Bomb Haters, Unite!

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Who was it that said, if you live with a cripple, you would learn to limp.

By Anwaar Hussain

kandahar_crutch.gif Walk down a busy Kabul street and try coming back unscarred.

Legless men rattle down bazaars in wheelbarrows, little children with missing limbs crab along like some decapods, one-legged men hobble about on ugly crutches among the throng of people. The common threads; they are all war victims, they are all beggars. Welcome to the land of the wretched.

Perhaps no other place on earth has a larger proportion of disabled citizens living out their miserable existences in such heart rending circumstances as Afghanistan. Three decades of war, millions of mines and unexploded ordinance (UXO) for children to trip over, not to include the hordes of suicide bombers now killing in the name of God, have turned Afghanistan into a wasteland of the mutilated and the crippled.

War-related disabilities, primarily loss of limbs, account for an overwhelming proportion of non-birth-defect cases. Cluster munitions and land mines are among the main causes. Out of a population of 25 million, 123,000 Afghans have directly been so incapacitated by war and its consequences.

The Afghans are not alone in their suffering though. Owing to these horrific weapons of war, countless more human beings today live in similar misery in Laos, Iraq, Chechnya, Kosovo, Ethiopia and Eritrea.

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TS Picks

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TS Admin : From today onwards, TS will occasionally be posting its pick from the web for our readers. This also looks after the copyright problems that TS faces with some pieces. This is being done on trial basis pending our readers’ response. TS may continue the practice if the feedback is positive.

Comments, here at the bottom to this post or via email at eagleeye@emirates.net.ae are welcome. So here are today’s TS Picks;

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Orwellian America - 911 & The Road To Iran

Bush’s Endless, Diabolical Hypocrisy On Terror

Oil - A Global Crisis

Roads High and Low : NYT Op-Ed by Bob Herbert

Fall of the house of Shah: end of an era for the world’s last Hindu monarchy

Ex-Press Aide Writes That Bush Misled U.S. on Iraq

Iceland tops list of peaceful nations, U.S. 97th

Why Does the Wall Street Journal Hate America?

The Last Roundup

Bush’s Reaction to War



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Provocations as Pretexts for Imperial War: From Pearl Harbor to 9/11

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By James Petras - May 2008

Wars in an imperialist democracy cannot simply be dictated by executive fiat, they require the consent of highly motivated masses who will make the human and material sacrifices. Imperialist leaders have to create a visible and highly charged emotional sense of injustice and righteousness to secure national cohesion and overcome the natural opposition to early death, destruction and disruption of civilian life and to the brutal regimentation that goes with submission to absolutist rule by the military.

Provocations as Pretexts for Imperial War From Pearl Harbor to 911

 

The need to invent a cause is especially the case with imperialist countries because their national territory is not under threat. There is no visible occupation army oppressing the mass of the people in their everyday life. The ‘enemy’ does not disrupt everyday normal life - as forced conscription would and does. Under normal peaceful time, who would be willing to sacrifice their constitutional rights and their participation in civil society to subject themselves to martial rule that precludes the exercise of all their civil freedoms?

The task of imperial rulers is to fabricate a world in which the enemy to be attacked (an emerging imperial power like Japan) is portrayed as an ‘invader’ or an ‘aggressor’ in the case of revolutionary movements (Korean and Indo-Chinese communists) engaged in a civil war against an imperial client ruler or a ‘terrorist conspiracy’ linked to an anti-imperialist, anti-colonial Islamic movements and secular states. Imperialist-democracies in the past did not need to consult or secure mass support for their expansionist wars; they relied on volunteer armies, mercenaries and colonial subjects led and directed by colonial officers. Only with the confluence of imperialism, electoral politics and total war did the need arise to secure not only consent, but also enthusiasm, to facilitate mass recruitment and obligatory conscription.

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Military or Market-Driven Empire Building: 1950-2008

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By James Petras

Picture by Carlos Latuff.

Military or Market-Driven Empire Building 1950-2008

Introduction

From the middle of the 19th century but especially after the Second World War, two models of empire building competed on a world scale: One predominantly based on military conquests, involving direct invasions, proxy invading armies and subsidized separatist military forces; and the other predominantly based on large-scale, long-term economic penetration via a combination of investments, loans, credits and trade in which ‘market’ power and the superiority (greater productivity) in the means of production led to the construction of a virtual empire.

