Aletho News

ΑΛΗΘΩΣ

Foreign companies don’t have to fear nationalization, if they invest, says Morales

MercoPress | February 22nd 2013

President Evo Morales said on Thursday that Repsol and the other multinational companies operating in Bolivia should not fear nationalization since his government only appeals to that extreme when corporations think in ‘looting’ instead of investing.

“With Repsol we have excellent relations” said the Bolivian president, but “we won’t tolerate looting” “With Repsol we have excellent relations” said the Bolivian president, but “we won’t tolerate looting”

“To all those companies that invest in Bolivia, I want to assure them that their investments are guaranteed, that they have the right to recover those investments and to make a profit”, said Morales during a press conference in United Nations where he is participating in a world conference on quinoa.

He added that his administration works jointly with companies that are partners and that invest, and mentioned as an example Spain’s Repsol, with whom “we have excellent relations”.

Morales was referring to the recently nationalized air terminals’ operator, Sabsa, which he seized arguing the Spanish company back in 1997, with an initial investment of 4.000 dollars had taken over control of Bolivia’s three main airports, La Paz, Cochabamba and Santa Cruz, a business with “has assets and a turnover of 430 million dollars”.

He added that from 1997 to 2005, Spanish controlled Sabsa had “no investment plans, it was only looting and looting”, and for the period 2006 to 2025 had promised to invest 26 million dollars and allegedly only 5 million were invested in 2006.

“At first sight there was no changes, nothing new, although the company would insist it had invested in maintenance”, claimed Morales.

“Maybe because of some bad companies, mistaken board members, we are having certain diplomatic differences”, added the first indigenous president of Bolivia.

The Spanish government warned President Morales that it was reviewing relations with Bolivia following the latest nationalization and the European Commission criticized the decision and demanded fair compensation.

“It’s not the government of Spain or the Spanish people to blame, but rather some companies that come with an only interest: looting, robbing and making quick money without thinking about any investments in our airports”.

Morales revealed that three years ago the Spanish Socialist government of President Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero had asked him to delay the measure and talk to the company because they were going to make the needed investments.

“Unfortunately the dialogue with the company Sabsa made us lose three years” and not only that but international organizations of air transport have placed observers in some airports.

“It is evident that the air terminals have resulted too small and now after the nationalization we are determined to make the necessary investments” pledged the Bolivian president.

Finally Morales argued that nationalizing basic sectors of the national economy was an instrument to recover sovereignty and improve the living conditions of his people.

Related articles

February 22, 2013 Posted by | Economics | , , , , | Leave a comment

Britain’s UKIP – another Zionist lobby tool

Is the UK Independence Party planning to free us from the EU and handcuff us to Israel?

By Stuart Littlewood | Salem-News | February 22, 2013

The main aim of the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) is withdrawal from the European Union. A ComRes poll for the Independent on Sunday and the Sunday Mirror puts UKIP in third place on 14 per cent, well ahead of the Liberal Democrats.

A few weeks ago YouGov, with the European Parliament in mind and using two different methods, put support for UKIP at between 17 per cent and 19 per cent. So, the Conservatives are under pressure while the Liberal Democrats (on a measly 8 per cent) are set to lose badly.

Spouting Israeli propaganda

After 20 years and eight leader changes UKIP still has no seat in the British Parliament, but with 12 seats in the European Parliament it is now a force to be reckoned with, and the Zionists in their determination to cover all bases appear to have infiltrated the leadership core. It is no longer the likable anti-European Union protest party it used to be.

In its foreign affairs policy statement “Out of the EU, into the world”, UKIP says it

fully supports the right of Israel to exist as a Jewish state… Israel is surrounded by hostile states committed to its destruction. The tiny state has been the frequent victim of rocket attacks and suicide bombings from terrorist groups, almost all deliberately targeting civilians. Israel has every right to respond with proportionate force to these attacks, and a UKIP government would do the same were Britain similarly threatened.

UKIP rejects the notion that Israel should be punished through sanctions or cancellation of trade deals (such as the EU-Israel Association Agreement) for defending itself from attack.

UKIP urges Israel to adopt a lasting solution based on a political dialogue and not just military strength…

UKIP wishes to see a peaceful and mutually amicable settlement reached between Israel and the Palestinians. It is not for us to set the terms for these talks, nor the boundaries for any peace deal. This is an issue the Israelis and Palestinians must work out between themselves…

This stuff reads like it was written in Tel Aviv by the regime’s chief spin-master, Mark Regev himself. There’s no acknowledgement that the Palestinians have suffered illegal occupation, dispossession and ethnic cleansing for the last 65 years and they too are entitled to defend themselves. As for “political dialogue”, what does UKIP think has been going on for decades to no avail? Notice they don’t mention law and justice as the path to a solution, don’t demand due process nor an end to the illegal occupation of the West Bank and the blockade of Gaza, nor require compliance with those countless UN resolutions. They’re just happy for the oppressor and the oppressed to carry on arguing, one with a gun to the other’s head, with no prospect of a just peace.

Are they really too thick to understand there can be no peace under occupation?

The same policy document says UKIP believes a nuclear Iran would be unacceptable, and they’d support efforts to eliminate its nuclear weapons capability “by targeted military means” if necessary. UKIP conveniently ignores the fact that Israel possesses hundreds of nuclear warheads (and the means to deliver them), menaces the whole region and beyond, and defies calls to sign up to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and place all its nuclear facilities under comprehensive International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards.

What part of Article 2 of the EU-Israel Association Agreement does UKIP not understand?

Rejecting calls for the suspension of trade deals such as the EU-Israel Association Agreement is further evidence of UKIP’s woeful ignorance. The purpose of the agreement is to promote (1) peace and security, (2) shared prosperity through, for example, the creation of a free trade zone, and (3) cross-cultural rapprochement. It governs not only EU-Israel relations, but Israel’s relations with the EU’s other Mediterranean partners, including the Palestinian National Authority. To enjoy the association’s privileges Israel undertook to show “respect for human rights and democratic principles” as set out as a general condition in Article 2, which says:

Relations between the Parties, as well as all the provisions of the Agreement itself, shall be based on respect for human rights and democratic principles, which guides their internal and international policy and constitutes an essential element of this Agreement.

Note that “respect for human rights and democratic principles” is an essential element – not optional.

The clause allows steps to be taken to enforce the contractual obligations regarding human rights and to dissuade partners from pursuing policies and practices that disrespect those rights. The agreement also requires respect for self-determination of peoples and fundamental freedoms for all.

Honourable politicians would have enforced Article 2, insisted on the observance of all other codes of behaviour and not let matters slide. They would have suspended Israel’s membership until the regime complied 100 per cent. Israel relies heavily on exports to Europe so the EU could, at a stroke, end the brutal occupation, murder and land theft, and resolve the problem in the Holy Land.

