and What's At Stake

Throughout most of the last century, and especially post-WW II, America's international relations have been appalling and destructive. It's the world's leading bully, it practices state terrorism, disdains democracy, defiles the rule of law, tramples on human and civil rights, demands unquestioned obedience, and rules by what Noam Chomsky calls "the Fifth Freedom" that shreds the other four: to "rob, to exploit and to dominate society, to undertake any course of action to insure that existing privilege is protected and advanced." Outliers aren't tolerated, national sovereignty is sinful, independence is a crime, and dare disobey the imperial master guarantees certain punishment.

William Blum documented the history in three editions of his book, "Rogue State." He wrote: "Between 1945 and 2005 the United States has attempted to overthrow more than 50 foreign governments, and to crush more than 30 populist-nationalist movements struggling against intolerable regimes. In the process, the US has caused....several million (deaths), and condemned many millions more to a life of agony and despair." Washington won't tolerate nations that won't:

-- "lie down and happily become an American client,"

-- accept free market capitalism and today's steroid-enhanced neoliberal version that's even more predatory,

-- sacrifice its peoples' welfare for ours,

-- "produce primarily for export,"

-- allow dangerous environmental dumping on its soil,

-- surrender to IMF, World Bank, WTO and international banking rules; accept exploitive structural adjustments and debt slavery as a way of life;

-- relinquish control of its natural resources, especially if they're large oil and gas deposits,

-- surrender all freedoms and call it democracy,

-- permit US military bases on its soil, and

-- agree unquestionably to all other imperial demands.

Countries unwilling to oblige are called "bad examples (and) reduced to basket cases." In addition, their leaders are replaced by "friendlier" ones. It's an ugly story of the rich against the poor, the monied interests against all humanity, and if outliers are tolerated, they'll be "bad examples" for others to follow.

Chavez became one of them after his 1998 election. Ever since, he's been a thorn in America's craw and its greatest threat - a "good example" that's a model for other nations. He also inspires social movements throughout the Americas, even though none so far are dominant or even even close, and he shows signs of wavering on some of his earlier commitments. More on that below.

Imperialism is safe in the Americas, and James Petras explained it in his new article: "Movements in Flux and Center-Left Governments in Power." He states: "The singular fact about Latin America is that, despite a number of massive popular upheavals, several regime changes and (some ascendant) mass social movements, the continuity of property relations remains intact." In fact, they're more concentrated, "giant agro-mineral export enterprises" are prospering, and "class structure (and) socio-economic inequalities" persist, even though Hugo Chavez stands out, in part, as an exception. Petras calls him "pragmatic."

He "reversed (some of) the corrupt privatizations of previous rightest neo-liberal regimes," but still supports business. Nonetheless, Washington sees him as a threat because he embraces participatory democracy, practices redistributive social policies, and envisions a "new socialism of the 21st century....based in solidarity, fraternity, love, justice, liberty and equality." Those ideas and his expressive language are anathema to America and its hard line neoliberal model.

As a result, he tops George Bush's target list outside the Middle East, and that status won't change under a new administration in 2009, especially if a Republican heads it. But even Democrats are hostile. When candidates discuss Latin America, Chavez is Topic One and their comments aren't friendly.

Earlier (but no longer), John McCain's web site was outrageous. It featured a petition to "stop the dictators of Latin America" and supported ousting Chavez "in the name of democracy and freedom throughout the hemisphere." He lashed out at a news conference in Miami's Little Havana stating that "everyone should understand the connections" between (Bolivia's) Evo Morales, Castro and Chavez. "They inspire each other. They assist each other. They get ideas from each other. It's very disturbing." He also calls Chavez a "wacko" and a "two-bit dictator."

These comments aren't surprising from a man who headed the hard right International Republican Institute (IRI). Along with the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and USAID, these organizations front for imperialism, support rightest dictators, and plot the overthrow of independent democrats like Chavez who dare confront America.

Think hard about this man from what his fellow Republicans say about him. Some call him psychologically unhinged and unqualified to be president. Mississippi Senator Thad Cochran said: "The thought of (McCain) being president sends a cold chill down my spine." Others from the far right, like Alabama's Dick Shelby, former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum, and Oklahoma's Jim Inhofe, mention times McCain screamed four-letter obscenities at them in the Senate cloak room. Another senator said: "He is frighteningly unfit to be Commander-in-Chief."

Along with these unsettling comments, there are disturbing allegations about McCain's POW years and reported special treatment he got after his father, Admiral JS McCain, became CINCPAC Commander-in-Chief, Pacific Command over all Vietnam theater forces. An organization called "Vietnam Veterans Against John McCain" is actively addressing his record on things people have a right to know about public officials, if they're true, and McCain has an obligation to explain them.

Democrats aren't much better, and consider their views about Chavez. They're hardly friendly with Hillary Clinton saying "we have witnessed the rollback of democratic development and economic openness in parts of Latin America" with no confusion about who she means. Barack Obama is also suspect despite saying if elected he'll meet with Iranian, Cuban, Syrian and Venezuelan leaders. It sounds good until he qualifies it and spoils everything. He labels these countries "rogue states," reveals his real feelings, and signals his hostility and unwillingness to establish good relations with them.

Forget Obama's friendly smile, comforting demeanor and reassuring rhetoric. Bottom line - he's no different from the rest. There's not a dime's worth of difference among them that matters. Next January, they'll be a new face in charge with the same agenda: wars without end; subservience to the monied interests; disdain for the common good; and deference to the dominant media view that Chavez is: an authoritarian, a strongman, a dictator and what Wall Street Journal columnist Mary Anastasia O'Grady calls him: anti-democratic, dictatorial, vengeful, bullying, crude, unpopular, and having "an insatiable thirst for power that should give Venezuelans reason to be fearful."

Forget that under Chavez Venezuelan business is booming or how gracious he was in defeat last December after voters rejected his constitutional reforms. Petras assessed what followed. Centrist and other influential Chavez advisors jumped on the setback and "pressed their advantage to secure programmatic, tactical-strategic and organizational changes." They got him to replace over a dozen cabinet ministers and others in government with new faces sharing their views. They also, to a degree, shifted Chavez to the center, influenced him to "slow down....the move to socialisma, (establish) economic ties with the big bourgeoisie, (halt) immediate moves to nationalize strategic economic enterprises, and (move slowly) in reforming land tenure."

In addition, they got him to ally "with the middle class center-right parties, and (won) them over (by eliminating) price controls to let "basic food prices.... soar, while salaries remain stagnant." The result: a fundamental contradiction in trying to advance socialism by "liberalizing economic policy." Petras is worried that Chavez's base (the urban poor) "will lose interest, abstain or resist the centrists and withdraw their loyalties." Indignation is surfacing, loyal Chavez support may be jeopardized, and it "raises fundamental questions about the long-term future of state-class movement relations under" his leadership.

In addition, rightest forces see an opening, are pressing their advantage, Exxon's move is a warning shot, and so are reports about Colombian paramilitaries entering the country in greater numbers. More destabilization will follow, and continued efforts will be made to weaken Chavez, then try to oust him. More than ever, he needs strong support at a time it's jeopardized, and that's a worrisome situation to consider. Venezuela's Bolivarianism is glorious provided it flourishes, grows and achieves its long-term goals. It's been extraordinary so far, still has miles to go, and it's unthinkable to waiver now and pull back.

Petras alarmingly notes that when "social movements (adopt common) electoral strategies, (work) within the framework of institutional politics, and (ally) with center-left regimes....few positive reforms and numerous regressive" ones result. Will this be Venezuelans' fate? The prospect is frightening because if not Chavez, who'll lead their struggle for social equity and justice - for the nation, the region and beyond. Bolivarianism is glorious and vibrant. But to flourish, grow and prosper, it needs care and nurturing from a resolute leader backed by mass popular support.

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 Global Research News Hour Mondays on RepublicBroadcasting.org from 11AM - 1PM US Central time for cutting-edge discussions of world and national issues with distinguished guests.

F. William Engdahl's "A Century of War" - Part II

F. William Engdahl's "A Century of War" (Part II) - by Stephen Lendman

Part II continues the story of "A Century in War" in Part I. It's breathtaking in scope and content, and a shocking and essential history of geopolitics and the strategic importance of oil. Part I covered events from the late 19th century through the end of the 1960s. Part II completes the story to the present era under George Bush.

Running the World Economy in Reverse: Who Made the 1970s Oil Shocks?

In 1969, the US was in recession, interest rates were cut, dollars flowed abroad, and the money supply expanded. In addition, in May 1971, America recorded its first monthly trade deficit that triggered a panic US dollar sell-off.

Things were desperate, gold reserves were one-quarter of official liabilities, and Nixon shocked the world on August 15. He unilaterally imposed a 90 day wage and price freeze, a 10% import surcharge, and most importantly closed the gold window, suspended dollar convertibility into the metal, and shredded the Bretton Woods core provision. He also devalued the dollar by 8%, far less than what US allies wanted.

By this action, Nixon "pulled the plug on the world economy" and set off a series of events that shook it. Further deterioration followed with massive capital flight to Europe and Japan. It forced Nixon to act again on February 12, 1973. He announced a further 10% devaluation, major world currencies began a process called a "managed float," and world instability was the worst seen since the 1930s.

Unknown was the reason behind the August, 1971 strategy. It was to buy time before initiating a bold new monetary "paradigm shift" - to revive a strong dollar and US world power with it. In May 1973, the scheme was hatched - to initiate a "colossal assault" on world industrial growth through a 400% increase in oil prices. In addition, the resulting petrodollar flood had to be managed. A global oil embargo was the scheme to rocket up its price and create an equally great demand for dollars.

Kissinger's Yom Kippur war began it when Egypt and Syria invaded Israel on October 6, 1973. It wasn't by accident as Washington and London carefully orchestrated the conflict while Kissinger controlled Israel's response. An oil embargo followed, OPEC prices skyrocketed 400% overnight, panic ensued, Arab oil producers were scapegoated, and the key part of the scheme took shape. It was for much of the windfall oil revenue (mainly Saudi, the world's largest producer) to be recycled into US investments.

Following a Tehran January 1, 1974 meeting, a second price increase doubled the price of oil for even more recycling. The net effect - the worst American and European economic crisis since the 1930s with bankruptcies, unemployment, and in the US, a bonus of stagflation. The fallout was horrific. It brought down most European governments but its effects on developing states were devastating. Nixon as well got caught in the "Watergate affair" that benefitted Henry Kissinger hugely. He became de facto president throughout the period while his boss battled to survive and lost. For Big Oil and major US and London banks, it was even sweeter. They profited handsomely.

Other issues were at stake as well, one of which was potentially cheaper nuclear electricity as an alternative energy source. By the early 1970s, it was viewed favorably, and European governments favored building 160 to 200 nuclear plants by 1985. For the first time, America's nuclear export market was threatened as well as Big Oil's overall energy dominance. It got Anglo-American think tanks and journals to launch an "awesome propaganda offensive" to ensure the oil shock strategy's success. The scheme was an "Anglo-American ecology agenda" (strongly anti-nuclear) that became "one of the most successful frauds in history."

A second Malthusian plot was also hatched through a classified Kissinger April 1974 memo. It was a secret project called National Security Study Memorandum 200 (NSSM 200) that called for drastic global population reduction. It reasoned that many developing nations are resource rich and vital to US growth. If Third World populations grow too fast, their domestic demand will as well, and that will pressure price rises for their goods. Curbing population growth was the counter strategy. It's also self-defeating along with horrific fallout for targeted countries.

Europe, Japan and a Response to the Oil Shock

By late 1975, industrial countries began recovering but not developing ones. The oil shock was crushing and prevented their ability to finance industrial and agricultural growth and the hopes of their people for a better life. Perversely, it was also at a time the worst global drought in decades hit Africa, South America and parts of Asia especially hard. The fourfold increase in oil prices exacerbated conditions and increased developing states' current account deficits sevenfold by 1976. They halted internal development to preserve revenue for debt service and to buy oil. Conditions also let foreign banks and later the IMF provide loans that became an onerous debt bondage cycle.

At the same time in 1974, 70% of surplus OPEC revenues were recycled abroad into equities, bonds, real estate and other investments as part of an exclusive OPEC decision to accept only US dollars for oil. It forced world nations to buy enormous amounts of dollars and do it when the currency was weak. This effectively replaced the gold standard with a "highly unstable (petrodollar) exchange system." Washington and New York banks planned to control it and thus benefit from artificially inflated oil prices.

The scheme transformed the world economy and began an unprecedented transfer of wealth to an elite minority. Engdahl called it "a perverse variation on the old mafia 'protection racket' game." Third World agricultural and industrial development suffered so a select few could prosper. It sent shock waves through the developing world and got a Colombo, Sri Lanka gathering to confront it.

Officials from 85 Non-Aligned Nations met in the Sri Lankan capital in August, 1976 and produced a document unlike any others by developing states post-war. Its theme was "A fair and just economic development, and its contents stated that "economic problems have become the most difficult aspect of international relations (and) developing countries have become the victim(s) of this worldwide crisis." Steps were proposed to address it, and they called for a "fundamental reorganization of the international trade system to improve" its terms. They also wanted the international monetary system overhauled and the "explosive issue" of foreign debt raised for the first time.

The proposal was then presented at the annual UN General Assembly meeting in New York. It was a "political bombshell," and financial markets reacted sending bank shares and the dollar lower. The fear was a potential alliance between key oil producing states and continental Europe and Japan. If in place, it could challenge Anglo-American dominance, had to be confronted, and Henry Kissinger got the job with "the full power and force of the US government." He warned EEC foreign ministers and disrupted any efforts they were considering to ally with OPEC and the non-aligned group.

Coordinating with Britain, he also forced key non-aligned nation strategists out of office within months of their declaration. The threat was thwarted and leading New York and London banks took full advantage. They turned on the spigot and increased lending to developing nations under draconian IMF terms.

Down but not out, North-South cooperation resurfaced in new ways. In late 1975, Brazil contracted with Germany to build a nuclear power plant complex. A similar deal was made with France for an experimental fast breeder reactor. Mexico as well decided to go nuclear for part of its electricity to conserve oil and so did Pakistan and Iran. The Shah's oil revenues were substantial, and his idea was "to realize an old dream" - to create a modern energy infrastructure, built around nuclear power generation, that would transform the entire Middle East's power needs. In 1978, Iran had the world's fourth largest nuclear program, the largest among developing states, and the plan was for 20 new reactors by 1995.

The idea was simple - to diversify from Iran's dependence on oil and weaken Washington and London's pressure to recycle petrodollars. Also involved was investing in leading European companies to ally with the continent. Washington was alarmed and tried to block the plan but failed. Nonetheless, the Carter administration continued Kissinger's strategy behind a phony "human rights" mask. In reality, the game was unchanged - limit Third World growth and maintain dollar hegemony. It failed miserably but threats to dollar dominance were stalled for a time.

They resurfaced in June, 1978 on the initiative of France and Germany. Responding to policy disagreements and a fluctuating dollar, they took steps to create a European currency zone and proposed Phase I of the European Monetary System (EMS) under which central banks of EEC countries agreed to stabilize their currencies relative to each other. EMS became operational in 1979 with notable positive results. This worried Washington and London as a threat to petrodollar supremacy, Britain refused to be an EMS partner, and Carter was unable to dissuade Germany from pursuing a nuclear option. The situation required drastic action.

It began in November 1978 with a White House Iran task force that recommended Washington end support for the Shah and replace him with Ayatollah Khomeini, then living in France. It would be by the same type coup that overthrew the Iranian government in 1953 along with broader aims that again are in play in the region.