Throughout the 19th to the middle of the 20th centuries, European and US empire building resorted to the military route, especially in Asia, Africa, Central America, North America and the Caribbean. By far the British and US colonized the greatest territories through military force, followed by the introduction of state directed mercantile systems, the Monroe doctrine for the US and imperial preference for the British. South America following independence became the site of the growth of market powered empire building. British and later US capital successfully captured the commanding heights of the economies, especially the agro-mining and petroleum export sectors, trade, finance and in some cases attached customs and treasury to cover debt collection. As late developing capitalist countries and emerging imperial powers (EIP), the US, Germany and Japan faced the hostility of the established European empires and limited access to strategic markets and raw materials.

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Is the world about to be running on empty?

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As evidence emerges of dwindling oil reserves, the price of crude hits $135 a barrel
TS Admin : A comprehensive read on the subject

oil-2.gifIn France, fishermen are blockading oil refineries. In Britain, lorry drivers are planning a day of action. In the US, the car maker Ford is to cut production of gas-guzzling sports utility vehicles and airlines are jacking up ticket prices. Global concerns about fuel prices are reaching fever pitch and the world’s leading energy monitor has issued a disturbing downward revision of the oil industry’s ability to keep pace with soaring demand. Yesterday’s warning from the International Energy Agency sent the price of a barrel of oil to a new record for the 13th day in a row. The latest high - $135 for a barrel of light sweet crude - was reached in New York barely five months after the price hit $100. Experts in London and on Wall Street predict that prices will rise to $200, regardless of the protests of consumers and the complaints of politicians. It is simple economics, they say: supply and demand. The former is short, the latter growing.

Consumers are feeling the pinch in almost every area of their daily lives. The pain is felt most obviously at the pumps. In Britain, the price of petrol has risen to an average of 114p for a litre of unleaded - £5.15 per gallon. In the US, where drivers pay much lower prices, gasoline is more than $4 (£2) a gallon. Beyond that, energy bills are rising for households across the globe, hitting the poorest the hardest. British Gas, the nation’s biggest gas and electricity supplier, is mulling further price rises, on top of the 15 per cent average increase it introduced in January.

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Anti-Semitism…A Fraudulent Term…And The Most Important Tool In the Zionist’s Tool Kit

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By LWB

Anti-Semitism A Fraudulent Term

When you have built a house of cards, it is important that none of the cards is removed or of course the house will fall. Lets say for example you represent that the ace of spades in your deck is that the Jews of Modern Israel are somehow genetically related to the Judeans of the Bible. For this reason you assert a claim to Palestine. The king of clubs that Palestine was a land without a people and that modern Jews were a people without a land (pay no attention to those refugee camps). The queen of hearts that your people are long suffering, even more than the run of the mill person burned at the stake for not embracing Jesus in the Middle Ages. The jack of diamonds that Israel sitting on it’s nuclear stockpile and modern weaponry provided by its American benefactor is somehow threatened by it’s neighbors. And well you get the idea. If anyone challenges any of these assertions you have a problem. You need a term that will strike terror in the hearts of any of those who would actually challenge your fraudulent assertions.

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Afghanistan - Who is The Enemy?

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By Eric Walberg

afghanistan.jpgThe US is not only repeating all the Soviets’ mistakes in Afghanistan, it is showing remarkable creativity in the horrors department, says Eric Walberg in the first of a two-part series.

Twenty years ago this week the Soviet Union began its withdrawal from Afghanistan, eight and a half years after it was invited by the desperate People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA), which had degenerated into intra-party squabbling and was beset by Islamic rebels massively financed by the United States. The straw that broke the Soviets’ back was when the US began providing Stinger missiles to Osama bin Laden and his friends.

Now, after eight years of US/NATO occupation, the parallels - and differences - between the two occupation are many and stark, as confirmed by the current Russian ambassador to Afghanistan , Zamir Kabulov.

“There is no mistake made by the Soviet Union that was not repeated by the international community here in Afghanistan ,” Kabulov said. “Underestimation of the Afghan nation, the belief that we have superiority over Afghans, that they are inferior and cannot be trusted to run affairs in this country. A lack of knowledge of the social and ethnic structure of this country; a lack of sufficient understanding of traditions and religion.”