Bristling with lies and distortions

UKIP’s leadership has also decided that the party needs a “Friends of Israel” fan club. I include the mission statement http://foi-ukip.org/mission/ in full for its sheer entertainment value to those who know the truth about the situation in the Holy Land:

The State of Israel remains to date the only liberal democracy in the Middle East. It is also the world’s only Jewish state, surrounded and largely unrecognized by 21 Arab nations.

Despite constant assault from within and without, Israel has maintained an impeccable human rights record and remains the only country in the Middle East to extend full civil and political rights to all of its citizens, regardless of race or religion. Yet somehow it is cast as the oppressor, vilified as an “apartheid state” and singled out for disproportionate criticism.

Decades of malicious propaganda campaigns have seen to it that a one-sided historical narrative which portrays the Palestinians as blameless victims now successfully masquerades as reality. Little attention is paid to the fact that an independent Palestinian state has existed under the name of Jordan since 1946, and that the Palestinian leadership has consistently rejected a two-state solution whenever it has been offered, choosing instead to resort to terrorism.

The State of Israel, like all nation-states, has three fundamental rights which must be championed by freedom-loving people the world over: the right to exist, the right to secure borders, and the right to defend itself. In addition, it must also be allowed to preserve its unique Jewish character if it is to remain a safe-haven for Jews in a part of the world where violent anti-Semitism is still rife.

The purpose of Friends of Israel in UKIP is to support Israel’s right to exist as a viable, sovereign homeland for the Jewish people, and to oppose attempts to discredit, dissolve or damage it. FOI in UKIP does not seek to proffer a solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict, but rather to promote an impartial understanding of the issues by providing a counter-balance to the anti-Zionist rhetoric which currently dominates the debate.

Of course, friendship is more than mere political advocacy. FOI in UKIP will also seek to foster links with the Israeli government and people in order to provide an avenue for the discourse and meeting of minds which cement true friendship.

Doesn’t this just bristle with lies and distortion? UKIP’s leader, Nigel Farage, has been described by the Jewish Chronicle as “a good friend of Israel”. The party’s secretary, Michael Zuckerman, is the one who set up Friends of Israel. “There is tremendous support for Israel within UKIP,” Zuckerman told the Jewish Chronicle. The group has the backing of party leader Farage and others among their MEPs, he said.

The objectives of UKIP’s FoI include organizing delegations to Israel; ensuring that UKIP has “a fully informed” foreign policy (no joking); providing UKIP’s elected representatives with information relevant to Britain and Israel’s mutual security concerns (imagine the Zio-nonsense being circulated); and ensuring Israel gets a fair hearing in all forums in which UKIP is represented. Clearly UKIP, or at least those members who provide “tremendous support” to its Israel admiration society, are expected to act as agents for that foreign power.

As disenchantment with the corrupt, extravagant and unaccountable EU continues to grow, UKIP is the only party with a clear intention to bring us out. With its cluster of MEPs, UKIP is targeting local (county council) elections this year, and hoping to profit in the European parliamentary elections next year and the UK general election in 2015.

Fascists, racists and psychopaths

But UKIP is tainted with the extremism of groups to which it has become affiliated within the European Parliament, such as the odious EFD (Europe of Freedom and Democracy), which Farage co-chairs. Given this gruesome alliance, linking up with the racist psychopaths in Tel Aviv is no doubt seen as a “good fit”. It is obvious when listening to remarks by some of the leading lights of the EDF, for example Bastiaan Belder (Netherlands) who chairs the Delegation for Relations with Israel and sits on the Foreign Affairs Committee, that they have swallowed the Israeli propaganda narrative hook, line and sinker and still think the Palestinians are the terrorists.

I hear that if a UKIP MEP refuses to sit alongside those obnoxious EFD people he/she face disciplinary action.

More than likely, voters who are planning to tick UKIP’s box next time they go into a polling booth – and indeed many of the party’s members and activists – are unaware of this dark and dangerous side to the UK Independence Party. UKIP started life with the right idea but sadly has fallen into the wrong hands, like all the others.
Note
At the time of filing this article I found access to UK FoI’s mission statement blocked. Maybe it’s temporary. Maybe they’re feverishly rewriting it.

February 22, 2013 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation | , , , , , | Leave a comment

When You’re Cutting Social Security, ‘Wealthy’ Begins at $25K

By Jim Naureckas | FAIR | February 21, 2013

Here’s a proposal for Social Security that was on the New York Times‘ op-ed page yesterday (2/20/13):

The top third of beneficiaries (by lifetime income) [would] receive no annual cost-of-living adjustment in retirement. The middle third would get half of today’s adjustment, and the bottom third would receive the same annual increase they do now. Such a reform…would reduce Social Security spending by more than a tenth over a decade and fix the program’s long-term financing.

This is part of Paul Ryan adviser Yuval Levin‘s attempt to find “common ground” on the entitlement issue: “Both sides should agree at least to spend less money on the wealthy.” So who are these “wealthy” people who would be getting a benefit cut equal to the rate of inflation every year? According to the  SSA, about 34 percent of people over 65 have family incomes of $50,000.

Now, you can argue about what “wealthy” is, but I think you would find pretty widespread agreement on what wealthy isn’t: $50,000 a year. If you sent the New York Times an op-ed outlining your plan to balance the budget by raising taxes on “wealthy” people who make 50k a year or more, it would be put in the same pile that gets the submissions about Elvis’s UFO diet. But when you’re talking about cutting entitlements, if you want to call those people “wealthy,” that’s perfectly reasonable.

But wait! Those aren’t the only people who are getting too much from the government and need to have their benefits cut–the middle third of the elderly are also “wealthy” and need their benefits cut–but by only half the rate of inflation per year. The ones making more than $50,000 must be the super-wealthy, the regular wealthy make…between $25,000 and $50,000, roughly.

For comparison purposes, the poverty line for a family of four is $23,350. Talk about a shrinking middle class!

This idea of “means testing” as a painless way to solve the supposed entitlement crisis is very popular among wealthy pundits. It’s not hard to understand why. One of the principles Levin suggests we should all be able to agree on is “give less to the wealthy rather than take more from them.”

OK, so let’s say you’re wealthy–not Levin’s pretend wealthy, but truly super-rich, in the top 0.01 percent of income.  Average income in this group is about $24 million a year. So you can easily afford to give up their whole Social Security paycheck. If you’ve paid in the maximum possible amount and retire at 66, that’s $2,513 a month–or $30,582 a year. You have sacrificed for your country.