Key then (and now) was to balkanize the Middle East along tribal and religious lines - a simple divide and conquer strategy that worked in the 1990s Balkan wars. The aim was to create an "Arc of Crisis" that would spread to Central Asia and the Soviet Union. Another 1978 event highlighted the urgency. At the time, the Shah was negotiating a 25-year oil agreement with British Petroleum (BP), but talks broke down in October. BP demanded exclusive rights to future Iranian output but refused to guarantee oil purchases. The Shah balked and was on the verge of independently seeking new buyers with eager ones lined up in Germany, France, Japan and elsewhere.

Washington and London were alarmed and acted. They implemented destabilization plans, starting with cutting Iranian oil purchases. Economic pressures followed, and trained US and UK agitators exacerbated them by fanning religious discontent and overall turmoil. Oil strikes as well were used. They crippled production and made things worse. American security advisors recommended Iran's Savak secret police use repressive tactics to maximize antipathy to the Shah. The Carter administration cynically protested human rights abuses, and BBC correspondents exaggerated anti-Shah protests to rev up hysteria against him. At the same time, it gave Khomeini an open platform to speak and prevented the Shah from replying.

Things came to a head in January, 1979 when he fled the country, and Khomeini returned to Tehran and proclaimed a theocratic state. Chaos was unleashed, and by May the new regime cancelled plans for further nuclear reactor development. At the same time, Iran's oil exports were cut off, and the Saudis inexplicably cut their own in January. Spot prices skyrocketed, and a second oil shock ensued that was as deviously conceived as the first one. Then it got worse. In October, newly appointed Fed Chairman Paul Volker unleashed a new scheme that turned calamity into catastrophe by design.

It was a radical new monetary policy on the pretext of "squeezing inflation out of the system." In fact, it was made-in-Washington fraud to preserve dollar hegemony, make it the world's most sought currency, and crush industrial growth to let political and financial power prop up dollar strength. Volker succeeded by raising interest rates from 10% to 16% and finally 20% in weeks. World policy makers were stunned, economies plunged into the deepest recession since the 1930s, and the dollar began an extraordinary five year ascent.

The combined effect of oil and Volker shocks took "the bloom off the nuclear rose" and ended its threat to Anglo-American oil supremacy. And if more was needed it came on March 28, 1979 in the middle of Pennsylvania at a place called Three Mile Island. Conveniently, at the same time The China Syndrome was released that fictionalized the ongoing event. The combined effect was public hysteria, and later investigation revealed critical valves had illegally been closed. In addition, FEMA controlled all news to create panic. The scheme worked, and Anglo-American supremacy was reasserted over the industrial and financial world. Nothing is stable forever, however, and within a decade new rumblings would be felt.

Imposing the New World Order

The combined effects of two oil shocks and resulting inflation created a new US "landed aristocracy" while the vast majority of Americans saw their living standards sink. It was the same type scheme Margaret Thatcher imposed on Britain when she declared "there is no alternative." Preaching free market hokum, she claimed deficit spending was the culprit, not two oil shocks causing 18% UK inflation. Her remedy - kill the patient to save it by cutting the money supply and government spending while sharply hiking interest rates to 17% in weeks, thereby causing depression she called the "Thatcher revolution." Engdahl had another view saying: "Never in modern history had an industrialized nation undergone such (a counterproductive) shock" in so short a time, except in wartime emergency. Thatcher crushed the economy by design the way Volker did in America.

At the time, Britain's problem wasn't government ownership. It was lack of investment in public infrastructure, in educating a skilled work force, and in enough scientific research and development. Government isn't the problem. Misguided policy is, and Thatcher and Volker excelled at it with one mutual aim - benefit their banks and Big Oil interests by cutting taxes and spending, reducing social services, privatizing and deregulating business, and breaking the back of organized labor in their brave new world order.

President Carter knew nothing about finance and economics and was duped into signing an "extraordinary piece of legislation" - the Depository Institutions Deregulation Monetary Control Act of 1980. It let the Fed impose reserve requirements on banks and be able to choke off credit to them. It also phased out interest rate ceilings banks could charge customers. Reagan continued the policies and was bamboozled by Chicago School ideologues like Milton Friedman. Engdahl called his radical monetarism "one of the most cruel economic frauds ever perpetrated." It was that and more because of all the human wreckage it caused.

It led to the Third World debt crisis and its horrific fallout. It willfully immiserated millions of people, and events came to a head in the summer of 1982 with debtor states struggling to repay. Their burden was too onerous, and Reagan and Thatcher planned an example of what happens when nonpayment is an option. The Malvinas (or Falkland) archipelago was the targeted choice. It's off Argentina's coast but was hardly a reason for war. The issue wasn't Argentina's sovereignty. It was to enforce the principle that Third World debts must be paid by a "new form of 19th century gunboat diplomacy." Two-thirds of Britain's fleet was dispatched, a shooting war ensued, and Argentina became a test case.

Reagan backed Thatcher, and it soured relations with Latin American states like Mexico that also became a target. President Jose Lopez Portillo favored a modernization and industrialization policy and planned to use his oil revenue to implement it. The prospect of a strong Mexico was intolerable, Washington had other ideas, and a scheme was hatched to sabotage the plan by demanding rigid repayment of Mexican debt at exorbitant rates.

It began with an orchestrated run on the peso in the fall of 1981. Claims of an impending devaluation followed, and stories were planted of impending capital flight. An unavoidable austerity program followed, and the Portillo government cracked under pressure. It devalued the peso 30%, Mexican industry was devastated, many businesses were bankrupted, industrial production was cut and so were living standards for the majority of the people under conditions of orchestrated chaos.

Mexico effectively became insolvent at a time the US was in deep recession. Nonetheless, the Reagan administration hatched a plan to solve the debt crisis and save New York banks. Ignoring the root cause of the crisis, Secretary of State George Schultz offered IMF medicine combined with stimulating US consumer purchases as a way to increase Third World exports.

It would be "the most costly recovery in world history (and what followed) was almost beyond belief." Lopez Portillo failed to rally Latin American support, and his term expired two months later. US officials then blackmailed Brazil and Argentina to back down, and debtor countries had to accept IMF terms that became "the most concerted organized looting operation in modern history," far exceeding the worst of Versailles.

New York and London banks profited hugely the way they do today. First, they "socialize(d) their debt crisis" by getting unprecedented international repayment support. Working through governments and the IMF, they spun off their debt to taxpayers, privatized gains for themselves, and pummeled debtor countries by structural adjustment looting.

That was Step One. Next came Step Two - restructuring debtor nations' repayment schedules that included onerous interest on top of oppressive principal. It caused mounting debt no matter how much was paid in an unending looting daisy chain still in play today and bigger than ever.

Back in the 1980s, here are the numbers. Between 1980 and 1986, 109 debtor countries were charged $326 billion in interest. They paid an additional $332 billion in principal for a total of $658 billion on original debt of $430 billion. In spite of it, in 1986 they still owed $882 billion, an impossible debt trap, and Engdahl attributed it to "the wonders of compound interest and floating rates" with a little gunboat diplomacy thrown in. Only one way out was possible - surrender economic sovereignty and valued raw materials, or else. Capital flight in the tens of billions followed, and it became a profit-making bonanza for major US banks.

In the 1980s, Americans also suffered. Reaganomics victimized them by structuring big gains for banks, oil and defense giants while ignoring the greater good and long-term economic health. The plan was nonsensical and built around the largest post-war tax cut until the combined three George Bush ones (with another coming) may have topped it. They did in nominal dollars, but Reagan's was much bigger as a percent of GDP in an economy half today's size.

Reagan and Bush had the same scheme in mind. Some call it "supply-side economics," others a "voodoo" variety on the idea that tax cuts release "stifled creative energies," stimulate higher economic growth and produce greater government revenue. The Reagan one signaled "anything goes." Besides generous benefits for the rich and business, it encouraged speculative real estate investment, especially for commercial ventures. It also removed restrictions on corporate takeovers.

A year later, interest rates headed down, stock and bond prices shot up, a speculative bonanza was unleashed, and here's the bottom line. Reaganomics failed to encourage productive investment, except for selected defense contractors. Money instead poured into equities and debt instruments, high-risk real estate, junk bond-financed leveraged buyouts, and tax-sheltered oil well and other development.

At the same time, infrastructure needs were ignored, organized labor was targeted, government became the problem, and deregulation the solution to get it off our backs. Throughout the 1980s and since: organized labor ranks declined, high-paying manufacturing jobs were lost, working American living standards declined, and an astonishing generational shift began - the annual wealth transfer of over $1 trillion from 90 million working class households to for-profit corporations and the richest 1% of the population to create an unprecedented wealth disparity. It continues unabated and is destroying the bedrock middle class without which democracy can't survive and is already on life support and sinking.

Simultaneously, by the mid-1980s, the US went from being the world's largest creditor to a net debtor nation for the first time since 1914. Budget deficits as well skyrocketed along with the national debt, and the true economic condition was revealed. "It was sick." Today, it's much sicker and depends on "the kindness of strangers" the way it did in the roaring twenties until the 1929 market crash smashed it.

At the end of the 1980s, a lesser version of it occurred from the savings and loan industry (S & Ls) collapse. During the decade, almost $1 trillion went into speculative real estate, and for the first time banks were allowed to participate. S & Ls took full advantage in an anything goes, deregulated environment. The 1982 Garn-St. Germain Act let them invest in anything they wished with government-backed $100,000 per account insurance. It allowed reckless speculation, massive fraud, and was an ideal way for organized crime and CIA to launder billions in drugs-related funds.

The 1980s ended the Reagan era when George HW Bush became President in 1989. It coincided with the fall of the Berlin Wall in November and breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991. Around the same time, it was decided to target the Middle East and its vast oil reserves to counter the fear of a united Germany and economically expanding continental Europe that could threaten US dominance. Saddam would be the victim and an easy target after being weakened by the 1980 - 1988 Iran-Iraq war and a $65 billion debt to foreign creditors.

The scheme was to lure him into a trap (with Kuwait as bait) to provide a pretext for US military intervention. The rest is history:

-- Iraq invaded Kuwait on August 2, 1990;

-- four days later Operation Desert Shield was launched; harsh economic sanctions were imposed and a large US troop deployment began;

-- Operation Desert Storm began on January 17, 1991 and ended six weeks later on February 28;

-- Next came 12 years of the most comprehensive genocidal sanctions ever imposed on a country that included a crippling embargo; hundreds of thousands died and millions suffered;

-- Operation Iraqi Freedom was launched on March 19, 2003 and is still ongoing nearly five years later; the "cradle of civilization" was erased, a free market paradise created, and the death, human misery and displacement toll is incalculable for an impossible to win guerilla war.

From the Evil Empire to the Axis of Evil

In his 1991 State of the Union address, GHW Bush proclaimed a New World Order, quickly dropped the term but pursued the policy. The younger Bush does as well with focus shifted from the "Evil Empire" to the "Axis of Evil." It was a vague construct that conveniently encompassed the Eurasian continent and its oil riches. To ensure US dominance, they had to be controlled, especially against key Japanese, European Union (EU) and emerging Chinese rivals.

A threefold scheme was hatched to do it:

-- target Russia, eastern Europe and all parts of the world to ensure IMF rules and US dollar hegemony are maintained;

-- control every country with significant energy or other vital raw material resources; and

-- maintain unchallengeable military supremacy to deter opposition to US-imposed rules.

The catch word was "globalization." It denies global justice, globalizes US dominance, and consolidates it by political, economic and military enforcement. At the start of the 1990s, however, Japan had become the world's economic and banking leader and had to be confronted. A reckless speculation decade left American banks in deep crisis. Japan operated differently, prospered and challenged US supremacy. Its influence was recognized and had to be undercut.

Treasury Secretary James Baker laid the trap through the 1985 Plaza accord and the Baker-Miyazawa month later agreement. He got Tokyo to exercise monetary and fiscal measures to expand domestic demand and reduce Japan's external surplus. At the same time, the Bank of Japan cut interest rates to 2.5% in 1987 and held that level until May, 1989. The plan was for lower rates to stimulate US goods purchases. Instead, cheap money went into Japanese stocks and real estate and led to colossal twin bubbles still deflating today.

The yen was also affected. Within months, it shot up 40% against the dollar, and overnight Japan became the world's largest banking center, surpassing London and New York. As the country's twin bubbles inflated, Japan became home to the world's 10 largest banks, an astonishing achievement for a country its size or any country. Things were so extreme at the bubble's peak that the value of Tokyo real estate, in dollars, exceeded all of it in the US, and the nominal value of Japanese stocks amounted to 42% of the world's total - but not for long.

Tokyo equities peaked in December, 1989. Three months later, the Nikkei dropped 23% or over $1 trillion in value, and it was just the beginning. From its 38,915 peak, Japanese stocks plunged to 7831 in April, 2003 with no assurance that's a bottom. Why and how could this happen? Japanese officials speculated on the reason.

In 1990, Japan proposed financing the former Soviet Union's reconstruction and drew strong US opposition. In addition, Japan's MITI model was suggested for former communist countries with Washington dead set against it for two reasons: it might exclude US companies, and it would rely on state economic guidance that impressively fueled Japanese and Asian Tiger growth. It had to be stopped as America had other ideas for the post-Cold War era.

Pressure was applied with threats of drastic US troop cuts that would endanger Japan's security. The message was abandon economic plans or provide your own defense. At the same time, Japan's twin bubbles kept deflating, months later the Nikkei had lost $5 trillion in value, the country was badly hurt, and its challenge to America was dropped.

That was Phase One. Phase Two confronted Asian Tiger countries because (like Japan) their economic model bested the US and threatened it. It was a major embarrassment to IMF rules that exploit developing states for America's gain. In the 1980s, East Asia boomed with 7 - 8% annual growth rates compared to half that in the US. Their market economy followed state guidance and planning and it worked. They were also debt-free and unhampered by IMF restrictions. In addition, their model enhanced social security and productivity, promoted universal education and set limits on foreign investment and imports. Washington had other ideas.

In 1993, demands were made to deregulate, open financial markets, and allow free capital flows. Easing followed and trouble began. From 1994 to 1997, hot money flooded in and created speculative real estate, stock and other asset bubbles. Hedge funds (including George Soros' billions allied with major international banks) forcefully acted. They attacked the weakest regional economy and its currency - Thailand and its baht. The aim? Force devaluation, and it worked. Thailand capitulated, floated its currency and turned to the IMF for help it never before needed.

Next came the Philippines, Indonesia and South Korea as their "populations sank into economic chaos and (mass) poverty." Prosperous Asian Tigers were humbled, they were forced into IMF debt bondage, and Russia got the same medicine plus a bonus. A sole superpower remained under US dollar supremacy, and US military bases encircled its former adversary, were closing in, and targeted an emerging China as well.

Russian shock therapy was especially tragic. Washington wanted to deindustrialize the country to permanently destroy the old Soviet economic structure. Boris Yeltsin complied, and IMF wreckage was the scheme. A corporatist state replaced a communist one, and its apparatchiks were winners along with a handful of mutual fund managers who made dizzying returns from newly privatized Russian companies. In addition, 17 nouveau billionaires (called "the oligarchs") emerged overnight, strip mined the country's wealth, and shipped it overseas to safe havens.

Russia's people were devastated and still suffer. Unemployment is epidemic, well over half the population is impoverished, 80% of farmers were bankrupted, and 70,000 state factories were shuttered. And it got worse. Social services ended, diseases like HIV/AIDS became rampant, suicides rose, violent crime jumped fourfold, and the population now declines by about 700,000 a year with free market medicine already having killed over 10% of it. Outside a select elite, the former superpower was humbled, reduced to Third World status, and it created potential for Big Oil to exploit Russia's energy riches that were given away for kopecks on the ruble.