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Christian fundamentalists fighting spiritual battle in Parliament

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By David Modell

religion.jpg They think society should be built on their beliefs. They claim non-believers are damned. But these radical Christian groups are not in America - they are here and are aiming to change the laws of our land, discovers the Bafta-winning film-maker David Modell

It’s Tuesday morning and the infants’ classroom in Carmel School is filled with the sound of children’s voices reciting a rhyme. “The Lord has not dealt with us according to our sins nor punished us according to our iniquities.” These are not easy words to remember if you’re six. Melony, the teacher, goes on to explain: “Before Jesus came, people who disobeyed God got turned to a pillar of salt. So thank God for Jesus because we can say ‘Jesus, I’m sorry’ and we don’t have to fear getting turned into a pillar of salt, which really happened in the Old Testament.” One little girl has to do a science test. A classroom assistant kneels next to her, takes her hand and says: “We pray, Father, that you’ll help her check all her spellings. In Jesus’s name, Amen.” The test is multiple choice. Question five is: “God made the world in [BLANK] days.” The options are “five, six or seven”. The six-year-old carefully writes “six”. The right answer.

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Salvador Allende and Hugo Chavez: Similarities and Differences on the “National Road to Socialism”

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By James Petras

I have known and advised three left wing presidents including President Papandreou (Greece 1981-85), President Salvador Allende of Chile (1970-73) and President Hugo Chavez.

Prof. Petras on Venezuelan TV 2008

Picture: Prof. Petras in a recent interview on Venezuelan TV, 2008. Some of his recent interviews on Venezuelan Media can be viewed here (Spanish).

Both Allende and Chavez share many strategic goals and embrace policies favoring the working class, peasantry and the urban poor. They also pursued programs regaining national control over the strategic sectors of the economy, redistributing land (agrarian reform), reallocating budgetary expenditures in favor of social programs for the poor and pursuing independent anti-imperialist foreign policies.

In broad historical and sociological terms, they also share a common belief in constitutional, electoral processes, in a multi-party system, a mixed economy and independent trade unions, business and civic associations.

Despite the convergences and similarities between Allende and Chave, there are important political differences, which account for their different trajectories. Chavez proceeded toward political change before undertaking a deep socio-economic structural transformatio, thus creating a solid constitutional and political framework. Allende, on the other hand, accepted the existing political system and proceeded to implement radical socio-economic changes. As a result, Allende constantly faced political blockages, institutional obstacles that limited his capacity to realize the full potential of the structural changes. In contrast, Chavez’ political reforms led to the compatibility between political institutions and socio-economic change - minimizing opposition obstructionism.

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Rules of Engagement for America’s Victims

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By Anwaar Hussain

soldier.jpgIf by a quirk of fate, America’s victim nations get together, pronounce ‘enough is enough’ and proceed to invade and occupy America, what would their Rules of Engagement be during the occupation. The scribe has chalked out just a few on the exact same lines as America has them for her forces in Iraq. Here is how these go;

GENERAL GUIDANCE: This establishes the Rules of Engagement (ROE) for all the Victim Nations’ Forces (VICFORs) operating within the geographical confines of their former tormentor, the United States of America. Those forces not under immediate threat from the USA may establish more restrictive ROE in accordance with their national caveats. Conflicting ROE will be addressed on a case-by-case basis by the Victim Nations Central Command (VENTCOM). (To avoid any confusion, special attention must be given to Further Explanation (FE) given within the brackets at the end of most of the ROE)

VICTIMS’ NATIONS’ (VICNATs) NATIONAL POLICY. The VICNATs National Policy is to take the initiative within the limits allowed by these ROE during the occupation of the United States of America.

VICNATs MILITARY POLICY. # Commanders have the inherent authority and obligation to use all necessary means available and to take all appropriate action in self defense against the roving bands of former US Military Forces (FE: emphasis added on the word ‘roving’ and not on words ‘military’ and ‘forces’).

# Inside the geographical confines of the United States of America strikes on infrastructure, lines of communication and economic objects should, to the extent possible, disable and disrupt rather than destroy (FE: a wanton destruction in the heat of the moment may be overlooked on a case-by-case basis).

# Civilian structures, especially cultural and historic buildings in cities like Washington D.C., New York and Boston are protected structures (FE: Not in cities like Los Angeles and San Fransisco that the VENTCOM does not fancy). Additionally, nonmilitary structures, civilian population centers, churches and other religious places, hospitals and facilities displaying the red cross, are also protected structures and will not be attacked except when they are being used for military purposes (FE: which they often will be).

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Anwaar’s articles appear simultaneously here at Truth Spring and at Soul Vibes in The Pakistan Tribune.


US loses its status as economic world power
DAVOS, Switzerland, 2008
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ON MARCH 2008
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