But let’s say that instead of taking away your Social Security check, we tax your income–which comes entirely in the form of investment income, since you’re a wealthy retiree–at the rate for regular income rather than at the special lower fat-cat rate. So instead of paying (very roughly) $4.8 million in federal income tax, you’ll be paying about $9.5 million.

Now, you can surely afford to live on $14.5 million a year rather than $19.2 million–just as you can afford to give up your Social Security check. Somehow, though, making the latter sacrifice is probably going to seem more appealing.

And the thing is, there aren’t that many really wealthy people who won’t miss their Social Security checks–so in order to save any appreciable amount of money, you have to take a substantial chunk away from people who actually aren’t very wealthy at all. That’s a principle we can all agree on. All of us making $24 million a year, anyway.

February 22, 2013 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Pakistan condemns deadly bombings in India

Press TV – February 22, 2013

Pakistan has condemned the twin deadly bomb explosions in the Indian city of Hyderabad which left at least 20 people dead.

“Terrorism in all its forms and manifestations constitutes one of the most serious threats to international peace and security,” Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

“Being itself a victim of terrorism, Pakistan fully understands and shares the pain and agony of the people of India. Our prayers and thoughts are with the families of victims of this terrorist attack,” the statement added.

A bomb went off on Thursday evening near a popular cinema called Venkatadri Cinema in the district of Dilsukh Nagar which is one of the largest commercial centers in Hyderabad. Minutes later, a second blast took place next to a nearby bus stop.

Indian police have said that they had been informed of plans for a possible attack in the Hyderabad area last year.

“We interrogated two militants [from the Indian Mujahideen group], who said they had recced (reconnoitered) various spots in Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Pune for a possible attack. One of the places they mentioned was Dilsukh Nagar, which was hit last night,” said S.N. Shrivastava, a Delhi police commissioner.

According to reports, since 1992, at least nine bomb blasts have rocked Heydarabad including three bomb explosions in 2007 that claimed the lives of at least 51 people.

In 2008, the Indian city of Mumbai came under a bomb attack. India accused the Pakistan-based militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) of training, equipping, and financing those responsible for the killings of at least 166 people with support from “elements” in the Pakistani military.

Islamabad admitted that the attacks were partly planned on its soil, but has firmly denied allegations of any official involvement.

Related articles

February 22, 2013 Posted by | Aletho News | 1 Comment

Ecuador: Correa Confirms Interest in Joining Mercosur

By Emily Tarbuck | The Argentina Independent | February 21, 2013

With Rafael Correa emerging victorious for a third and final term in Sunday’s presidential elections, the leader of the Alianza País party spoke to Argentine newspaper Página 12 about Ecuador becoming part of the Mercosur agreement, their relationship with Argentina, and same-sex marriage. During the interview, he also announced that his party obtained “97 or 98 seats” in the National Assembly, though the final results of the recount are yet to be announced by the National Electoral Council.

In the interview, Correa first discussed the strengthening of ties with Argentina by “further deepening the bilateral relationship” through trade, and agreed with President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner’s condemnation of the “total surrender of our countries at the hands of transnational corporations”. Correa went on to say however that the relationship between the two countries is more than commercial because “with Argentina we have the same political vision”.

Throughout the interview Correa expressed his hope to join Mercosur, and when asked if the dollarisation of Ecuador would hinder the incorporation into the agreement, Correa agreed that it is “an obstacle for any integration process and trade liberalisation”. However, he insisted that “we are very interested in joining Mercosur… and they are very interested in integrating Ecuador”.

Speaking of the impending expiration of the Andean Trade Promotion and Drug Eradication act (ATPDEA), Correa said, “Andean countries have a responsibility [to join these agreements] because they are the biggest producers of drugs! But the US say nothing of the responsibility they have for consuming them.” He went on to say that this agreement is “a new form of pressure for countries that do not behave according to the mentality of the US”, and that “if [the act is] extended, fine, if not, we will know how to succeed.”

As the interview progressed, Correa was questioned on the topic of same-sex marriage, in which he responded that, “the Constitution says that marriage is an institution between people of a different sex”. Correa said that although “we promote many rights and the non-discrimination of any person for any reason… the Constitution clearly says that marriage is between a man and a woman.”

Finally, when asked if the continuation of his government would mean a less restrictive abortion law, Correa said that, “personally I will not promote any law that goes beyond the two cases that are already covered in the current legislation, in the case of a violation of a woman with intellectual disabilities and in the case of rape, when a child is violated.”

You can read the interview in full here.

Related articles

February 21, 2013 Posted by | Economics | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Israel to drill for oil in Syria’s Golan

Al-Akhbar | February 21, 2013

Israel has awarded its first license to drill for oil on the occupied Golan Heights to a US energy company, industry sources said on Thursday.

Israel captured the Golan from Syria in the 1967 Middle East war and annexed it in a move not recognized internationally. The strategic plateau has been extensively settled by Israelis and is the site of a major wind turbine project.

Energy sector sources said that after Israel decided last year to allow oil and gas exploration on the Golan, Genie Energy was awarded a license to drill. The New Jersey-based company still needs further work permits for drilling to commence, a process that could take years.

Genie did not immediately return calls for comment.

The company’s Strategic Advisory Board includes a number of high-profile pro-Israel political and business leaders: US Vice President Dick Cheney, media mogul Rupert Murdoch, and British banking tycoon Lord Jacob Rothschild.

The strategic advisory board “advises management on strategic, financial, operational and public policy matters.”

The Golan’s status has been at the heart of past Israeli-Syrian peace talks, with Damascus demanding its full return. With a two-year-old Syrian revolt now threatening President Bashar al-Assad’s rule, Israel has dug in on the Golan.

Last Thursday, financial news site TheMarker reported that US-Israeli consortium developing the Tamar natural gas field off Palestine’s Mediterranean coast is in talks to sell gas to Jordanian companies.

The Tamar prospect, whose estimated reserves of 274 bcm made it one of the largest discoveries of the past decades, is expected to begin production in the next few months.

Jordan, like Israel, was dealt a wave of attacks on pipelines from Egypt. But Egypt still supplies Jordan with gas while it halted supply to Israel last year.

Egypt’s pipeline with Israel was attacked over 13 times since a popular revolt toppled Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in
January 2011.

(Reuters, Al-Akhbar)

February 21, 2013 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation | , , , , | 1 Comment

Samer Issawi sentenced to 8 months in prison

Ma’an – 21/02/2013

203770_345x230BETHLEHEM – An Israeli court on Thursday sentenced hunger-striker Samer Issawi to eight months in prison, but he has yet to face a military committee which could imprison him for 20 years.

Issawi has been on hunger strike for 204 days.