Seven oligarchs grabbed off half the country's natural resources. Their hard currency profits were dollarized, but by summer 1998 things got out of hand. With the economy in trouble, the IMF extended an emergency $23 billion loan to support the ruble and protect speculative western investments, but it came too late. On August 15, Russia did the unthinkable. It defaulted and, for a time, shock the dollarized world. The largest of all hedge funds (LTCM) bet on the country and leveraged up manyfold. A financial disaster loomed, the Fed intervened, Russia's default was quietly forgiven, and dollarization resumed.

Earlier, the Balkans got shock therapy and became a target for dismemberment with a simple idea in mind - destroy its mixed socialist economy that was independent of the West and couldn't be tolerated. Europe's soft underbelly also lies between central Asia's oil and the route over which Washington wants it transported. It had to be brought to heel, and a US-led NATO was the way. Softening up began by the late 1980s, continued into the new decade, and George Soros was at it again. IMF medicine was employed, living standards plunged, and economic chaos resulted. Breakup began, each region was on its own, and a lot of pushing came from the West.

Croatia and Slovania seceded first in 1991. That lit the fuse that exploded in a series of Balkan wars. Slobadan Milosevic became the fall guy, was targeted for removal, conflict lasted the decade, and it culminated with US-NATO's merciless 79 day 1999 Serbia bombing that caused an estimated $40 billion of destruction to the country's economy and infrastructure. The US moved in and set up shop in one of its largest military bases in the world - Camp Bondsteel near Gnjilane in southeast Kosovo. It's a Serbian province that was split off and occupied by design. The West's divide and conquer strategy is in play, Kosovo heads for independence, and the mother country's objections don't matter.

At war's end, US Eurasian control was enhanced but not guaranteed as the contest for Caspian riches is still in play with Russia, China and others vying for them.

A New Millennium for Oil Geopolitics

A new president accompanied the new millennium with a changed Washington focus - oil is at its core, controlling it is key, and Dick Cheney's first job as vice-president was working with the (James) Baker Institute to draft the April 2001 National Energy Policy Report. It projected a growing dependency on foreign oil, highlighted Iraq's "de-stabilizing influence," and recommended "restat(ing) goals with respect to Iraq policy." It also linked the Pentagon with future energy policy plans.

Core report recommendations signalled how with a crystal clear message:

-- securing foreign sources is key;

-- less than cooperative governments in volatile parts of the world control some of the largest sources; and

-- Cheney highlighted concern at a private 1999 London Institute of Petroleum meeting saying: "by 2010 we will need on the order of an additional fifty million barrels a day."

He didn't flinch saying where we'd get it: "the Middle East, with two-thirds of the world's oil and the lowest cost, is still where the prize ultimately lies...." and Iraq is the potential crown jewel with the largest of all untapped low-hanging fruit. Immediately on entering the White House, Cheney & Co. swung into action. They focused on Iraq like a laser, targeted Saddam Hussein, and removing him from office became top goal.

Washington teems with schemes and intrigue, but a neoconservative think tank was particularly diabolical. Established in 1997, it was called the Project for the New American Century (PNAC), its goal was unchallengeable US dominance, and a policy paper was drafted to achieve it. It appeared in 2000 and was called "Rebuilding America's Defenses: Strategies, Forces and Resources for a New Century." It stated that "America should seek to preserve and extend its position of global leadership by maintaining the preeminence of US military forces." It further called for "American hegemony" and "full-spectrum dominance," and believed achieving it would be long-term "absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event - like a new Pearl Harbor."

A rogues gallery of PNAC members joined the Bush administration in 2001, key among them Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz, and topping their goals was removing Saddam Hussein. September 11 obliged, the "war on terror" was born, "terrorism" replaced communism as the new enemy, its core was in the oil-rich Middle East, and its headquarters was in Iraq. Removing the Taliban was just a warm-up for the main event ahead. It was conceived before bin Laden was "Enemy Number One" and overnight Al-Queda became western civilization's greatest threat.

On October 7, 2001 (four weeks after 9/11), America went to war. Target One was Afghanistan, controlling Central Asian oil was the goal, transporting it through Afghanistan was the plan, and the Taliban had to go because they rejected one-way Washington (double) deal making. They fled Kabul five weeks later, Northern Alliance warlords took over, a puppet president was installed, war ended (for a time), and the focus shifted to Iraq.

Prepping the public began, Saddam became another Hitler, his WMDs threatened western civilization, so he had to go. "Shock and awe" began on March 19, 2003, and Baghdad fell three weeks later. Saddam was removed, fighting "officially" ended in May, and to almost no one's surprise, no WMDs were found because they're weren't any, and that was known by the mid-1990s or earlier.

Paul Wolfowitz attended an unreported Singapore security conference in June. He was asked why America chose WMDs as a causis belli when none existed. He answered it was "the only thing we could agree on." He was also asked why Iraq was targeted, not North Korea and its nuclear threat, and he explained: "The country swims on a sea of oil" so there was no other choice with world supply running out.

That conclusion came out of an alarming September 9, 2001 Oil Depletion Analysis Centre energy policy memo to Tony Blair. It highlighted "hydrocarbon difficulties," declining output, and importance of Iraq as the one remaining untapped oil-rich country. Securing it was key because credible geological reports argued that easy cheap oil was dramatically declining while global demand was rising, especially in emerging China and India. For almost a century, world economic growth needed cheap, plentiful oil. No good substitute exists so controlling what's left is essential.

Further, if "peak oil" has been reached, as many believe, its cost will explode, and one analyst predicted: "Beyond 2005, the energy required to find and extract a barrel of oil will exceed the energy contained in the barrel." Further, he estimated most major oil sources are near or at peak, for every new barrel discovered, four are being used, and the only cheap untapped supply left is in the Middle East where around two-thirds of proved reserves remain. Five regional countries are key - Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iran, the Gulf Emirates (notably Qatar) and Iraq above all with estimates that its potential may be 432 billion barrels or around two-thirds more than Saudi Arabia's proved reserves.

If true, Iraq's importance is vital, its real estate is the world's most valuable, and controlling it unchallenged means "Washington (holds) the trump cards over all potential economic rivals," friends and foes. Even more grandiose would be to control every major and potential worldwide oil source and transport route to achieve unimaginable omnipotence. It would be a global-scale chokehold to decide who gets supply, who doesn't, how much and at what price. It would thereby assure who controls world economic development and remains Number One.

Unchallengeable military power is key and the reason the Bush administration repositioned its global presence through a web of new bases. They've been strategically placed where Cold War geopolitics didn't permit. Unsurprisingly, they target Eurasia and its importance Zbigniew Brzezinski highlighted in his 1997 book, "The Grand Chessboard." He referred to the region as the "center of world power extending from Germany and Poland in the East through Russia and China to the Pacific and including the Middle East and Indian subcontinent." Dominating it assures the US access to and control of its vast energy reserves, so that becomes Goal One.

But it doesn't exclude broader aims, including Africa that will supply around one-fourth of future US oil supply, according to some analysts. It explains the Pentagon's AFRICOM presence that's expected to be fully operational by late summer and be responsible for the entire continent and its valued resources that include more than energy.

Swing over to Latin America and its energy potential. Countries like Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Bolivia, Brazil and Mexico are very much in US plans with the Bolivarian Republic far and away most important. According to Hugo Chavez and some US estimates, the country has more potential reserves than Saudi Arabia when its heavy oil is included. It explains SOUTHCOM'S mission and command over 30 regional countries with a growing presence in a number of them and ongoing operations (some covert) throughout Latin America.

Engdahl ends his book discussing oil's importance to US "full spectrum dominance." Controlling it directly or indirectly through client regimes means holding "a true weapon of mass destruction (and) potential blackmail over the rest of the world. Who would dare challenge the dollar" as the world's reserve currency? And if IMF rules keep restraining developing countries' growth, their oil demand will be curbed, so all the more for America and its key Global North allies at a time when most world oil sources have peaked. More than ever then, controlling world energy reserves is crucial to maintaining economic growth.

The 1970s oil shocks were warning shots. Today, threatened shortfalls are real and worsening. We call controlling world supply promoting democracy, others see the subterfuge, and some critics feel our imperial arrogance defines our weakness. Today, America is unrivaled in global power, and Engdahl quoted the late Edward Said after Iraq's invasion saying: "Every single empire (says) it is not like all the others, that (it's special), that it has a mission to enlighten, civilize, bring order and democracy (and only use) force as a last resort." It remains to be seen what's ahead in "the New American Century," but the evidence so far isn't encouraging, and that's putting it mildly.

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 Global Research News Hour on RepublicBroadcasting.org Mondays from 11AM to 1PM US Central time.

F. William Engdahl's "A Century of War" - Part I

F. William Engdahl's "A Century of War" (Part I) - by Stephen Lendman

F. William Engdahl is a leading researcher, economist and analyst of the New World Order who's written on issues of energy, politics and economics for over 30 years. He contributes regularly to publications like Japan's Nihon Keizai Shimbun, Foresight magazine, Grant's Investor.com, European Banker and Business Banker International. He's also a frequent speaker at geopolitical, economic and energy related international conferences and is a distinguished Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization where he's a regular contributor.

Engdahl wrote two important books. This writer reviewed his latest one in three parts called "Seeds of Destruction: The Hidden Agenda of Genetic Manipulation." It's the diabolical story of how Washington and four Anglo-American agribusiness giants plan world domination by patenting animal and vegetable life forms. They aim to control food worldwide, make it all genetically engineered, and use it as a weapon to reward friends and punish enemies.

The book is a sequel to Engdahl's first one and subject of this review - "A Century of War: Anglo-American Oil Politics and the New World Order." It's breathtaking in scope and content, and a shocking and essential history of geopolitics and strategic importance of oil. The book is reviewed in-depth so readers will know the type future Henry Kissinger had in mind in 1970 when he said: "Control oil and you control nations; control food and you control people." Engdahl recounts the story in his two masterful books, both critically essential reading.

The story line in his first one began late in the 19th century when oil's advantage was first realized, and First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill told Parliament in 1919:

"We must become the owners, or at any rate the controllers at the source, of at least a proportion of the supply (of oil) which we require....and obtain our oil supply, so far as possible, from sources under British control, or British influence."

After defeating Napoleon in 1815, Britain was supreme until America emerged predominant during WW II. Engdahl explains how: through two pillars and one commodity - unchallengeable military power and the dollar as the world's reserve currency combined with the quest to control global oil and other energy resources.

Engdahl calls his book "no ordinary history of oil" because what he recounts is suppressed in the mainstream and what passes for education in America. It settles for mediocrity, ignorance, and a barely literate public by design. As a result, people don't know that US manipulators arranged "the greatest confidence game the world had ever seen" - a "special hegemony" to:

-- print limitless dollar paper certificates to buy every imaginable product;

-- accumulate endless trade deficits;

-- "inflate (the) currency beyond imagination;"

-- have the government pay interest on its own money; and

-- create an unprecedented public and private debt to enrich an elite few at the expense of the greater good.

So far it's worked because people haven't caught on, other nations need our markets, fear our might, and countries like China, Japan and petrodollar recyclers remain lenders of last resort. Combined, it let America rule the world, control its energy, and crush all upstart competition. Washington had a good role model, and that's where the story begins.

The Three Pillars of the British Empire

Geopolitical history for the last 100 years was shaped around the quest for what Big Oil acolyte Daniel Yergin called "The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money and Power" with two countries at its epicenter - first Britain and now America with its UK junior partner that built its rule on three essential pillars:

-- controlling the seas and setting the terms of trade;

-- dominating world banking and manipulating the world's largest gold supply; and

-- controlling world raw materials with oil the key one at the turn of the century; with these working, it devised an "informal empire" to loot world wealth and maintain a balance of power on the continent.

Britain's "genius" was being able to shift alliances without letting sentiment interfere with its interests. Post-Waterloo, it operated "on an extremely sophisticated marriage between top (London) bankers and financiers, government cabinet ministers," key industrialists and espionage chiefs. By keeping everything secret, it "wielded immense power over credulous and unsuspecting foreign economies." By the late 19th century, however, things began to change, and a new strategy was needed. Key to it was oil geopolitics as a vital naval supremacy ingredient.

The Lines are Drawn: Germany and the Geopolitics of the Great War

The importance of oil and emergence of continental economies (especially in Germany) provided the backdrop to WW I. By the late 19th century, British bankers and political elites were alarmed that German industrial and technological development began surpassing its own that was in decline. Included was a modern German merchant and naval fleet and an ambitious railway project linking Berlin with Baghdad, then part of the Ottoman empire. At stake was British hegemony, and preserving it led to war.

Prior to its outbreak, coal was king, German output was impressive and so was its growth:

-- its steel production increased 1000% in 20 years, leaving Britain far behind by 1900;

-- its state-backed rail infrastructure doubled in track kilometers from 1870 to 1913;

-- with the advent of centralized electric power generation and long-distance transmission, its electrical industry exploded to dominate half the world's trade by 1913;

-- impressive research built the country's chemical industry and made Germany the world leader in analine dye production, pharmaceuticals and chemical fertilizers;

-- German agriculture thrived; it made "astonishing" gains from the introduction of "scientific agriculture chemistry" and produced an 80% grain harvest increase from 1887 to 1914;

-- population growth was dramatic - 75% to 67 million between 1870 and 1914;

-- Germany's merchant fleet rocketed to second place in the world behind Britain and at a pace to overtake it;

-- steel and engineering advances were achieved; and consider another British concern:

-- early in the century, British Dreadnought battleship leadership was surpassed; Germany's super model was superior and that spelled trouble for UK sea power supremacy; by 1910, "dramatic remedies" were needed; Germany's economic emergence had to be confronted, its growing naval strength as well, and for the first time oil was a factor.

A Global Fight for Control of Petroleum Begins

By 1882, British Admiral Lord Fisher saw oil's potential as qualitatively superior to coal. It required one-quarter the tonnage, one-third the engine weight, and expanded a fleet's "radius of action" fourfold. It was first used in 1885 after Gottlieb Daimler developed the internal combustion engine. Another 20 years passed, however, before its importance was realized, and that created a problem. Britain had no oil and needed a supply.

Up to then, its Middle East presence was limited, but that changed after oil was discovered in Masjed Soleiman, Persia (now Iran) in 1908. It secured Britain an "extraordinarily significant exclusive right (to potential) vast untapped petroleum deposits" for the country's newly formed Anglo-Persian Oil Company (APOC).

Earlier in 1899, German industrialists and bankers got Ottoman approval for a Berlin-Baghdad railway. The aim - to establish strong economic ties to Turkey and develop new markets in the East. Once extended to Kuwait, it would be the fastest, cheapest rail link to the Indian subcontinent, and that spelled trouble for Britain. It would challenge UK supremacy and had to be confronted.

The project was costly and needed help to complete, so Germany turned to Britain. London, for its part however, used "every device known to delay and obstruct progress. The game lasted" until war began in 1914 and after Britain secured an exclusive oil development "lease in perpetuity" in what today is Iraq and Kuwait. Yet competition remained because Germany got the Ottoman emperor to grant its Baghdad Railway Company full rights to all oil and minerals on a parallel 20 kilometers of land on either side of the rail line. By 1912, oil's importance was apparent, and geologists discovered it between Mosul and Baghdad.

WW I stalled efforts for a German-owned oil company, independent of Rockefeller interests. At a time, the US produced over 63% of world supply, Russia's Baku 19% and Mexico 5%. Britain's new APOC was barely a player when First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill convinced the government to buy a majority interest in what today is British Petroleum (BP). "From that point, oil was at the core of British strategic interests," and the game was this - secure its own supplies, deny them to key rivals like Germany, and do it if necessary by war.

That became London's scheme early in the century when Britain, France and Russia allied in a Triple Entente against Germany and the Austro-Hungarian powers. By 1907, it was solidified, effectively encircled Germany, and it laid the foundation for the coming showdown with Kaiser Wilhelm II. From then until 1914, preparations were made for the "final elimination of the German threat." Included was a "series of continuous crises and regional (Balkans) wars (in) the 'soft underbelly' of Central Europe." Three months after the alliance, Austria's heir to the throne was assassinated in Sarajavo, and it "detonated the Great War."

Oil Becomes the Weapon, the Near East the Battleground

WW I was no different from other wars. Imperial, territorial and economic rivalries were at its root. It lasted from July 28, 1914 to November 11, 1918 and at a time Britain was effectively bankrupt, had big plans along with other combatants, plus a "secret weapon" that later emerged: the special relationship of "His Majesty's Treasury" with The House of Morgan.

The conflict matched the Allied powers of Britain, France, Russia, Belgium, Serbia, Greece, Romania, Montenegro, Italy, Portugal, Japan and for its last seven months the US against the Central Powers of Germany, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria and Ottoman Turkey. The timeline was as follows:

-- on June 28, Archduke Ferdinand and his wife were assassinated;

-- on July 28, Austria declared war on Serbia;

-- on August 1, Germany declared war on Russia;

-- on August 3, Germany declared war on France and invaded Belgium on August 4; and

-- on August 4, Britain declared war on Germany, and the world was at war. Four years later, its toll was horrific, and four empires were destroyed - Ottoman Turkey, Austria-Hungary, Germany and Russia. Later on, so would Britain's, but in 1914 schemes and intrigue drove the winners to reallocate the spoils, especially where it was thought large oil deposits lay.

Well before 1914, Britain's geostrategy was threefold:

-- create and preserve an unchallengeable global empire;

-- defeat its main rival Germany; and

-- secure and control the most strategically important resource - oil that was crucial to winning the war.

At its end, Britain's Foreign Secretary Lord Curzon commented: "The Allies were carried to victory on a flood of oil." Germany ran short and lost because it couldn't mount a decisive offensive in 1918. In 1915, however, Britain gambled and lost. It failed to defeat Turkey in the Battle of Gallipoli, and the stakes involved were high - to secure Russia's rich Baku oil fields at a time they supplied almost a fifth of world production. It was early in the war, Britain ultimately prevailed, and in no small measure by preemptively occupying Baku in August, 1918 to deny Germany its vital resources.

Throughout the war, oil's importance was key and the reason for the Allies' secret 1916 Sykes-Picot agreement. It spelled "betrayal and Britain's intent to....control....the undeveloped petroleum reserves of the Arabian Gulf after the war." Britain was devious. While France and Germany clashed along the Western Front, London moved 1.4 million troops to the Gulf and eastern Mediterranean on the pretext of bolstering Russia. After 1918, a million forces remained on what became a "British Lake" by 1919 with access to the region's oil. Its potential was later learned, France was cheated out of its share, Saudi Arabia's value was unknown, and turned out to be a major British blunder that didn't elude America in the 1930s.

Partitioning the Ottoman Empire proceeded post-war and included an "extraordinary new element." Now known as the Balfour Declaration, it was a classified British policy statement supporting a Jewish homeland in Palestine at a time Jews comprised 1% of the population. It came on November 2, 1917, a year of conflict remained, and it was the basis for the post-1919 British mandate over Palestine that gave London "strategic possibilities of enormous importance." British elites and its principal think tank (the Royal Institute for International Affairs or Chatham House) supported a "Jewish-dominated Palestine, beholden to England for its survival (and) surrounded by a balkanized group of squabbling Arab states."

The scheme was to link England's colonial possessions from South Africa's gold and diamond mines, north to Egypt and the Suez canal, through Mesopotamia (Iraq and Kuwait), Persia (Iran) and East into India and what today is Pakistan and Bangladesh. Controlling this territory became crucial. It meant dominating the world's most strategically valuable resources before their vast potential was realized.

Combined and Conflicting Goals: The United States Rivals Britain

Britain was the world's major post-WW I power, its territorial winner, and borrowed Wall Street money secured the victory, but with a problem. The country was deeply in debt, mired in depression, and the US now loomed as the world's economic power. In the 1920s, a rivalry ensued pitting America against Britain's three imperial pillars: control of world sea lanes, its banking and finance, and its strategic raw materials. At stake was whether London or Washington would be the world's new capital, with no assured winner at the time. Later, it was very clear that WW II's seeds were planted in a place called Versailles and a 1919 treaty in its name.

Its terms were outrageous and onerous. They made unimaginable demands, and therein lay the problem. In May 1921, Germany got an ultimatum with six days to accept or the industrial Ruhr Valley would be militarily occupied. Even worse, the country lost its colonial possessions and all their raw material resources. In the end, all combatants were losers. Their combined debt overwhelmed world finance and monetary policy from 1919 to the 1929 Wall Street crash. The entire pyramid was built on punitive war debts with Morgan and other major New York banks uncompromising on the terms. They was so burdensome that yearly payments exceeded America's annual 1920s foreign trade. In addition, paying it took precedence over rebuilding and modernizing war-torn European economies.

At the same time, oil's importance grew as Britain exploited the spoils at France and America's expense. In March 1921, Winston Churchill was UK secretary of state for colonial affairs, the British Colonial Office Middle East Department was established, and Mesopotamia was renamed Iraq and became a British colony. Anglo-Persian Oil officials got administrative control, American companies gained no British Middle East concessions, and a fierce battle raged over the region's oil throughout the 1920s. Then it moved to Latin America.

In the 19th century, US Senator Henry Cabot Lodge stated "commerce follows the flag" and by it meant economic progress requires expansion. In 1912, it got Mexico targeted after oil was discovered in Tampico in 1910. Woodrow Wilson sent in troops to seize control from Britain and the UK-connected Mexican Eagle Oil Company that had concessions for half the country's oil at the time. As war in Europe loomed, Britain backed off, and America secured Tampico's enormous potential.

Britain, nonetheless, pressed on, and by the early 1920s controlled "a formidable arsenal of apparently private companies" that, in fact, let His Majesty's government "dominate and ultimately control all" major world oil-containing regions. Four companies were empowered that were also an "integral part of British secret intelligence activities:"

-- Royal Dutch Shell that rivaled Rockefeller's Standard Oil, even in America through California Oil Fields and Oklahoma-based Roxana Petroleum;

-- the Anglo-Persian Oil Company that became the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company and is now British Petroleum;

-- the little-known d'Arcy Exploitation Company; it was tied to the Foreign Office and British intelligence, and its agents showed up wherever there was oil development potential; and

-- the nominally Canadian company called British Controlled Oilfields (BCO); it was secretly government- owned as were Shell and the others.

In 1912, British companies controlled about 12% of world oil production. By 1925, it was most of it, America noticed, but in 1922, London and Washington united against a common threat and called a truce to their post-Versailles conflict.

The Anglo-Americans Close Ranks

In April 1922, Germany and Russia stunned the West by their bilateral Rapello Treaty. Under it, Russia waived its war reparations claims in return for Germany's industrial technology. The news shocked the continent, especially as it emerged from a British-organized Genoa meeting with other strategic aims in mind.

While secretly financing an anti-Soviet counterrevolution, London approached Russia regarding Baku's oil fields, hoping to arrange lucrative deals for Royal Dutch Shell and other UK oil companies. Rockefeller's Standard Oil also eyed them, but was disadvantaged by Britain's favored position and its own unsavory reputation. Yet it proceeded through Harry Sinclair of Sinclair Petroleum as a perceived independent middleman with no Rockefeller taint.

Moscow was interested because Sinclair had ties to President Harding, and a deal meant US diplomatic recognition and an end to Russia's international isolation post-1917. Sinclair agreed, Harding approved, but events then intervened.

It was scandal in Wyoming in a place called Teapot Dome. It involved political influence and the awarding of no-bid oil leases to Sinclair Oil (then called Mammoth Oil) and a whole lot more with illegal payoffs and no-interest loans as part of the deal. Harding, though not directly involved, was implicated, a year later he was dead ("under strange circumstances"), Coolidge became President, dropped the Baku project, and ended plans to recognize Russia. At the time, it was thought British intelligence was involved, blocked the bid to give UK oil companies an edge, but Germany's deal with Russia intervened.

It was Germany's second option at a time its onerous debt made dealing with Britain preferable. Efforts failed because London was hard-line, stuck to its punitive repayment process, and imposed stiff tariffs to make things worse with Germany already on its knees.

The looting ruined the country's economy and forced the Reichsbank to print enormous amounts of money to survive. Inevitable inflation followed and by 1923 was catastrophic. In January, the mark dropped to 18,000 to the dollar. By July, it was at 353,000, by August 4,620,000, and by November an astonishing 4,200,000,000,000. It was effectively worthless in the greatest ever (before or since) inflation that destroyed the country's savings and made further calamitous events inevitable.

The misery was compounded when Germany lost its assets. Britain took its colonies, and also seized was Alsace-Lorraine and Silesia with its rich mineral and agricultural resources. Gone was 75% of the country's iron ore, 68% of zinc ore, 26% of coal as well as Alsatian textile industries and potash mines. In addition, Germany's entire merchant fleet was taken, a portion of its transport and fishing fleet plus locomotives, railroad cars and trucks - all justified as war debts that were fixed at an impossible to pay 132 billion gold marks at 6% annual interest, and with it an ultimatum. Agree in six days or Allied troops would occupy the Ruhr. Unsurprisingly, the Reichstag approved.

It made dealing with Russia essential as Germany sought practical ways to survive. It proved impossible, France objected to a minor treaty obligation and occupied the Ruhr anyway. In the meantime, inflation soared, German industrial activity was erased, Reichsbank and other German bank assets were seized, and the currency became worthless.

In 1923, a so-called Dawes Plan (named for US banker Charles Dawes) was adopted. It was the Anglo-American banking community's way to reassert fiscal control over Germany, assure reparations were paid, and continue the state-sponsored looting. It continued until 1929 when the debt pyramid collapsed, an ensuing banking crisis followed, capital flowed out of the country, its economy crashed, the world headed into depression, and radical political elements gained prominence.

Reichbank president, Hjalmar Schacht, was a key figure. He resigned his post to organize financial support for the man he and Bank of England governor Montagu Norman wanted as chancellor. From 1926, Schacht secretly backed the radical National Socialist German workers party, the NSDAP Nazis. Britain also favored the "Hitler Project," support for it went right to the top and included figures like Prime Minister Chamberlain and the Prince of Wales (later King Edward VIII in 1936 until he abdication later in the year).

Throughout the period, Wall Street and Washington were comfortable with the Nazis, and a key government official met Hitler in 1922. He came away saying he "was deeply impressed by his personality and thought it likely he would play an important part in German politics."

By this time, the Anglo-American power struggle was resolved. So, too, the oil wars with the creation of an "enormously powerful Anglo-American oil cartel," later called the "Seven Sisters." British and American companies struck a deal. They ended competition, kept existing market shares, and secretly set prices with governments of both countries arranging a Red Line agreement. From then to now, Big Oil ruled the energy world and devised how to deal with "outsiders."

Later, the consequences from Baron Kurt von Schroeder's January 4, 1932 meeting would have to be faced after he, Heinrich von Papen and Hitler secretly arranged a Nazi takeover. A year later, another meeting followed preparatory to acting. The Weimar government was weak, the scheme was to topple it, and it made Hitler Reichschancellor on January 30, 1933. On August 2, 1934 he seized absolute power as Fuhrer. British interests backed him, Royal Dutch Shell financed him, and the Bank of England "moved with indecent haste to reward" him with a vital line of credit. The rest, as they say, is history, and from it would emerge a new world order.

Oil and the New World Order of Bretton Woods

In 1945, the world had changed. Post-WW I, Britain was preeminent with an empire spanning one-fourth the globe. Thirty years later, it was disintegrating and "in the throes of the largest upheaval of perhaps any empire in history" (although it happened most prominently to Rome, but it took longer). It wasn't from "beneficence" or a matter of principle. It was unavoidable because the war took its toll. It shattered Britain's financial power, its industry was decaying, its housing stock was dilapidated, and its people exhausted. Britain was "utterly dependent on America," so the baton passed to the only major power left standing in a ravaged post-war world.

A "special relationship" between them emerged post-Versailles. Britain led it then, it hoped post-1945 to continue indirectly, and a new element was added - the post-war CIA that worked with Britain in the war as the OSS (Office of Strategic Services). The relationship continued as the two countries have mutual interests and jointly share intelligence, except that Britain now is junior in a US-dominated world.

Post-war, Anglo-American oil interests had enormous power. It was assured by the 1944 Bretton Woods system that was built around three dominant pillars - the IMF, World Bank and managed "free trade" from GATT. Clauses were built into each to ensure Anglo and especially American dominance over monetary and trade issues. Both countries have voting control, and the arrangement created a "gold exchange system." Under it, each member country's currency was pegged to the dollar that, in turn, was set at a fixed $35 an ounce gold price. It suited Big Oil fine as America by then had the bulk of world gold reserves.

They also benefitted from the Marshall Plan as more than 10% of it went for American oil, and five US companies supplied over half of western Europe's supply at a dear price (that was pennies on the dollar compared to today). They profited enormously, nonetheless, as oil became the key commodity fueling world growth that without which would halt.

Partnered with Big Oil and its trade were Wall Street and New York international banks. They profited hugely from its capital inflows, and it ensured their advantage that was built into the Bretton Woods system. They also had cartel power by having consolidated to hold disproportionate control over world finance.

Britain, as well, had its post-war priorities in the wake of its lost empire. Its leadership regrouped around the power and profits of oil and other strategic raw materials with US help. It made Iran a target, Britain humiliated its nationalist elements, occupied the country, and demanded concessions for its government-linked Royal Dutch Shell. Finally in December, 1944, nationalist leader Mohammed Mossadegh introduced a bill to bar foreign country oil negotiations. A bitter fight ensued, by 1948 foreign troops were withdrawn, but the country remained under UK control through its Anglo-Iranian Oil Company at a time Iran's southern region had the world's richest known reserves.

In late 1947, the Iranian government demanded an increase in its oil revenue share (meager at the time) and cited Venezuela where Standard Oil had a 50 - 50 arrangement. London wasn't pleased, talks dragged on, and the strategy was to stall and delay. In late 1949, Mossadegh headed a parliamentary commission, a 50 - 50 split was demanded, Britain refused, and by 1951 Mossadegh was Prime Minister. Around the same time, Iran's parliament nationalized the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company and paid fair compensation for it. Britain, nonetheless, was outraged and reacted.

Full economic sanctions and an oil embargo followed. In addition, Iranian assets in British banks were frozen, and major Anglo-American oil companies supported London. Iran's economy was devastated. Its oil revenues plummeted from $400 million in 1950 to less than $2 million from July 1951 to August 1953 when Mossadegh was ousted by a CIA-British SIS coup. Shah Reza Pahlevi returned to power, sanctions were lifted, and America and Britain regained their client state until 1979 when the same Anglo-American interests turned on the Shah and deposed him. More on that below.

An Italian company defied the sanctions at the time - Azienda Generale Italiana Petroli (AGIP). Its founder and head was Enrico Mattei, a man to be reckoned with. He sought indigenous energy resources for Italy that Anglo-American oil interests wouldn't co-opt. It was no simple task, yet he got a new law passed that established a central semi-autonomous state energy company called Ente Nazionale Idrocarburi (ENI). AGIP became a subsidiary.