The magistrates court in Jerusalem sentenced Issawi for leaving Jerusalem, in violation of the terms of his amnesty granted in an Oct. 2011 prisoner exchange deal.

The sentence includes time served since Issawi’s re-arrest in July 2012, and will conclude on March 6, but Issawi also faces a possible sentence under an Israeli military order which allows a special military committee to cancel prisoners’ amnesty.

The committee could use secret evidence to sentence Issawi to serve 20 years, the remainder of his previous sentence.

Issawi was freed in an Oct. 2011 prisoner swap for captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit. Israel has subsequently re-arrested at least 14 prisoners since the deal.

Ahead of Thursday’s verdict, Israeli forces clashed with hundreds of Palestinians protesting near Ramallah on Thursday in solidarity with long-term hunger strikers like Issawi.

A Ma’an reporter said 29 protesters were injured by rubber-coated bullets and dozens more suffered tear gas inhalation.

Prisoners minister Issa Qaraqe and Fatah central committee member Mahmoud al-Aloul joined the rally, near Israel’s Ofer prison in the central West Bank.

An Israeli military spokeswoman said soldiers used “riot dispersal means” against Palestinians who hurled rocks at forces.

Protests have been held across the West Bank and in Gaza in support of Issawi, who has been on hunger strike for 204 days, and Tareq Qaadan and Jaafar Azzidine who have refused food for 86 days.

Also Thursday, the Ahmed Abu Rish Brigades on Thursday threatened to fire rockets at Israel if any jailed hunger striker is harmed.

“We will continue to work with rockets and we will not stand by idly. Military operations will be implemented to achieve the rights of prisoners and to free them,” brigades member Abu Ali al-Qawkabi said in a statement.

Al-Qawkabi called on Palestinian leaders in Ramallah to reject any negotiations with Israel and urged the Gaza government to refuse a truce until the detainees’ demands are met.

Islamic Jihad meanwhile has said a truce with Israel could unravel if any hunger striker dies.

On Tuesday, the Palestinian Authority called on the international community to step up efforts to protect and release prisoner like Issawi in Israeli detention facilities.

The cabinet also called on the World Health Organization to move forward on plans made last year to form a fact-finding committee to investigate the conditions in Israeli jails, specifically negligence.

February 21, 2013 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Solidarity and Activism | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

IMF Ignores Proven Alternatives With Recommendations to Honduras

By Arthur Phillips | CEPR Americas Blog | February 21, 2013

On Friday, February 15, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) announced that it had concluded its most recent Article IV consultation with Honduras. The Fund’s recommendations varied little from those it has offered many other countries in recent years: cut public spending, reduce deficits, reform pensions and depress wages.

The IMF regularly conducts Article IV consultations with almost all of its member countries—with Argentina, which since 2006 has refused to take part in the process, being one notable exception. The official reviews are a way for the Fund to present its analysis of each country’s economic prospects and to advocate for a set of reforms. While it is difficult to precisely assess the influence of the consultations, it has been noted that in many cases the recommended policies have been adopted against popular public opinion. And in countries that end up borrowing from the fund, these policies are often preconditions for receiving future IMF loans.

The Fund’s recommendations on Honduras diverged little from the policies it is pushing in many other countries. Below is a selection from the IMF’s brief (347-word, to be exact) Executive Board Assessment of its most recent consultation with Honduras:

Directors . . . underscored the need to tighten macroeconomic policies and press ahead with structural reforms . . .. [They] welcomed the planned reduction of the budget deficit in 2013, and urged early adoption of the measures needed to ensure this outcome and avoid further central bank borrowing or accumulation of domestic payments arrears. They called for sustained medium-term fiscal consolidation . . . [and] supported plans to restrain the public sector wage bill . . . and emphasized the importance of reducing energy subsidies . . .. Directors concurred that monetary policy should be tightened . . . [and] regarded plans to reform state-owned enterprises as critical to strengthen the fiscal position and support growth, and encouraged timely implementation . . . and welcomed the ongoing reform of public pension funds.

It is difficult to overlook how much this assessment resembles the Fund’s recommendations to European countries struggling to emerge from the global recession. CEPR co-director Mark Weisbrot and Senior Research Associate Helene Jorgensen recently released a paper analyzing 67 Article IV consultations for European member countries between 2008 and 2012, in which the authors found that the lending body was pushing a “one-size-fits-all” approach that often included pro-cyclical policy recommendations. In the paper Weisbrot and Jorgensen summarized their findings, in part, as follows:

This content analysis finds a consistent pattern of policy recommendations, which indicates (1) a macroeconomic policy that focuses on reducing spending and shrinking the size of government, in many cases regardless of whether this is appropriate or necessary, or may even exacerbate an economic downturn; and (2) a focus on other policy issues that would tend to reduce social protections for broad sectors of the population (including public pensions, health care, and employment protections), reduce labor’s share of national income, and possibly increase poverty, social exclusion, and economic and social inequality as a result.

Given the consistency of the Fund’s advice, one might think there are no alternatives to such prescriptions. But a look at Ecuador’s economy definitively tells us otherwise.

As detailed in a new paper by CEPR’s Weisbrot, Jake Johnston and Stephan Lefebvre (and noted recently on The Americas Blog), since Rafael Correa was sworn in as president in 2007, Ecuador’s government has taken an unorthodox approach to shoring up its macroeconomic standing. From bringing the Central Bank under the control of the executive branch, to taxing capital flight, to defaulting on illegitimate foreign debt, and launching new regulations on the financial industry, the Correa government repeatedly took steps that are antithetical to the IMF’s perspective and advice. The results? A reduction in unemployment to its lowest point on record, a 27% decline in poverty from its 2006 level, and an increase in government revenue from 26 to 40% of GDP over the same period, all in the context of greatly expanded spending on infrastructure, health, and education. The Ecuadorian example should be enough evidence that the IMF’s singular prescriptions are not the only option—in fact, they may be far worse than other “unconventional” approaches.

In the case of Honduras, it is perhaps worth noting that the IMF had a rocky response to the June 28, 2009, military coup that deposed Honduras’ democratically elected president Manuel Zelaya.

Exactly two months after Zelaya’s illegal ouster, which led most foreign governments and international lenders to freeze aid to Honduras, the IMF announced that it would extend $150.1 million in loans to the Central American country’s illegitimate government. Another $13.8 million was released just a week later. Yet on September 6, perhaps partly in response to criticism, the IMF released a statement saying the de facto government could not use the money “until a decision on whether the Fund deals with this regime or the government of Honduras.” That decision was finally made on September 24, when the IMF ordered that the funds would only be made available to the deposed president.