As its leader in 1957, he negotiated an unprecedented deal with Iran - 75% of profits to the National Iranian Oil Company and 25% to ENI. Washington, London and Big Oil weren't pleased. If unchecked, this type arrangement would upset their entire world oil order benefitting them at the expense of host countries. Mattei had to be stopped, and the US and Britain pressured the Shah to opt out - to no avail.

Mattei became a major irritant. He challenged Big Oil with low gasoline prices. He also offered deals with former colonies on more favorable terms than the majors, including the prospect of local refineries so supplier countries could be more than just raw material sources.

Finally, in October 1960 he went too far and enraged Washington and London. He negotiated a deal with Moscow they opposed. In 1958, he contracted to buy one million annual tons of Soviet crude. He then signed an exchange agreement for 2.4 million tons for five years but not to be paid in cash. Instead it would be in large-diameter oil pipe that Russia badly needed to construct a huge pipeline network bringing Volga-Urals oil to Czechoslovakia, Poland and Hungary - 15 million tons annually when completed. The deal helped both sides with Mattei getting Russian oil at below market price and the Soviets getting a pipe works plant completed for them in September, 1962.

A month later, Mattei was dead. His private plane crashed on takeoff killing him and two others on board. To this day, deliberate sabotage was suspected, and why not. Mattei was at the peak of his powers, he'd already signed deals with Iran, Russia, Morocco, Sudan, Tanzania, Ghana, India and Argentina and upset the established order. He also planned to meet President Kennedy who, at the time, was pressing Big Oil to reach accommodation with him. A year later, Kennedy was also dead, and the finger pointed to "US intelligence, through a complex web of organized crime cutouts."

A Sterling Crisis and the Adenauer-De Gaulle Threat

In 1957, western European countries headed by France, West Germany and Italy signed the Treaty of Rome. It established the European Economic Community (EEC) that came into force on January 1, 1959. Germany was recovering from the war, and Charles De Gaulle regained power in France with vigorous restructuring plans - to rebuild the country's infrastructure, expand its devastated industrial and agricultural economy, and restore fiscal stability.

It was already under way in continental Europe, the result of unprecedented EEC trade-driven growth. De Gaulle and Germany's Konrad Adenauer led the effort with the French President exerting a strong independent voice. The two leaders bonded, and the Treaty Between and French Republic and Federal Republic of Germany was concluded on January 22, 1963. It assured close cooperation and coordination of economic and industrial policy. Washington and London were alarmed at the prospect of an independent alliance that included Italy under Aldo Moro.

An Anglo-American alliance was hatched to counter it. It targeted Europe and took the form of pushing the EEC to open to US imports and be firmly part of a Washington-London-dominated NATO. Britain also demanded inclusion in the six nation Common Market. De Gaulle strongly opposed it, but was denied when Atlanticist Ludwig Erhard became Germany's Chancellor in April 1963. He favored admitting Britain and agreed to support London's 19th century "balance of power" strategy against continental Europe. Though formally ratified, the Franco-German accord was lifeless, and the culmination of Adenauer's work was lost - stolen by the America and Britain at the last moment.

Washington supported the EEC but not as an independent alliance. It might have become that in 1957 at a time recession hit America and lasted into the 1960s. It led to debate in the US with the New York Council of Foreign Relations and Rockefeller Brothers Fund drafting options at a time Henry Kissinger emerged. It was also when Big Oil and New York banks (the East Coast establishment) were dominant and viewed the world as their market. They also controlled the media and used it to promote their interests over what was best for the nation and greater good.

Rebuilding US infrastructure, investing in modern factories, improving the national economy and developing a skilled labor force were ignored. Instead, investment flowed abroad for greater returns. Cheating on quality also became fashionable, and productive pride lost out to bottom line priorities to please Wall Street.

It came with a cost, however, and part of it was the state's financial health. As dollars flowed abroad, US gold reserves plunged enough to threaten the Bretton Woods system. The problem was a "fatal flaw" in its design. Its rules established a "gold exchange standard" requiring IMF countries to fix the value of their currencies to the US dollar and indirectly to gold at $35 an ounce.

By the 1960s, European growth outpaced the US, and domestic investment sought to take advantage of double the returns it could get domestically. It was the beginning of the Eurodollar market, and the start of a decade of "ever worsening international monetary crises." By the late 1970s, it became a cancer that "threatened to destroy its entire host - the world monetary system." It also influenced the Johnson administration to believe that a full-scale southeast Asian conflict could stimulate a stagnant economy and show the world who was still boss.

In the 1960s, New York bankers, Big Oil and the defense establishment advocated war and a homeland garrison state to boost profits, but consider the strategy. DOD Secretary Robert McNamara and Pentagon planners obliged. They designed a protracted "no-win war from the outset" to rev up spending and secure the defense component of the economy. Deficits resulted, the dollar inflated, and Washington forced its trading partners to accept war costs in the form of cheapened greenbacks.

It led to European central banks accumulating large Eurodollars reserves they then earned interest on from US treasuries. The net effect was continental bankers funded US deficits the way they do now, along with China and Japan. Engdahl quoted futurist Herman Kahn saying: "We've pulled off the biggest ripoff in history (running) rings around the British empire." Nonetheless, London planned a comeback with "expatriate American dollars." More on that below.

Lyndon Johnson waged war on two fronts, and failed at both. Vietnam cost him his presidency while his War on Poverty and Great Society barely made a difference but amassed huge European-financed deficits. At the same time, industrial and scientific investment declined, financial speculation grew, a service-oriented economy was favored, and America headed down the same "road to ruin" Britain followed earlier.

Few understood that Johnson's domestic policy had little to do with alleviating poverty. It was a corporate scheme to exploit economic decay, curb wage growth and back a 19th century colonial-style looting. Inciting "race war" was part of the plan. Engdahl described it as a domestic Vietnam pitting blacks against whites, unemployed against employed, and high wage earners against lower paid ones in a "new Great Society, while Wall Street bankers benefited from slashed union wages and cuts in infrastructure investment." They, in turn, recycled their profits into cheap Asian and South American labor markets for still greater profits. It's the same scheme writ large today.

By 1967, trouble was evident. The Bretton Woods system was threatened as US external debt soared and the nation's gold reserves plummeted to one-third their liability. At the same time, Britain's economy was "a rotting mess and getting worse." Faith in the pound sterling was eroding because the UK, like America, neglected its industrial base, amassed large trade deficits, and was a net currency exporter. Something had to give, and it was the pound.

At this time, De Gaulle withdrew from the gold pool, and "the entire Bretton Woods edifice (shook) at its weakest link, the pound sterling." The crisis highlighted the core vulnerability of the international monetary system, the US dollar. Things came to a head on November 18, 1967. Britain devalued the pound by 14% for the first time since 1949. It abated the sterling crisis, but the dollar one was just beginning as international holders of the currency demanded gold in exchange.

Crisis built in 1968, and Business Week magazine devoted an astonishing nine articles and feature editorial to it in its March 23 issue headlined "Gold crisis jolts the West" on its front cover. A publisher's memo also addressed it and quoted Virgil's Aeneid, Book III: "Oh cursed lust for gold, to what dost thou not drive the hearts of men!" It affected Charles De Gaulle as well. His independence made him a target for removal that succeeded. It got him voted out of office a year later. For Washington and London, however, it was a Pyrrhic victory.

"A Century of War" will continue in Part II of this review to complete the story to the present era under George Bush.

Stephen Lendman can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

Lies, Damn Lies and the Murdoch Empire

Lies, Damn Lies and the Murdoch Empire - by Stephen Lendman

For Big Media, truth is a scare commodity and in times of war it's the first casualty, or as esteemed journalist John Pilger noted: "Journalism (not truth) is the first casualty (of war). Not only that: it('s)....a weapon of war (by its) virulent censorship....by omission (and its) power....can mean....life and death for people in faraway countries, such as Iraq."

Famed journalist George Seldes put it another way by condemning the "prostitution of the press" in an earlier era when he covered WW I, the rise of fascism, and most major world and national events until his death in 1995 at age 104. He also confronted the media in books like "Lords of the Press." In it and others, he condemned their corruption, suppression of the truth, and news censorship before the television age, and said "The most sacred cow of the press is the press itself, (and the press is) the most powerful force against the general welfare of the majority of the people."

Orwell also knew a thing or two about truth and said telling it is a "revolutionary act in times of universal deceit." Much else he said applies to the man this article addresses and the state of today's media. He was at his allegorical best in "Animal Farm" where power overwhelms freedom, and "All animals are equal but some....are more equal than others." And he observed in "Nineteen Eighty-Four" that "Those who control the present control the future (and) Those who control the future control the past."

Today's media barons control the world as opinion makers. Like in Orwell's world, they're our national thought control police gatekeepers sanitizing news so only the cleansed residue portion gets through with everything people want most left out - the full truth all the time. They manipulate our minds and beliefs, program our thoughts, divert our attention, and effectively destroy the free marketplace of ideas essential to a healthy democracy they won't tolerate.

None more ruthlessly than Murdoch and the infoentertainment empire he controls. Its flagship US operation is Fox News that Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) calls "the most biased name in news....with its extraordinary right-wing tilt." In response, Murdock defiantly "challenge(s) anybody to show me an example of bias in Fox News Channel" because in his world the entire political spectrum begins and ends with his views. For him and his staff, "fair and balanced," we report, you decide" means supporting the boss. Alternative views are biased, verboten and rarely aired. But they're hammered when they are as the "liberal" mainstream that's code language for CNN and other rivals at a time all media giants match the worst of Fox and are often as crude, confrontational and unprofessional.

Distinguished Australian-raised journalist Bruce Page wrote the book on Murdoch called "The Murdoch Archigelago." It's about a man he calls "one of the world's leading villains (and) global pirate(s)" who rampages the mediasphere putting world leaders on notice what he expects from them and what he'll offer in return. It's "let's make a deal," Murdoch-style that's uncompromisingly hardball. Acquiesce or get hammered in print and on-air with scathing innuendo, misinformation and outright lies. Few politicians risk it. Others with alternative views have no choice, and world leaders like Hugo Chavez are used to this type character assassination.

He mostly worries about the other kind and with good reason as long-time Latin American expert James Petras reported November 28. Four days before a crucially important constitutional reform referendum, he published an article headlined: "Venezuela's D-Day - The December 2, 2007 Constituent Referendum: Democratic Socialism or Imperial Counter-Revolution."

In it, he reported that the Venezuelan government "broadcast and circulated a confidential (US embassy) memo to the CIA" revealing "clandestine operations....to destabilize (the referendum) and coordinate the civil military overthrow of the elected Chavez government." It's because independent polls predicted the referendum would pass even though they proved wrong. The dominant media readied to pounce on the results but instead went into gloat mode on a win Chavez called a "phyrric victory" but Murdock headlines trumpeted "Chavez's president-for-life-bid defeated." This is the type vintage copy Page covers with reams of examples in his book.

Its central theme is that the media baron wants to privatize "a state propaganda service (and manipulate it) without scruple (or) regard for the truth." In return he wants "vast government favors such as tax breaks, regulatory relief, and monopoly" market control free from competitors having too much of what he wants solely for himself and apparently feels it's owed to him.

Because of his size and media clout, he usually gets his way and mostly in places mattering most - in the biggest markets with greatest profit potential in a business where truth is off the table and partnering with government for a growing revenue stream and greater influence is all that counts.

The Murdock Empire from Inception

Murdoch's empire is vast and is part of his News Corporation that was incorporated in Australia in 1979 (Murdoch's home). It was then reincorporated in 2004 in the US in the corporate-friendly state of Delaware with its headquarters in New York. The company was huge when media experts Robert McChesney and Edward Herman wrote about it in their 1997 book, "The Global Media Giants." Back then, it ranked fifth in size among the giants (it's now third after Time Warner and Disney) with $10 billion in 1996 sales when the authors called the company "the archetype for the twenty-first century media firm....and the best case study (example) for understanding global media firm behavior."

Gross revenue today tops $28 billion, operating income is nearly $4.5 billion, the company has over 47,000 employees, it operates on six continents, 75% of its business is in the US, and one industry analyst told McChesney and Herman 10 years ago "Murdoch seems to have Washington in his back pocket" as he keeps getting favorable rulings to do what he wants. And that was under Bill Clinton who signed the outrageous 1996 Telecommunications (giveaway) Act for Big Media and Big Telecom that let them consolidate further through mergers and acquisitions and be able to squash competition and diversity.

In those days and earlier, Murdoch aimed high to control "multiple forms of programming - news, sports, films and children's shows--and beam them via satellite or TV stations to homes (around the world with) Viacom CEO Sumner Redstone (once saying) Murdock 'want(ed) to conquer the world.' " Other media chiefs said he was doing it, and he's "the one media executive they most respect and fear, and the one whose moves they study."

Murdoch inherited his father's Australian News Limited newspapers in 1952. He had no journalistic background but compensated by cultivating political influence through favorable electoral coverage. He became managing director of News Limited in 1953 and then took over running Adelaide News in 1954. He founded News Corporation in 1979 but years earlier concentrated on acquisitions and expansion to build his business. In 1964, he launched Australia's first national daily, The Australian, later acquired The Daily Telegraph in Sydney, and in the late 1960s entered the UK market by snaring The News of the World. In 1950, it was the world's most popular English language newspaper with a peak circulation of around 8.4 million. It was about six million when Murdock got it in 1968.

More acquisitions followed. They included The (London) Times and The Sunday Times in 1981, and by the 1980s he was a dominant force in the US. He bought the film studio, Twentieth Century Fox, that launched Fox Television and now notorious Fox News.

Today, the company is in everything media-related (except music) and describes itself on its web site as "Creating and distributing top-quality news, sports and entertainment around the world." That's in the eye of the beholder where there's considerable disagreement with the official company position. Nonetheless, the site lists a vast array of News Corporation operations:

-- Filmed entertainment: 20th Century Fox, 20th Century Fox Espanol, 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment, 20th Century Fox International, 20th Century Fox Television, Fox Searchlight Pictures, Fox Studios Australia, Fox Studios Baja, Fox Studios LA, Fox Television Studios, and Blue Sky Studios;

-- Television: Fox Broadcasting, Fox Sports Australia, Fox Television Stations, FOXTEL, MyNeworkTV, STAR; and the newest entry, Fox Business, to compete with CNBC and Bloomberg;

-- Cable: Fox Business Network (just launched), Fox Movie Channel, Fox News Channel, Fox Sports Channel, Fox College Sports, Fox Sports Enterprises, Fox Sports En Espanol, Fox Sports Net, Fox Soccer Channel, Fox Reality, Fuel TV, FX, National Geographic, Channel United States, Channel Worldwide, Speed, and Stats, Inc.;

-- Direct broadcast satellite television: BSkyB, DirectTV, and Sky Italia;

-- Magazines and Inserts: Big League, Inside Out, donna hay, ALPHA, News America Marketing, Smart Source, The Weekly Standard, and Gemstar - TV Guide International Inc.;

-- Newspapers: 21 in "Australasia" including the Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph, Herald Sun and Sunday Herald Sun, Post-Currier, Sunday Mail, Sunday Times, The Australian, The Mercury, and the Weekly Times; 6 in the UK including The Times, The Sunday Times, The Sun, and News International; and two in the US - the New York Post (the Columbia Journalism review calls "a force for evil") and Wall Street Journal as of December 13 when News Corporation announced the completion of its acquisition of Dow Jones & Company;

-- Books: HarperCollins Publishers, Australia, Canada, Children's Books, United States, United Kingdom, Zondervan;

-- Other assets: 25 are listed including Broadsystem, Fox Interactive Media, IGN Entertainment, FoxSports.com, Fox.com, News Outdoor and others.

News Corp. even claims to be addressing climate change, says it's "committed" to "lowering the energy use of its businesses" across the globe, will "switch to renewable sources of power when economically feasible," and will "become carbon neutral by 2010." True or false, it's likely the company does address its energy consumption to cut costs as most other businesses also do, climate change or not.

Bruce Page picks up the story in "The Murdoch Archipelago" published in 2003. Even while attacking the media baron, he says he and others do some good. Murdoch, for instance, "exposes numberless sexual peccadilloes, and much lesser crime - but not dud military campaigns or Enronesque frauds." He specializes in sensationalist pseudo-journalism that distorts the truth on the news and loads it with juiced-up reports on murder, mayhem, mishaps, celebrity gossip and soft porn. Page goes on to say "the world would be better off without News Corp." and before he ever bought it "There's certainly a good case that he should not own The Wall Street Journal."

Too late, now that the Bancroft family sold it to him for the billions he offered and muscle he applied to get it like he always does. They might have considered former Chicago columnist Mike Royko's comment when he left the Sun-Times after Murdock bought it (and later sold it Hollinger, Inc.'s fraud convicted Conrad Black). Moving to the Tribune, he remarked "no self-respecting fish would (want to be) wrapped in a Murdoch paper....His goal is not quality journalism (it's) vast power, political power." Murdoch's own private joke also should have scared them off that "God doesn't trust (him) in the dark." Nor should anyone anywhere, anytime.

Page's polemic traces Murdoch's history in his lengthy book covering his rise from early beginnings to his unrivaled status in today's media world. It's the story of power and a man who wields it ruthlessly as a world class predator - with deception and chicanery, arrogance and artfulness, charm and cunning and sheer muscle, will, intimidation, poisonous influence and toadying to get his way as he generally does. Whatever Rupert wants, Rupert gets, and nothing stands in his way. That goes for governments and his editors as well as reporters in print and on-air. No one crosses Murdoch. Anyone practicing real journalism gets dispatched elsewhere to pursue it.

Page explained from firsthand accounts that Murdoch newsrooms aren't fun places to work. He upbraids editors and interferes with their work. Also, as explained above, he uses his operations for power play politics to bend governments to his will. As his influence grows, so does the bending, and along with it, fake journalism bearing no resemblance to the real kind. It's a Murdoch specialty by a world class pariah in a media world beset with them, but Murdoch's the worst. He's bereft of ethics, an authoritarian boss, and the book is full of examples of how he throws his weight around, bullies people and prevails. It also expresses particular displeasure about the way he cozied up to the Chinese in 1994 by removing BBC World News (no media paragon, just classier than Murdoch) from Satellite TV Asia Region in return for special favors he got.

Page also exposes Murdoch's absurd claim to be an enemy of the establishment, a populist, and battler for the common man. This from someone raised in privilege, courts the powerful, represents entrenched wealth, is now a billionaire, benefitted from nepotism, is passing his empire to his children, smashes print unions, runs a "bordello of papers" as the Sunday Times called it before he bought it, and has easy access to Number 10, the White House and other seats of power.

Page worries that media barons cause serious harm by undermining democracy, and Murdoch's the worst of the bunch. He targets the vulnerable, attacks disenfranchised minorities and bashes gays, Muslims, innocent victims of war and oppression, and anyone getting in his way. Page warns that unless we see his threat and confront it, all free societies are at risk.

Page also exposes the Murdoch myth of an archetypical entrepreneur whose "journalistic (and business) genius" got him where he is. Nonsense about a man, like his father, who uses press power for business favors to gain more power. Yet he audaciously told his biographer, William Shawcross, to "Give me an example. When have we ever asked for anything?" Page has reams of it exposing Murdoch's guile and mendacity about wanting a "level (media) playing-field." Just the opposite. He's obsessed with monopoly control and smashes competition for it.

He also smashes editors who disobey him. One observer called him unhinged, out of control and completely amoral while a former Sunday Times editor, Andrew Neil, describes the "terrorism" Murdoch spreads throughout his empire to get his way. Neil also wrote: "Rupert expects his papers to stand broadly for what he believes - a combination of right-wing Republicanism from America mixed with undiluted Thatcherism from Britain."

Murdoch's US Fox News Flagship

Fox News smoothes the way for him as a round-the-clock Bush administration commercial imitating real news. It debuted in 1996 and one of its on-air hosts explained the "Channel was launched (because) something was wrong with news media....somewhere bias found its way into reporting....Fox....is committed to being fair and balanced (covering) stories everybody is reporting--and....stories....you will see only on Fox."

Later, the Columbia Journalism Review had a different view. It reported "several" former Fox employees "complained of 'management sticking their fingers' in the writing and editing of stories to cook the facts to make a story more palatable to right-of-center tastes." One of them complained about never running into that before before while FAIR reported "Fox's signature political news show, Special Report with Brit Hume, was originally created as a daily one-hour update devoted to the 1998 Clinton sex scandal." So much for "fair and balanced" real news.

This type attack never happens to a Republican and hasn't for Fox's presidential favorite, Rudy Giuliani, who was sinking fast, fared poorly in early primaries and now has withdrawn from the race. Nonetheless, his leadership failures and marital transgressions were ignored, and so were his ties to friend, business partner and former New York City Police Commissioner, Bernard Kerik. He was indicted on 16 counts of federal corruption, including bribery, conspiracy, tax fraud, and lying on his federal disclosure forms for not reporting a $250,000 "loan" (a likely payoff) from an Israeli billionaire that may have been sent to him for Giuliani for favors rendered.

An added twist is that a former Kerik lover, Judith Regan, sued Murdock's News Corp. and accused the company of pressuring her to commit perjury to protect Giuliani's presidential hopes. Fox News won't explain or cover it, but it daily airs preferential bias for Giuliani in its slanted reporting. It's a blatant example of unethical coverage to manipulate news for its own purpose.

FAIR also blasted one of Hume"s regular features - "The Political Grapevine" that's billed as "the most scintillating two minutes in television" as a sort of right-wing "hot-sheet." It features anchor Hume "reading off a series of gossipy items culled from other (generally) right-wing" sources. It's not subtle and is blatantly partisan calling Democrats, environmentalists, the liberal media, civil rights groups, anti-war activists and Hollywood and other liberals "villians" while Republicans are good guys or "heros who can do no wrong." When critics jump on Fox, it hits back claiming a responsibility to correct the "liberal media's bias" with Bill O'Reilly saying Fox "gives voice to people who can't get on other networks." What it does, of course, is slant the news its way to please the boss, and that means a distorted hard-right point of view only.

It also means the more people watch it, the less informed they are as News Dissector Danny Schechter explained about all TV news in his candid insider's book "The More You Watch, The Less You Know." That doesn't bother Murdock who spends millions for lobbying and hundreds of thousands more for political contributions - mostly to Republicans but also to friendly Democrats to buy and keep his growing influence. It pays off with senators like Trent Lott once telling the Washington Post: "If it hadn't been for Fox, I don't know what I'd have done for the news." He means a right-wing echo chamber pretending to be unbiased.

Long-time Republican operative Roger Ailes runs it for Murdoch with FAIR once quoting former senior Bush aide Lee Atwater saying he operates on "two speeds - attack and destroy." He also called Clinton a "hippie president," refers to liberals as "bigots," and assures all on-air programming conforms to his views. Only Republicans get hired to air them and those screened for jobs are asked to be sure.

As for punditry and political debate, here's how FAIR characterizes it: on shows like Hannity & Colmes, The O'Reilly Factor and The Beltway Boys it's like watching "a Harlem Globetrotters game (knowing) which side is supposed to win." Or maybe pro wrestling. The discussion is so lopsided, it's impossible hiding Fox's partisanship, and it shows with on-air hosts like Tony Snow endorsing Republican Bob Dole for President in 1996 and then seamlessly becoming White House press secretary from May, 2006 to September, 2007. Other Fox "journalists" are as bad and collect handsome fees addressing Republican gatherings and corporate interest groups with big name ones like O'Reilly reportedly charging $50,000 per engagement on the lecture circuit delivering red meat to audiences that love it.

So do hard core Fox viewers who swallow the channel's pro-Bush, pro-war, pro-occupation America uber alles type journalism combined with juiced-up infotainment reports imitating real news. It makes it hard knowing where one ends and the other begins. In the mainstream, much of it is the same, and all of it defiles what journalism should do -

-- be the principle source of political information to create an informed citizenry Jefferson said was "the bulwark of a democracy;"

-- provide a wide range of opinion and analysis of all key issues affecting everyone;

-- hold governments accountable to the public interest and not just the privileged elite part of it; and generally

-- "comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable."

Murdoch and the rest of the dominant media fail the test. Their concentrated power blunt democracy by destroying its essential free marketplace of ideas. Today, social control substitutes for diversity, free expression, and an informed electorate; pro-business ideology trumps the greater good; and the single-minded pursuit of profit triumphs over beneficial social change. Combatting it means confronting the media barons who are as determined as Murdoch to squash us.

Organizations like Free Press are doing it. It's a "national nonpartisan organization working to increase informed public participation in crucial media policy debates." It aims to "generate policies that will produce a more competitive and public interest-oriented media system with a strong nonprofit and noncommercial sector" promoting greater diversity. The more democratic our media, the more accountable government will be to public concerns. Free Press focuses on four broad areas to help: "media ownership" for greater competition and diversity; "independent and public media" free from the single-minded pursuit of profit; "internet freedom" from corporate control; and "media reform" of a corrupted system aided by government that must end.

To happen, public participation is essential, and for that organizations like Free Press are crucial. Corporate media control is the core issue of our time along with overall corporate dominance with governments as their handmaiden. Democracy and a free society are impossible unless that changes. It's we the people vs. the Murdochs of the world, and we've only just begun fighting back.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

Jonathan Cook's "Israel and the Clash of Civilisations"

Jonathan Cook's "Israel and the Clash of Civilisations" - by Stephen Lendman

Jonathan Cook is a British-born independent journalist based (since September 2001) in the predominantly Arab city of Nazareth, Israel and is the "first foreign correspondent (living) in the Israeli Arab city...." He's a former reporter and editor of regional newspapers, a freelance sub-editor with national newspapers, and a staff journalist for the London-based Guardian and Observer newspapers. He's also written for The Times, Le Monde diplomatique, the International Herald Tribune, Al-Ahram Weekly and Aljazeera.net. In February 2004, he founded the Nazareth Press Agency.

Cook states why he's in Nazareth as follows: to give himself "greater freedom to reflect on the true nature of the (Israeli-Palestinian) conflict and (gain) fresh insight into its root causes." He "choose(s) the issues (he) wish(es) to cover (and so is) not constrained by the 'treadmill' of the mainstream media....which gives disproportionate coverage to the concerns of the powerful (so it) makes much of their Israel/Palestine reporting implausible."

Living among Arabs, "things look very different" to Cook. "There are striking, and disturbing, similarities between" the Palestinian experience inside Israel and within the Occupied Territories. "All have faced Zionism's appetite for territory and domination, as well as repeated (and unabated) attempts at ethnic cleaning."

Cook authored two important books and contributed to others. His first one in 2006 was titled "Blood and Religion: The Unmasking of the Jewish and Democratic State." It's the rarely told story of the plight of the 1.4 million Palestinian Israeli citizens living inside the Jewish State, the discrimination against them, the reasons why, and the likely future consequences from it. Israel's "demographic problem" is the issue as Cook explains. It's the time when a faster-growing Palestinian population (aside from the diaspora) becomes a majority, and the very character of a "Jewish State" is threatened. Israel's response - state-sponsored repression and violent ethnic cleansing to prevent it - in the Territories as well as and in Israel.

Cook's newest book, just published, is called "Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East." It's the subject of this review in the wake of advance praise. Noted author John Pilger calls it "One of the most cogent understandings of the modern Middle East I have read. It is superb, because the author himself is a unique witness" to events and powerfully documents them. This review covers them in-depth along with some of this writer's reflections on the region from America.

Introducing his topic, Cook begins with Iraq and states upfront that "civil war and partition were the intended outcomes of invasion." Separation and conflict were planned, they serve America's interests, they're not haphazard post-invasion events, and they originated far from Washington.

From the early 1980s, it was Israeli policy to subdue the Palestinians, fragment Arab rivals, and foster ethnic and religious discord to maintain unchallengeable regional dominance. Bush administration neocons chose the same strategy. Like Israel, they want to neutralize the region through division and separation and make it work even though prior to invading Iraq, Sunni and Shia neighborhoods were indistinguishable, and the country had the highest intermarriage rate in the region.

The scheme is "Ottomanisation," and it worked for Ottoman Turkey against a more dominant Islam. Israel sees four advantages to it:

-- divided minorities are easier to exploit, and Sunni - Shia conflict can achieve a greater aim - subverting Israel's main threat - secular Arab nationalism united against the Jewish State;

-- greater military dominance lets Israel maintain its favored status as a valued Washington ally;

-- regional instability may lead to the breakup of Saudi-dominated OPEC, weaken the kingdom's influence in Washington, and diminish its ability to finance Islamic extremists and Palestinian resistance; and

-- Israel becomes freerer to ethnically cleanse Palestinians from Israel and the Occupied Territories.

Washington supported the scheme post-9/11, the "war on terror" was born, a clash of civilizations ensued, and the idea was that "Control of oil could be secured on the same terms as Israeli regional hegemony: by spreading instability across the Middle East" and Central Asia through a new-type divide and conquer strategy. For Israel, it weakens regional rivals and dampens Palestinian nationalism and their hopes for "meaningful statehood."

Regime Overthrow in Iraq

Removing Saddam Hussein was justified to disarm a dangerous dictator threatening the region. It was untrue and based on "False Pretenses" according to a study by two nonprofit journalism organizations. On January 22, it was posted on the Center for Public Integrity web site. It's "an exhaustive examination of the record" that shows the President and his seven top officials "waged a carefully orchestrated campaign of misinformation about the threat" Iraq posed to galvanize public opinion and go to war "under decidedly false pretenses."

At least 532 separate speeches, briefings, interviews, testimonies and more provide the evidence. They show a concerted web of lies became the administration's case for war even though it's clear Iraq had no WMDs or any ties to Al-Queda. Numerous bipartisan investigations drew the same conclusion, including those by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence in 2004 and 2006, the multinational Iraq Survey Group's "Duelfer Report," and even the dubious 9/11 Commission.

The study cites 232 false Bush statements alone about WMDs and 28 others about links to Al-Queda. Colin Powell, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz and others put out the same lies that increased after August 2002 and spiked much higher in the weeks preceding invasion. In all, the study documented 935 false statements, the dominant media spread them, their deception is now revealed, and yet the administration avoided any responsibility for its actions and the media is unapologetic. In addition, there are no congressional investigations, and the war is still misportrayed as a liberating one when its clear intent was to erase a nation, divide and rule it, turn it into a free market paradise, use it as a launching platform to dominate the region, and control its oil.

Saddam was never a credible threat. In addition, he'd been effectively disarmed in the early 1990s, but US officials suppressed what UN weapons inspectors' learned - the Gulf War neutralized Iraq and "there were no unresolved disarmament issues." Further, Saddam's son-in-law, Hussein Kamel, ran the country's WMD program in the 1980s and early 1990s. In 1995, he defected to the West, was thoroughly debriefed, and confirmed that there was no nuclear program, and "Iraq destroyed all its chemical and biological weapons stocks and the missiles to deliver them."