Despite the clumsiness of this decision and the mixed messages it sent the coup-government in Tegucigalpa, it marked an improvement over the Fund’s response to the 2002 coup that temporarily overthrew Venezuela’s socialist president Hugo Chavez. One day after the coup, a spokesman stated that the lending body stood “ready to assist the new administration in whatever manner they find suitable.”

Related articles

February 21, 2013 Posted by | Economics, Timeless or most popular | , , , , | Leave a comment

An Argument in Defense of Haredim Jews and Against Secular Zionist Militarism

By James Petras :: 02.20.2013

Israel is heading towards a profound internal crisis: a Jew on Jew confrontation, which, however, has major implications for its relations with Palestinians, as well as its Middle East neighbors. The conflict is between the highly militarized Zionist state and the Haredim religious movement over a number of issues, including recent proposals by Netanyahu to end the religious exemption of Haradi youth from serving in Israel’s colonial armed forces.

Haredim and the Zionist Colonial State

Even before the forcible imposition (‘founding’) of the Israeli state, the Haredim were opposed to Zionism. Today the vast majority of Haredim in Israel remain staunchly opposed to the Zionist state for religious, ethical and political reasons. Haredim religious teaching claims that the Jewish people are bound by three oaths (1) not to settle in Israel by using force (2) not to war with other nations and (3) not to act as if the nations of the world would persecute Israel. Haredim were in opposition to Israel’s violent ethnic cleaning of over 850,000 Palestinians in the course of establishing the Israeli State and continues to oppose Israel’s settlers’ violently dispossession of Palestinians. Unlike other so-called “ultra-Orthodox” sects, who support Israeli colonialism and bless the military, Haredim believe that Israeli militarism corrupts the spirit and that Zionists have converted Jews from worshipers of the Torah to rabid ethnocentric upholders of a militarist State. For the Haredim, State worship especially the waving of the Israeli flag in the houses of worship, is a sacrilege comparable to the renegade Jews condemned by Moses for worshiping the Golden Calf.

The majority of Haredim boycott elections, organize their own schools (Yeshivas), encourage students to deepen their religious studies, emphasize community and family values (of a oppressive patriarchal sort) with numerous children and strongly reject the State’s attempt to conscript Haredim youth into their colonial occupation army, the so-called Israeli Defense (sic) Force (IDF). All the major Zionist political parties and the ruling colonial regime demonize the Haredim, claiming they are shirking their military responsibilities. Via the mass media and public pronouncements they incite Israeli hatred toward the Haredim: a study in 2006 claimed that over a third of Israeli Jews considered the Haredim the most hated group in Israel.

The Haredim, on the other hand, have reason to fear and loath the secular militarist Zionist state and politicians. After World War II in the Zionist controlled camps for Jewish refugee children in Teheran, the Jewish Agency imposed Zionist ideology and militarist anti-religious policies to cut Haredim children from their spiritual roots. According to one Haredim report many groups of Jewish youth from Poland, mostly survivors of the Holocaust and Soviet Russia, were subjected to “unimaginable mental and physical cruelty with one goal in mind: obliteration of Judaism”. Given the Israeli drive today to harness a corrupted form of Judaism to colonial militarism, the Haredim have every reason to believe that the conscription of its youth will be accompanied by cruel, systematic Zionist brainwashing to ensure they make “good”, brutal occupation soldiers.

Haredim versus Israeli State Values

The Haredim fervently believe and practice in the Biblical teaching, “Be fruitful and multiply”. They have large families and the median age of Haredim is 16 years. Their peaceful message to militarist Zionists could be “make babies not bombs”.

Some Haredim leaders have met with Palestinian and Iranian leaders and in line with their religious doctrine have declared their support for peaceful resolution of conflicts and have denounced Israel’s aggressive military posture.

Haredim are intensely religious and discuss and debate the readings of some of the great religious scholars: their message to the Zionists is read Maimonides’ ethical treatises not Netanyahu’s bellicose, blood curdling rants.

Haredim live and study largely in the confines of their cohesive communities. They send their sons to the yeshivas to study religious doctrine not to the West Bank to kill Palestinians. They call on their children to serve G-d not the IDF. They seek truth in the Torah not in conquest via the Preventive War Doctrines espoused by prestigious Israeli and overseas Zionist academic militarists.

Haredim focus on building a better life within their community; they reject the efforts of the Zionist state to entice them into joining self-styled “Jewish” settlers engaged in vicious land grabs in the West Bank, in the name of “contributing to society (sic)”. Haredim’s ‘introverted way of life’ is seen as a prophylactic alternative to the crass militarism, money laundering, financial speculation, body parts enterprises and real estate swindles rife among the elite Jews in Israel and among sectors of overseas Zionists engaged in procuring multi-billion dollar tribute from the US Treasury.

Haredim believe, with exemplary evidence, that conscripting their youth into the Israeli colonial army would destroy their moral values, as they would be forced to grope Arab women at checkpoints, break the legs of stone throwing Palestinian children, defend lawless self-styled “Jewish” settlers scribbling obscene graffiti in mosques and churches … not to speak of the ill effects of what secular Israeli Jews call a “modern education”, full of historical fabrications about the origins of Israel, scientific readings on high tech war-making and “advanced” economic doctrines proclaiming the sacred role of the free market,and justifying the 60% poverty rate among Haredim as “self-induced”:

No, the Haredim demand that the Israeli Jewish elite stop trying to conscript their youth into the Army and practicing employment discrimination, which triples the unemployment rate among Haredim.

The Coming ‘Civil War’: Zionist State versus the Haredim

The elected leader Yair Lapid of newly formed Yesh Atid Party, dubbed a “centrist” by the New York Times and a ‘moderate’ by the leading ideologues of the Zionist “lobby”, ran on a platform of forcibly ending the Haredim exemption from conscription into colonial military service. Yair Lapid, in the run-up to joining a new Netanyahu coalition regime, has launched a vicious attack on Haredim. Lapid premises his agreement to joining Netanyahu’s war machine on forcibly confronting the Haredim leadership. Yair Lapid taps the class and secular resentments of Israel’s upwardly mobile youth who bitterly complain of having to serve in the army and delaying their money-making opportunities while the poor, semi-literate “blacks” (derogatory term for the clothing of Haredim) engage in “worthless studies” of the Torah. Lapid, using the same perverted logic as Netanyahu, claims that “Ten percent of the population cannot threaten 90 percent with civil war” (Financial Times, 2/14/13, p. 6.). The executioner (Lapid) accuses the victim (Haredim) of the violence he is about to commit. Yesh Atid, the “centrist party” (sic), has allied with Naftali Bennett’s neo-fascist Jewish Home Party (pushing for the annexation of all of Palestine) in support of smashing Haredim’s opposition to conscription. They hold veto power over the next cabinet. This rabid secular military assault has provoked the opposition and unity of other Zionist-religious parties. The Shahs and United Torah Judaism have taken up the defense of the Haredim.

Lines are being drawn far beyond a Haredim-Zionist State confrontation.

The Larger Meaning of the Haredim-Zionist Conflict

The Haredim hostility to the secular Zionist state is in part based on its opposition to military conscription thus calling into question Israeli militarism, in general, and specifically its policy of colonial occupation and regional aggression. While some Haredim may oppose conscription for religious reasons and seek exemption solely for its own youth, objectively, the effect is to undermine Israel’s violation of Palestinian rights and to call into question the entire apartheid system. By speaking to spiritual values, they deny the legitimacy of the idea of a Jewish police state based on force, violence, torture and disappearance of political prisoners. In their questioning of the institutional configuration upholding Jewish supremacy and Israel as the homeland of the Chosen People, they strike a powerful blow at the ideological underpinnings of the overseas activity of the Zionist power configuration. Their animosity to the fusion of Jewish chauvinism and religious rituals and the tribal deification of the Israeli state is counter-posed to their embrace of Moses Ten Commandments.

The Haredim study the teaching of the renowned Judaic philosophy Maimonides and abhor Zionist militaristic strategists like Walzer, Dershowitz, Kagan, Feith, Netanyahu, etc. who preach colonial “just war” doctrines. Representing 10% of the Israeli population and a far greater percentage of military age youth, the Haredim are in a position to sharply limit the scope of future Zionist wars. If they succeed in blocking conscription, they would provide a lasting contribution to making the world in general, and the Middle East in particular, a more secure and peaceful place to live.

Facing the prospect of a loss of future cannon fodder to sustain its colonial ventures, and in their frenzied attacks on the Haredim, the Israeli-Zionist elite have incited the majority of Israeli Jews to demonize them as ‘backward’, illiterate, freeloaders and to blame the religious curriculum for their growing and current 60% rate of poverty and high unemployment. Israel’s war machine needs fresh recruits to maintain its imperial quest for a Greater Israel. Demographics – with families exceeding five children –indicate the Haredim are likely to double their percentage of the Israeli population over the next two decades. Faced with the facts in the womb, the colonial expansionist imperative drives all the leading Zionist parties to end Haredim’s exemptions. In response Haredim leaders threaten to engage in massive civil disobedience if the Zionists impose conscription, rightly seeing conscription of its youth as an assault on its most profoundly held spiritual and family values and as an opening wedge in destroying community solidarity and reciprocal relations.

The Haredim share a common plight with Israel’s Arab population: both face increasing police harassment, discrimination, religious persecution and rising levels of poverty. A Haredim-Arab alliance would unite 30% of the population against a common secular militarist and plutocratic enemy. Farfetched as it seems on the subjective level, there are objective historical and structural processes which are driving the two groups together.

It is one of the great ironies of history that the world’s modern secular anti-imperialist movements should find their most consequential allies among Israel’s most traditional and deeply religious movement.

February 21, 2013 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism, Timeless or most popular | | 8 Comments

Prison Sentences for Black Men Are 20% Longer Than Those for White Men for Same Crimes

By Noel Brinkerhoff | AllGov | February 20, 2013

Federal judges have handed down longer prison sentences for black men than for white men—for the same or similar crimes committed— since 2005, when a court ruling gave judges more discretion in deciding jail times for convicted criminals.

The U.S. Sentencing Commission revealed in a new report that the sentences of black men were on average 19.5% longer than the sentences of white men from December 2007 to September 2011.

The commission did not mention racism as a factor in sentencing decisions, but did write that judges “make sentencing decisions based on many legitimate considerations that are not or cannot be measured.”

To address the disparity, commissioners recommended that federal judges give sentencing guidelines more weight. They also said appeals courts should more carefully examine sentences that fall beyond the guidelines.

Eight years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a 1984 law requiring federal judges to impose sentences within the range of the federal sentencing guidelines, which are set by the commission.

Critics of the new report say that the commission focused on the tail end of the criminal justice process, to the exclusion of earlier stages when bias can occur, such as at the time of arrest or plea being entered. Considering such data could have altered the study’s results, they claim.

Related article

February 21, 2013 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , | 14 Comments

Pictures Speak Volumes in Oscar-nominated Israeli Films

By Jonathan Cook | Dissident Voice |  February 20th, 2013

Israelis have been reveling in the prospect of an Oscar night triumph next week, with two Israeli-financed films among the five in the running for Best Documentary. But the country’s right-wing government is reported to be quietly fuming that the films, both of which portray Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories in a critical light, have garnered so much attention following their nominations.

Guy Davidi, the Israeli co-director of 5 Broken Cameras, one of the finalists, said industry insiders had warned him that pressure was being exerted on the Academy to stop the films winning the award.

“Many people in Hollywood are working very hard to make sure that neither film wins,” he said. “From Israel’s point of view, an Oscar would be a public relations disaster and mean more people get to see our films.”

The film is a searing account by Palestinian filmmaker Emad Burnat of a six-year period in his West Bank village during which the residents protested non-violently against an Israeli wall that cut off their farmland.

Israeli soldiers are shown beating, tear-gassing and shooting the villagers and solidarity activists.

The other Israeli-backed contender, The Gatekeepers, directed by Dror Moreh, features confessions by all six former heads of the Shin Bet, the main agency overseeing Israel’s occupation, since 1980. All are deeply critical of Israel’s rule over the Palestinians, with one even comparing it to the Nazis’ occupation of Europe.

Both films have won critical acclaim. This month The Gatekeepers won the Cinema for Peace Prize at the Berlin International Film Festival. The film has also been picked up by a major distributor, Sony Pictures Classics.

With the Israeli media abuzz over the country’s Oscar hopes, the columnist Gideon Levy observed: “This is not a matter of Israeli pride but rather of Israeli chutzpah. … Israel should be ashamed of what these movies bring to light.”

Despite the publicity, showings of the films in Israel have been mainly limited to circles of intellectuals and left-wing activists.

Davidi said requests to the education ministry to put 5 Broken Cameras on the civics curriculum had been rebuffed. That appears to be in line with official efforts to avoid drawing attention to the documentaries.

The culture ministry, run by Limor Livnat, a hawkish ally of prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, broke its silence to make a short, caustic comment. A spokesman, Meir Bardugo, said: “Israeli cinema doesn’t have to be anti-Israeli.”

Responding to claims from local film executives that Livnat had put pressure on them to start making films showing Israel in “a sweeter light”, Bardugo added: “If Livnat would interfere, these two films wouldn’t get to the Oscars.”