The story was widely reported at the time, including a front page New York Times August 12 article headlined "Cracks in Baghdad" plus several subsequent follow-ups as events developed. It was then buried, however, and never resurfaced in the run-up to March, 2003. For Iraqis, the consequences were horrific, and they began after Saddam was tricked into invading Kuwait.

Four days later, Operation Desert Shield was launched, economic sanctions followed, a large US troop buildup began, and a sweeping Kuwait-funded PR campaign prepared the public for Operation Desert Shield. It began on January 17, 1991, ended on February 28, caused mass killing, and all essential to life facilities were destroyed, effectively returning the country to its pre-industrial condition.

Twelve years of the most comprehensive, genocidal sanctions followed. They included a crippling trade embargo and an air blockade to enforce it. Adequate humanitarian essentials were restricted, and the 1995 UN Oil-for-Food Program was a well-planned scam. Until it ended after March 2003, it provided the equivalent of 21 cents a day for food and 4 cents for medicines. In addition, vital drugs and other essentials were banned because of their claimed potential "dual use."

The toll was horrific and got two UN heads of Iraqi humanitarian relief to resign with Dennis Halliday saying in 1998 that he did so because he "had been instructed to implement a policy that satisfies the definition of genocide: a deliberate policy that has effectively killed over one million individuals, children and adults," including 5000 Iraqi children a month in his judgment.

Conditions got worse post-March 2003 with street violence commonplace; mounting deaths and injuries; and a total breakdown of essential services, including electricity, clean drinking water, sanitation, medical care, and education made worse by mass unemployment and poverty - an occupation-created humanitarian disaster of epic proportions that continues to worsen.

Four million refugees left the country or are internally displaced, one-third of the population needs emergency aid, millions can't get enough food, malnourishment is rampant, medical care barely exists, and the British medical journal The Lancet published the Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health study on the death toll in October 2006. It estimated 655,000 violent deaths since March 2003 that could be as high as 900,000 at the time (and now much higher) because interviewers couldn't survey the country's most violent areas and omitted from the study thousands of families in which all members were killed.

Cook quoted a Palestinian academic, Karma Nabulsi, citing similarities between Iraq and occupied Palestine - two populations "living in a Hobbesian vision of an anarchic society: truncated, violent, powerless, destroyed, cowed, ruled by disparate militias, gangs, religious ideologues and extremists, broken up into ethnic and religious tribalism and co-opted collaborationists." Palestinians and Iraqis resist, demand their freedom, and polls shows overwhelming numbers want the occupations to end. In Iraq, almost no one thinks America came to liberate them or establish democracy.

Nearly everyone knows Washington's real intent - permanent occupation to control the country's oil so Big Oil giants can exploit it for profit, deny Iraqis their own natural wealth, and give America "veto power" over rivals and potential ones to assure their compliance.

A September 1978 Joint Chiefs of Staff memorandum is particularly notable. It listed three US Middle East objectives:

-- "assure continuous access to petroleum resources,

-- prevent an inimical power or combination of powers from establishing hegemony, and

-- assure the survival of Israel as an independent state in a stable relationship with contiguous Arab states."

Of great concern to US planners, then and now, is "curbing and crushing (Arab and Iranian) nationalism that might inspire Middle Eastern states" to claim the right to their own resources and deny the West their benefits. Twentieth century history documents how Britain and America controlled the region, installed puppet rulers, backed repressive dictators, removed uncompliant ones, and looted oil-rich states for their gain. Iraq is now exploited, local industry was crushed, US corporations plunder the country, and the so-called hydrocarbon law gives Big Oil the same right to the nation's oil - if it's enacted but so far it's stalled.

The Iraqi cabinet approved it last February, but that's where things now stand because of mass public opposition to a blueprint for plunder. If the puppet parliament passes it, foreign investors will reap a bonanza of resources leaving Iraq with just slivers. Its complex provisions, still being manipulated, give the Iraqi National Oil Company exclusive control to less than one-fifth of the country's operating fields with all yet-to-be-discovered deposits (most of Iraq's reserves) set aside for Big Oil. Even worse, contracts (under "production sharing agreements") up to 35 years will be granted, all earnings may be expropriated, and foreign interests have no obligation to invest in Iraq's economy, partner with Iraqi companies, hire local workers, respect union rights, or share new technologies.

Earlier in the 20th century, America coveted Middle East oil once its potential was realized. Post-WW I, however, Britain occupied Iraq and Kuwait, benefitted most until WW II, miscalculated on Saudi's importance, and let the Roosevelt administration secure an oil concession in the 1930s that began close ties between the two nations. The President and King ibn Saud struck a deal. America guaranteed the kingdom's security in return for a steady supply of oil at stable prices, and later on, the recycling of huge petrodollar profits into US investments and military hardware.

Thereafter, the region was key, and the Carter Doctrine highlighted it after engineering the Shah's removal in 1979. Carter stated - "Let our position be absolutely clear: An attempt by any outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf region will be regarded as an assault on the vital interests of the United States of America (and) will be repelled by any means necessary, including military force."

Post-9/11, the Bush Doctrine applied Carter policy globally in the 2002 National Security Strategy (NSS), later revised and made harsher in 2006. It's an imperial grand plan for world dominance, preventive wars are the strategy, the Middle East and Central Asia are its main targets, and the powerful Israeli Lobby assures Washington and Tel Aviv interests are in lockstep. More on that below.

The Long Campaign against Iran

The January 2007 Herzliya, Israel conference was notable for what's become the country's premiere political event. This one differed from others in two respects. Forty-two past and present US policy makers were invited, and attention focused on a Shia "arc of extremism" with debates and discussion highlighting Iran and Hezbollah.

Participants claimed Iran spread regional instability, was close to developing nuclear weapons, and would use them against Israel. There were similar echoes from the January 2008 conference with comments from speakers like Ehud Barak saying "The Iranian nuclear threat remains critical (and) We will not accept an Iran which possesses a nuclear capable military." General Ephraim Sneh added "Our problem is not the nuclear problem, but rather the Iranian regime. (It) incorporates imperial ambition, hatred of Israel, increasing military strength, and an unlimited budget." Ignored was common knowledge or any glimmer of truth - that the late Ayatollah Khomeini banned nuclear weapons development, today's Iranian officials repeatedly stress the country's only nuclear aim is commercial, and Tehran represents no threat to Israel or any other country in or outside the region.

Since the early 1990s, Israel claimed otherwise - that Iran sought nuclear weapons, represented an existential threat, and had to be confronted. By 1994, Haaretz reported that the country's top priority was neutralizing Iran to thwart its regional aspirations because Tehran threatened to acquire nuclear weapons, long-range missiles, and had the ability to export terrorism and revolution to subvert secular Arab regimes. Iraq was already under sanctions, but Israel saw both countries as a combined threat. Weakening one would only strengthen the other, so both had to be smashed.

With Iraq under occupation, Iran's now called the center of world terrorism and packaged with Syria and Hezbollah as Israel's axis of evil with Hamas added later after its early 2006 electoral victory. Israel has big aims - to become a regional hegemon, prevent a rival power from influencing the "peace process," and deny the Palestinians any hope of ending the occupation. It thus manufactured an Iranian threat and along with Washington blocks dialogue and negotiation.

Claiming Iran is a nuclear menace runs counter to the facts. Tehran is years away from producing nuclear power, and IAEA head Mouhammad el-Baradei reports no evidence that Iran is building or seeks to build nuclear weapons. He also told the press last August that "Iran is ready to discuss all outstanding issues which triggered the crisis in confidence. It's a significant step. There are clear guidelines (and Iran is not) dallying with the agency (or) prolong(ing) negotiations to avoid sanctions....Iran (deserves) a chance to prove its stated goodwill."

IAEA also reported Iran's uranium enrichment program slowed, operates well below capacity, and isn't producing nuclear fuel in significant amounts. It had only 1968 centrifuges functioning, several hundred others in various stages of assembly or testing, and its enrichment level is well below what's needed to build a nuclear bomb. In addition, in December 2007, the US National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) reported that Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003 (without evidence one ever existed) and has none of these weapons in its arsenal.

The Bush administration and Israel sidestepped NIE and denounced the IAEA, called it an Iranian ploy to buy time, and "There was no (Israeli) debate about which country should be targeted after Iraq." The goal was to isolate Iran, end its threat to Israel, but avoid the mistake of invading and occupying another country with Iraq already out of control. Other choices were preferable - stoking internal conflict, inciting instability, attacking by air, and deciding which reports to believe.

An August 2007 one called "Considering a war with Iran: A discussion paper on WMDs in the Middle East" was particularly alarming. British experts Dan Plesch and Martin Butcher prepared it, other evidence of impending conflict supported it, no date was given, but they stated things are too far along in planning to stop. They wrote the Pentagon has plans for a "massive, multi-front, full-spectrum" shock and awe-type attack with no ground invasion. Its aim is to target 10,000 sites with bombers and long-range missiles, destroy the country's military capacity, nuclear energy sites, economic infrastructure and other targets to destabilize and oust its regime or reduce the country to a "weak or failed state."

Washington also pressured the UN to impose sanctions on Iran. In July 2006, the Security Council passed Resolution 1696 demanding Tehran halt enriching uranium by August 31 or be sanctioned. UN Resolution 1737 followed in December, cited the country's nuclear program and imposed limited sanctions with further ones applied after UN Resolution 1747 passed in March. On January 22, 2008, the five permanent Security Council members and Germany agreed to a third round of sanctions that was less than what the Bush administration wanted.

The cat and mouse game continues, the threat of wider war remains, and nothing may be resolved with the current administration in power. Nor is there much chance for change under a new one in 2009 as hawkish candidates from both parties dominate the race and support Israel's design on Iran.

The Islamic Republic remains Target One, but on July 12, 2006 the Olmert government surprised. It attacked Lebanon in a blatant act of aggression. It later came out the war was long-planned, Washington was on board, and a minor incident became the pretext to launch it. The target was Hezbollah, and the scheme was to remove what former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage once called "the A-team of international terrorism." That was his way of noting a long-time Israeli irritant that was able to liberate Lebanon's south by ending the IDF's 22 year occupation in May 2000.

By summer 2006, strong rhetoric suggested a wider war with Iran and Syria. Both countries were accused of supplying Hezbollah with thousands of rockets to "wipe Israel off the map," and they were being indiscriminately used to do it.

In fact, Hezbollah was founded as a national liberation movement after Israel invaded Lebanon in 1982. It's not an Islamist or terrorist organization as its founding mission statement reveals. It was an "open letter to all the oppressed in Lebanon and the world" stating its aims - to drive the US, French and Israeli occupiers out of Lebanon, defeat the right wing Christian Maronite Phalange party allied with Israel, and give our people "liberty (in) the form of government they desire." It added "we don't want to impose Islam upon anybody. We don't want Islam to reign in Lebanon by force as is the case with the Maronites today."

Today, Hezbollah is a legitimate political and social organization that maintains a military wing for self-defense. It represents Lebanon's Shia population (40% of the total) and is respected for running a comprehensive network of schools, health facilities and other social services available to anyone in need, not just Shias. Nonetheless, it's been unfairly branded anti-Jewish, accused of wanting to destroy Israel, and Washington put it on its Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTO) list in 1997.

In summer 2006, Hezbollah responded to Israeli aggression as its legitimate right. It targeted military, not civilian, sites with spotty accuracy, hit some, and proved to Israel's embarrassment that its forces, Iran and Syria knew site locations that could be struck more accurately with more powerful weapons in retaliation if attacked.

The threat is real, but Hezbollah was the first order of business. Its rockets had to be eliminated as Seymour Hersh reported. Otherwise, "You hit Iran (or Syria first), Hezbollah then bombs Tel Aviv and Haifa," but more was at stake as well. Backing Lebanon's Siniora government against a weakened Hezbollah and asserting the army's control in the south was key. In addition, with Iran and Syria potential targets, the Pentagon wanted Israel to field test its bunker-buster bombs to learn their effectiveness in advance.

Hezbollah was more formidable than expected, it prevailed against Israel's might, its leader, Sheik Hassan Nasralah, is stronger than ever, his support extends beyond his Shia base in the south, the IDF suffered a humiliating defeat, and that's where things now stand. Had the Olmert government prevailed, Cook reports that an air attack on Syria was planned, President Bashar Assad apparently knew it, a credible Washington source revealed it, and the Israeli media suggested the Bush administration wanted Israel to proceed.

Further hawkishness came from Hebrew University professor Martin van Creveld, a respected military historian "with intimate knowledge of the army's inner workings and its collective ethos." His March 2007 Jewish Daily Forward commentary argued that Syria planned to attack Israel no later than October 2008, possibly with chemical weapons, but no evidence was cited. He merely said the Assad government "had been on an armaments shopping spree in Russia" and let readers draw their own conclusions. Israel, he claimed, was thus justified to attack preemptively even though there was credible evidence that Syria sought resolution on the Golan issue, made overtures to negotiate, and the Olmert government believed Assad was serious.

Nonetheless, he was rebuffed and hard line Washington and Tel Aviv officials prevailed. Appeasing Iran and Syria was off the table, removing their "dire threat" had to be confronted, and it hardly mattered that none existed. Then came November 2006. Olmert's approval rating was dismal, and a newspaper poll showed Netanyahu would best him in fresh elections. US Republicans were just as weak. The November 2006 congressional elections sent a strong message - end the war and bring home the troops. For the first time since 9/11, neocon dominance was uncertain, tensions surfaced in the administration, and a change of direction looked possible.

James Baker's Iraq Study Group recommended one in December. It argued that US forces should be gradually withdrawn from Iraq, Iran and Syria should be engaged to help stabilize "what was clearly a failed state," and the home front battle lines were drawn. Key Bush advisors continued to claim Iran was the problem by trying to undermine Washington in Iraq. It was stirring up Shia resistance, arming the Sunnis, and countering Tehran required greater US involvement, not an exit.

For a while, it wasn't clear how things would turn out, but in the end the administration remained hard line, and in early 2007 announced a 30,000 troop surge, stepped up pressure against Iran, and positioned a major naval strike force in the Gulf. At the same time, President Ahmadinejad became another "Hitler" and was misquoted as saying he was trying to "wipe Israel off the map." He actually said "this regime that is occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time" in a reference to its military conquest, illegally occupying Jerusalem, colonizing the Occupied Territories, and repressing the Palestinian people. Ultimately, these policies will fail, and respected analysts say the same thing.

Ahmadinejad made no reference to Jews, only a racist Israeli government that relegates non-Jews to second class status or worse. Regardless of his words and meaning, every move and comment he now makes is scrutinized for any way to attack him.

End of the Strongmen

Cook asks why were Israel and the US extending the "war on terror" to the strongest Middle East state, Iran, since it's the one most able to alleviate crisis in Iraq? Why turn a "clash of civilisations" into an added Sunni-Shia struggle and risk making an unstable situation worse? Many Middle Eastern states are "uncomfortable amalgams of Sunni and Shia populations" because they were combined into unnatural states post-WW I. By late 2006, internal conflicts destabilized Iraq and Lebanon, threatened to spread, and Washington and Tel Aviv were encouraging it.

By confronting Iran and Syria, things may only worsen, but White House reasoning is that this as preferable to a united resistance targeting its occupation. Israel has the same view, and it lay behind the summer 2006 Lebanon war. At its start, it was hoped conflict would unite Christians and Sunnis against Hezbollah and repeat the sectarian civil war that ravaged the country from 1975 to 1990. Instead, the nation united against Israel, and Hezbollah's power and overall status was enhanced, the opposite of what Tel Aviv planned.