Paradoxically for the government, Israel’s claim to 5 Broken Cameras is disputed. Emad Burnat, the other co-director, said: “It’s my story. I am Palestinian and the film is about the struggle of my village in Palestine. If it wins, it will be a victory for Palestine, not Israel.”

Unlike the Best Foreign Language Film category, Oscar-nominated documentaries are not classified according to country. 5 Broken Cameras received US$250,000 (Dh918,000) from Israeli and French government film funds.

Nonetheless, the dispute echoes previous Oscar controversies, including claims that the Academy refused to consider Elia Suleiman’s Divine Intervention in 2002 because it did not recognise Palestine as a state, and a statement by Skandar Copti, the Palestinian-Israeli co-director of Ajami, that he would not “represent Israel” in the 2010 Oscars.

Both 5 Broken Cameras and The Gatekeepers exploit to the full the exclusive access the filmmakers had to their subject matter.

The former records in troubling detail confrontations between the Israeli army and the villagers, including a sensational scene in which a soldier fires directly at Burnat. The bullet lodges in his camera lens and saves his life.

However, of the two films, The Gatekeepers has polarized opinion most sharply in Israel and among many American Jews because its criticisms of the occupation are made from consummate insiders.

At a festival screening in Jerusalem last year, some audience members were reported to have shouted “Traitors!” at the former Shin Bet heads who attended.

Writing in the US weekly The Jewish Press this month, the psychology professor Phyllis Chesler argued that the $1.5 million-budget film followed “a lethal narrative script against the Jewish state”.

But the CNN reporter Christiane Amanpour described The Gatekeepers as “full of stunning revelations”. It is rare for senior officials to break a code of silence designed to shield their activities from scrutiny.

The film was made in absolute secrecy, according to the director. “I knew I had dynamite in my hands.”

Moreh is scathing of Netanyahu for his inaction on Palestinian statehood, calling him “the biggest danger to Israelis”. The antipathy has apparently been reciprocated. Netanyahu’s spokesman has told the media that the prime minister has no plans to see the film.

Another new Israeli documentary, The Law in These Parts, which has been competing in festivals alongside 5 Broken Cameras and The Gatekeepers, is causing similar unease among officials.

In it, some of the country’s top legal minds admit that their job was to create arbitrary and oppressive laws to control Palestinians in the occupied territories.

Lia Tarachansky, an Israeli-Canadian filmmaker whose documentary Seven Deadly Myths interviews aging former soldiers about the ethnic cleansing of Palestine in 1948, said the new films were groundbreaking: “For the first time people who know the system from the inside are providing a very precise, even clinical, picture of the structure of the occupation.”

She echoed Davidi’s fears that pro-Israel lobbyists were trying to stop critical films reaching a mainstream audience. “There is a lot of blind support for Israel in the industry.”

Jonathan Cook is a writer and journalist based in Nazareth, Israel. He won this year’s Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism.

Related articles

February 20, 2013 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Hollywood’s Imperial Propaganda

By JOE GIAMBRONE | CounterPunch | February 20, 2013

Hollywood likes to pretend that things aren’t political when they are.  It’s that bi-partisan nationalist myth that if both corporate parties agree to cheer for the empire, then everyone cheers for the empire.  It’s gotten so bad now that races like the Oscars and the Writer’s Guild screenwriting award are tight contests between one CIA propaganda film and another CIA propaganda film.  The first one helps to demonize Iranians and set up the next World War scenario, while the second film fraudulently promotes the effectiveness of state-sanctioned torture crimes.

If there ever was a time for loud disgust and rejection of the Hollywood / Military-Industrial-Complex, this would seem to be it (contact@oscars.org).  Naomi Wolf made a comparison of Zero Dark Thirty’s creators Bigelow and Boal to Nazi filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl (Triumph of the Will).  That, to me, seems inappropriately offensive to Leni Riefenstahl.  The good German filmmaker never promoted torture through deception.  Nor was Triumph a call to war.  The film was simply an expression of German patriotism and strength, rebirth from the ashes of World War I.  The current insidious crop of propaganda, as in the CIA’s leaking of fictional scenes about locating Osama Bin Laden through torture extraction, are arguably more damaging and less defensible than Riefenstahl’s upfront and blatant homage to Hitler’s leadership.

The Zero Dark Thirty scandal should be common knowledge by now, but here is what the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence wrote to Sony Pictures about it:

“We believe the film is grossly inaccurate and misleading in its suggestion that torture resulted in information that led to the location of Usama bin Laden…  Instead, the CIA learned of the existence of the courier, his true name and location through means unrelated to the CIA detention and interrogation program.”

The filmmakers had every opportunity to explore the issue more fully, instead of relying on the “firsthand accounts” of the torturers themselves, and/or their allies within the Central Intelligence Agency.  Notably, torturers are felons and war criminals.  Those who know about their crimes and help cover them up are guilty of conspiracy to torture.  Thus, these self-serving fairy tales that illegal torture led to the desired results (bin Laden) are tangled up with the motivation to protect war criminals from prosecution.  Not only does this claim of successful torture help insulate the guilty from legal prosecution, it also helps to promote further criminal acts of torture in the future.

Once this red flag issue was raised by the Senate, the filmmakers could have taken a second look at what they had put up on screens and reassessed the veracity of their material and the way it was being sold to the world.  Instead they doubled down.  Bigelow and Boal want it both ways, extraordinary access to CIA storytellers for a documentary-like “factual” telling of the bin Laden execution, but they also want license to claim that it’s just a movie and can therefore take all the liberties they please.

Jessica Chastain, who plays a state-employed torturer/murderer, who also allegedly located Osama bin Laden, said:

“I’m afraid to get called in front of a Senate committee… In my opinion, this is a very accurate film… I think it’s important to note the film is not a documentary.”

In a nutshell, that’s the Zero Dark Thirty defense.  It’s a highly sourced “very accurate film,” but we can take all the liberties we like because it’s not a documentary, and so if we made up a case for torture based on the lies of professional liars in the CIA, then oops.

Mark Boal went so far as to mock the Senate Intelligence Committee, at the NY Film Critic’s Circle:

“In case anyone is asking, we stand by the film… Apparently, the French government will be investigating Les Mis.”

Any controversy over the picture seems to help its box office, as more uninformed people hear about it.  The filmmakers themselves suffer no penalty as a result of misleading a large number of people on torture, to accept torture, to accept a secretive criminal state that tortures with impunity.

Kathryn Bigelow’s wrapped-in-the-flag defense of the film:

“Bin Laden… was defeated by ordinary Americans who fought bravely even as they sometimes crossed moral lines, who labored greatly and intently, who gave all of themselves in both victory and defeat, in life and in death, for the defense of this nation.” (emphasis in original)

Nice propaganda trick at the end equating those who “gave all of themselves” and “death” with the individuals who “sometimes crossed moral lines.”  Everyone’s dirty; you see.  All heroes are torturers; so it’s okay.

Bigelow’s half-assed response to getting called out by the Senate for putting false torture results into her film, is to say:

“Torture was, however, as we all know, employed in the early years of the hunt. That doesn’t mean it was the key to finding Bin Laden. It means it is a part of the story we couldn’t ignore. War, obviously, isn’t pretty, and we were not interested in portraying this military action as free of moral consequences.” (emphasis added)

Ignore? By her reasoning, because the Central Intelligence Agency tortured people, she was required to fit it into the plot somehow, whether it was relevant to the investigation or not. That’s her excuse. No matter that the scenes are fabrications, and the actual clues about bin Laden’s courier came from elsewhere (electronic surveillance, human intelligence, foreign services).

Bigelow told Charlie Rose, when asked the same question about the torture: “Well I think it’s important to tell a true story.”  Unfortunately, when confronted with the Senate investigation, truth quickly takes a back seat.

The truth Bigelow now clings to is that, “Experts disagree sharply on the facts and particulars of the intelligence hunt, and doubtlessly that debate will continue.”  To Kathryn Bigelow, the fact that the so-called “experts” she has sided with are torturer criminals with a vested interest in her portrayal of their crimes never occurs to her.  She can dismiss the entire matter as a “debate.” Perhaps she no longer finds it “important to tell a true story?”

Kathryn Bigelow, America’s Leni Riefenstahl, claims that Zero Dark Thirty tells “a true story,” even when confronted by evidence that it is a lie.  She is unapologetic and completely divorced from the real world damage her propaganda encourages. If this film takes home the Best Picture Oscar, it should serve as the cherry on top of a brutal, deceptive, decrepit and immoral empire, and signal this reality to the rest of the world. If this is allegedly the “best” of America, then we are truly finished.

As for Ben Affleck’s Argo, its sins aren’t so readily apparent. Both films show wonderful Central Intelligence “heroes” acting to further US interests and take care of imperial problems. The Argo scenario is a rescue, however, instead of a hit. The problem is that Iran, a country thrown into a bloodthirsty dictatorship after its nascent democracy was murdered by the very same CIA in 1953, is now the bad guy. There are clearly two sides, and the film takes sides with the people who destroyed democracy in Iran and propped up an illegitimate monarch in order to control its oil and its refineries. When this despotic monarch whose secret police disappeared, tortured and murdered the political opposition – with the help and training of the CIA – is overthrown, we are supposed to overlook all that, because America is always good. We rescue our people. We risk our lives, and we come up with elaborate creative plans to help our people. We are heroic and triumphant vs. the inferior wild-eyed Persians and Arabs of the world.

Now I do believe there’s a real story there, and the situation is ripe for telling, but an extreme sensitivity to the political context would be required.

As Jennifer Epps put it:

“… [T]he Iran we see in the [Argo] news clips and the Iran we see dramatized are all on the same superficial level: incomprehensible, out-of-control hordes with nary an individual or rational thought expressed.

… But we never go behind-the-scenes at this revolution. (Instead, Affleck and screenwriter Chris Terrio’s tempering historical introduction is soon outweighed by the visceral power of mobs storming walls, chador-clad women  toting rifles, and banshees screaming into news cameras.)

… The problem is that viewers … aren’t going to walk out of [Argo] muttering “gee, it’s more complicated than I thought.” Instead, they’ll leave with their fears and prejudices reaffirmed:  that Middle Easterners create terror, that Americans must be the world’s policemen, and that Iranians cannot be trusted because they hate America.

… Argo almost completely ignores individual Iranians; its portrait of an entire culture is neither refined nor sophisticated; and it does reinforce a simplistic, Manichean perspective.”

Enough said?

So why are Argo and Zero Dark Thirty receiving all these awards?  Are the awarding bodies so full of hyper-patriots who believe pro-American films can deceive and demonize with impunity, that they want to send an unequivocal message of support for these practices?

Is hyper-nationalist propaganda in vogue now?

With the ascendancy of Barack Obama, there is no longer a moral anti-war voice of any significant size in America. Obama, the smooth talker, has soothed away morality, ethics, law and rights.  The empire is beyond reproach because Obama runs it. So the liberal center/left says nothing. Nothing but empty blather and ignorant praise of the Democrats. Murder is being codified in secret as we speak. Bush’s wars are being publicly scaled down, only to ramp up new covert wars of conquest across Africa. Nothing substantial has changed since George W., only the style.

There was a time when no one trusted the CIA. Far from heroes, they were the prime suspects in the assassination of president John F. Kennedy, and presidential candidate Robert Kennedy. CIA support of terrorists was well known, if not loudly opposed. This agency has sponsored Cuban exiles to commit acts of terrorism inside Cuba. Its Phoenix Program kidnapped and murdered Vietnamese villagers by the thousands, torturing and killing them for alleged communist sympathies. The CIA overthrew democracies from Iran to Gutemala to Chile, and was instrumental in waging a terror war against Nicaragua by employing drug-running mercenary terrorists called “Contras.” When the Church Committee investigated the agency in the mid-70s, lots of dirty laundry was aired. The agency was reined in for a time. Assassination was made technically illegal.

In the 1980s, the CIA fought a proxy war against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan by funneling money and arms to radical Islamic Jihadists – like Osama bin Laden – and creating an intelligence/military monster in Pakistan, known as the ISI. With untold billions of dollars of US tax money, plus Saudi oil money, the Pakistanis were propped up as a central hub for militant groups to operate throughout the region. Pakistan is where Osama bin Laden allegedly ended up living for the last decade of his life, half a mile from the Pakistani military academy.

The CIA today is instrumental in the blitzkrieg of terror across Syria. It funnels arms and money to radical Islamic Jihadists, exactly as it did in Afghanistan in the 1980s. In 2011 it participated in the Libyan Crime Against the Peace doing much the same type of activity on behalf of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, a group that helped take over that nation despite being included on the US State Department’s Terrorist List! The LIFG has sent its fighters over to Syria, after the fall of Qadaffi, to assist in the genocidal guerrilla war against the Syrian state, as well as civilians. The CIA assists in these activities.

But of course those victims aren’t Americans. So none of that counts.

“…Is it healthy for us to hold up images of Cold War CIA agents as selfless do-gooders?” –Jennifer Epps

 Joe Giambrone is a filmmaker and author of Hell of a Deal: A Supernatural Satire. He edits The Political Film Blog, which welcomes submissions. polfilmblog at gmail.

Related articles

February 20, 2013 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Subjugation - Torture | , , , , , | 4 Comments

« Previous Entries     Next Entries »