The same strategy is playing out in the Occupied Territories, but its outcome is unresolved. After Hamas' electoral victory, Israel refused recognition, and the US and West went along. All outside aid was cut off, an economic embargo and sanctions were imposed, and the legitimate government was isolated. Stepped up repression followed along with repeated IDF incursions and attacks, and the idea was to foment internal conflict on Gaza streets. It went on for months, then subsided (with occasional flare-ups) when Hamas prevailed against Fatah. It defeated Mahmoud Abbas' heavily US-Israeli-armed paramilitaries that were led by Mohammed Dahlan. In spite of defeat, Israel achieved a long-standing aim. It split the Palestinians into two rival camps in Gaza and the West Bank and recognized the unelected Abbas government as legitimate.

Israel plans the same fate for Syria, but Cook says its "closed society (is) more difficult to read." Nonetheless, Congress passed the Syria Accountability Act in late 2003 to justify a US and/or Israeli future attack on any pretext that's never hard to find. A clause in the law states Syria is "accountable for any harm to Coalition armed forces or to any United States citizen in Iraq if the government of Syria is found to be responsible" even without proof. Whatever Syria does, it's thwarted despite clear evidence it seeks peace with the West and Israel and will make concessions in return for resolution to long-outstanding issues like the Golan.

Cook thus wonders "who controls American foreign policy? Does the dog wag the tail or the opposite given the power of Israel to influence policy? One camp argues the former with distinguished figures like Noam Chomsky believing Washington has a "consistent, predictable and monolithic view of American interests abroad" and how best to secure them.

How to explain Iraq then since the administration rejected the advice of many of its key policy advisors, including what Big Oil wanted. Instead, it opted for a messy "regime overthrow," not a simpler "regime change" that worked well in the past without war and occupation. In addition, attacking Iran guarantees regional turmoil, greater instability, regimes likely toppling, intensified Iraq conflict targeting Americans, higher oil prices, possible world recession, and no assurance of a favorable outcome.

Why risk it when Iran sought dialogue for years, but Washington consistently refuses. Cook cites two US academics, John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt and might have included James Petras' work and his powerfully important book titled "The Power of Israel in the United States." This writer reviewed it in-depth and was greatly struck by its persuasive content. It documents the Lobby's depth and breath at the highest levels of government, throughout Congress, business boardrooms, academia, the clergy (especially dominant Christian fundamentalists) and the mass media. Together they assure full and unconditional support for most Israeli interests most of the time going back decades. Wars included - in the Occupied Territories, against Lebanon, the Gulf War, the current Iraq war as well as all Israeli wars since 1967 and the prospect of engaging Iran and Syria despite strong opposition at home.

Cook presents his own view saying "the dog and tail wag each other," and that's Israel's strategy by making both countries dependent on the other for dominance in and outside the region. He believes Israel persuaded administration neocons that both countries shared mutual goals. It worked because it placed US interests of global domination and controlling oil at the heart of strategy.

Consider also a long-standing "special relationship" between the two countries going back decades. Senate Foreign Relations Committee private meeting transcripts before and after the 1967 war reveal it. They explain, early on, that Washington valued Israel as a strategic ally in a vitally important part of the world. Aside from oil, the Johnson administration called Israel a useful Cold War asset at a time Russia courted leading Arab states and made progress. Its regional wars were also helpful to confront the kind of nationalist threat Egypt's Nasser represented. They split regional states into irreconcilable camps - weak Gulf ones like the Saudis needing US protection; stronger regimes in Egypt, Jordan and Iran under the Shah; and outliers like Syria, Libya, Iraq and Iran after 1979.

Cook recounts Ariel Sharon's vision of empire as a regional superpower in an early 1980s speech he never made. He radically departed from Israel's traditional strategy of either seeking peace or directly confronting hostile neighbors. His new thinking was to extend Tel Aviv's influence to the whole region by achieving qualitative and technological weapons superiority.

Sharon was a seasoned general, his views were respected, and he greatly influenced younger officers who rose in prominence and, in the case of Ehud Barak, became Prime Minister like himself. He believed Israel should impose its dictates and force other regional states to comply or be punished.

The "Sharon Doctrine," as its called, also reflected the views National Security Adviser, General Uzi Dayan, and Mossad head, Ephraim Halevy stated in December 2001. They called 9/11 a "Hannukkah miracle" because it gave Israel a chance to marginalize and confront its enemies. Henceforth, all "Islamic terror" elements could be grouped together as threats to the region's rulers. Confronting it was crucial, so after Afghanistan Iraq, Iran and Syria were next "as soon as possible." It was Dick Cheney's vision of permanent "war that won't end in our lifetimes."

In 1982, Israeli journalist and former Foreign Affairs Ministry senior advisor, Oded Yinon, proposed an even more radical idea. Like Sharon, he advocated transforming Israel into a regional power with an added goal: breaking up Arab states into ethnic and confessional groupings that Israel could more easily control. Similar to Huntington's "clash of civilizations," Yinon suggested we were witnessing cataclysmic times, the "collapse of the world order," and he identified the threat: "The strength, dimension, accuracy and quality of nuclear and non-nuclear weapons will overturn most of the world in a few years." He believed an age of terror emerged that would challenge Israel with growing Arab militancy.

His remedy - install minority population leaders who are dependent on colonial powers even after nominal independence. It worked in Lebanon under the Maronites, in Syria under the Alawis, and in Jordan under Hashemite monarchs. Yinon believed these states were weak, as were oil-rich ones, could be easily dissolved, and doing it was key to forcibly displacing Palestinians from the Territories and inside Israel. Furthermore, achieving dominance depended on dissolving Arab states so Israel would be unchallengeable and able to complete its ethnic cleansing process.

Remaking the Middle East

After the Soviet Russia dissolved, Israel's military had to convince Washington it could be useful in a post-Cold War world. Would it be a bullying enforcer or a regional guarantor of US and Israeli dominance by sowing disorder and instability? In the 1990s, "two new kinds of Middle Eastern political and paramilitary actors" emerged - Sunni jihadis called Al-Queda and elements like the Taliban in Afghanistan and Hezbollah in south Lebanon. They represent formidable challenges that aren't easily intimidated or bullied.

In this type world, threats are at a sub-state level, so Yinon's scheme was appealing - encourage discord and feuding within nations, destabilize them, and arrange their dismemberment into mini-states. Tribes and sectarian elements could be turned on each other, and alliances with non-Arab, non-Muslim groups like Christians, Kurds and Druze could be cultivated to advantage.

One problem remains, however - the possibility that another Middle East state may develop nuclear weapons, challenge Israel's dominance and get away with it. Nonetheless, Israel planned "organized chaos" across the region and convinced administration neocons the scheme was sensible. They had every reason to approve, and powerful opposition at home aside, they're destabilizing the region along with Israel. There's no guaranteed outcome, the subsequent fallout is unpredictable, but consider the possibilities. The administration is quite able to vaporize Iran and Syria and end the homeland republic if that's the plan. It's also what other states have to fear.

Cook considers why Israel and Washington chose this agenda despite the risks:

-- by controlling Iran and Iraq, oil production can be increased and prices brought down to a desired level;

-- Israel's rivals will be economically and politically crippled as will Palestinians in the Territories and inside Israel;

-- Gulf states will also be weakened, including Saudi Arabia; and one major out-of-region goal may be achieved -

-- containing China by controlling its main oil source; it may also be easier to dismember the country the way the Soviet Union was dissolved.

The goal is grandiose, risky and its chance of succeeding highly improbable. Consider Russia under Vladimir Putin. Contained under Boris Yeltsin, it's no longer a pushover. In a largely ignored June 2007 speech, Putin highlighted deteriorating US-Russian relations post-9/11 with alarm. Bush administration policies were threatening and endangered his country's security:

-- US military bases encircle it;

-- former Soviet states were recruited into NATO;

-- offensive missiles were installed on its borders on the pretext of missile defense;

-- allied Central Asian regimes were toppled to Washington's advantage; and

-- US-backed Serbian, Ukrainian and Georgian "pro-democracy" groups incited political instability in Moscow.

These actions convinced Russian hard-liners that America plans regime change and further fragmentation of the Federation. China sees this, too, and knows it may be next. It's gotten both powers to ally in two organizations for their own self-defense and to compete with the US for control of Central Asia's vast reserves - the Asian Energy Security Grid and the more significant Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) that was formed in 2001 for political, diplomatic, economic and security reasons as a counterweight to an encroaching US-dominated NATO. Other regional powers may also join one or both alliances, including India, Iran and even South Korea and Japan as a new millennium Great Game unfolds.

On the other side are the US and Israel with the Occupied Territories a test laboratory for what they have in mind for the region. Israel has been at it since the 1967 war when the idea was to expel Palestinians to Jordan because "Jordan is Palestine." The only debate was how to do it.

At the same time, Israel long considered dismembering Arab countries into feuding mini-states, and in the early 1980s, Haaretz's military correspondent, Ze'ev Schiff, wrote that Israel's "best" interests would be served by "the dissolution of Iraq into a Shi'ite state, a Sunni state and the separation of the Kurdish part." Ever since, Israel implemented this practice in the Territories along with testing urban warfare tactics, new weapons and crowd control techniques. Workable or not, it's been a boon to business and it's built Israel's economy around responding to violence at home and everywhere.

Israeli technology firms pioneered the homeland security industry, still dominate it, and it's made the country the most tech-dependent one in the world and its fourth largest arms exporter after the US (far and away the biggest), Russia and France. The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is one of its biggest customers for high-tech fences, unmanned drones, biometric IDs, video and audio surveillance gear, air passenger profiling, prisoner interrogation systems, thermal imaging systems, fiber optics security systems, tear gas products and ejector systems and much more.

With products like these and lessons learned from the Territories, Israel believes it can abandon the old puppet strongman model of controlling populations. It wants no part of a "Palestinian dictator" who might encourage Palestinian nationalism, challenge Israeli rule, and disrupt settlement development plans in the Territories. Building them depends on keeping Palestinians divided, weak, unable to resist, and easier to remove from land Israel wants to incorporate into a greater Israel that includes south Lebanon.

After the 1967 war, Israel prevented new Palestinian leaders from emerging and first tried to manage the population along family or communal lines by co-opting its leaders or eliminating ones who became obstacles. By 1981, Sharon (as defense minister) refined the scheme into what was named "Village Leagues" that were local anti-PLO militias. The system was abandoned, however, when Palestinians rebelled against their collaborating leaders so Israel tried new approaches.

Most important was the Muslim Brotherhood (that had roots in Egypt) that later became Hamas in the late 1980s. Israel, at the time, believed traditional Islamic elements were more easily managed than PLO nationalists, would later learn otherwise, and it led to a radically new experiment - the Oslo process. It began secretly with a post-Gulf War weakened PLO, specified no outcome, and let Israel delay, refuse to make concessions, and continue colonizing the Territories. For their part Palestinians renounced armed struggle, recognized Israel's right to exist, agreed to leave major unresolved issues for indefinite later final status talks, and got nothing in return.

Yasser Arafat and his cohorts got what they wanted - a get-out-of-Tunis free pass where they were in exile following the 1982 Lebanon war. They got to come home, take charge of their people and become Israel's enforcer. Interestingly, Cook points out a little known fact. Many high-level Israeli security figures opposed Oslo. They saw it giving Arafat an "internationalist platform" to encourage Palestinian nationalism that might undermine Israel. After Rabin's assassination, it wasn't surprising that the spirit of Oslo died, Arafat became isolated, spent much of the second intifada a prisoner in his Ramallah compound, and died in a Paris hospital in November 2004, the victim of Israeli poisoning with convincing evidence to prove it.

In the meanwhile, Israel scrapped Oslo and tried a new approach - cantonizing Gaza and the West Bank to crush organized resistance and dissolve Palestinian nationalism. It began with checkpoints and curfews. Then it was hardened into forced separation, displacement, willful harassment, land seizures, home demolitions, bypass roads, and state-sponsored violence matching lightly-armed people against the world's fourth most powerful military with every imaginable weapon at its disposal and no hesitancy using them against civilians.

At the same time, Israel chose a co-optable Mahmoud Abbas over the legitimate Hamas government. Its leaders will only recognize Israel if Palestinians are recognized in return and given an independent homeland inside pre-1967 borders or there's one state for all Israeli citizens. Israel, of course, refuses, and continues expanding settlements on expropriated land. In addition, with Abbas' Fatah in the West Bank and Hamas in Gaza, Israel assures the two sides remain divided and continue fighting each other for control. That's the strategy to keep Palestinians marginalized and Israel confident that what's now working in the Territories can be applied advantageously across the region.

That became Bush administration strategy early on with extremist neocons in charge led by Dick Cheney. They knew all along that invading and occupying Iraq would unleash sectarian violence "on an unprecedented scale." Cook notes that the scheme came out of a 1996 policy paper called "A Clean Break" that was written by key neocons behind the war - David Wurmser, Richard Pearle and Douglas Feith. They predicted that after Saddam fell Iraq would "be ripped apart by the politics of warlords, tribes, clans, sects and key families" because Sunni leadership maintained unity through state repression.

Pre-war, Britain knew it as well, and, in May 2007, a US Senate Intelligence Committee reported that US intelligence documents warned of post-invasion chaos because Iraq is one of the least cohesive Middle East states with rival Sunni, Shia and Kurdish populations. This, however, fits perfectly with the type occupation Washington wants. It also justifies the "war on terror," and prepares things for the final solution Israel advocates - splitting the country into three mini-states: a Kurdish one in the North, Shias in the South, and Sunnis between them.

Making it work won't be easy, however, because Iraq's largest cities have mixed populations. It's the reason the Pentagon plans to cantonize them Israeli-style by enclosing neighborhoods with barricades and walls and require special IDs for entry. Israel plans the same thing for Lebanon where a large Shia population has been marginalized under the country's "confessional" system. It allocates public office along religious lines, gives disproportionate power to Christian and Sunni minorities, but Hezbollah is challenging the pro-western government with things so far unresolved.

After the 2006 war, Hezbollah got stronger, Washington supports the Siniora government, and is promoting a "Cedar Revolution" like the "Orange" and "Rose" ones it successfully engineered in Ukraine and Georgia. Assassinations and car bombings are part of the scheme, they're blamed on Syria without evidence, but a more likely culprit is Mossad that has a long history in the region engineering this type violence. Cook quotes former US counter-terrorism expert, Fred Burton, saying the technology used in Lebanon's recent assassinations is available only to a few countries - the US, Israel, Britain, France and Russia.

The Pentagon and CIA are also active in "black operations" in Iran, have been for many months, and it's no secret why. As in Iraq, Lebanon and Palestine, it's to create ethnic tensions throughout the country, promote conflict, and hope it will destabilize the government and force it into a mistake Washington can jump on in response. A Pentagon source told Seymour Hersh that their operatives are working with Azeris in the north, Baluchis in the southeast, Kurds in the northeast, and their own special forces in-country as well. The pot is bubbling, and Iran knows it.

It's a new version of the older colonial "divide and rule" scheme that so far proved ineffective, and Hezbollah leader, Hassan Nasrallah, thinks he knows what's going on. He says Israel and Washington want to partition Iraq, Iran, Lebanon and Syria. If he's right, as seems likely, it means the idea is to change the way colonial powers ruled post-WW I, and Cook challenges it. He believes making it work is "improbable (and) little more than a deluded fantasy." It worked in Yugoslavia, but the Arab world is different.

He concludes his book saying a generation of Washington policy makers have been "captivated" by thinking the Middle East can be remade by "spreading instability and inter-communal strife." Instead, Cook sees a different outcome - new political, religious and social alliances forming across the region. If Washington pursues its "war on terror," he sees continued "war without end" with no victory. After the chaotic Bush years, it's hard disagreeing with him.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.