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‘Most transparent administration’ violates federal transparency laws

RT | September 28, 2012

Nineteen out of 20 cabinet-level agencies under the Obama administration have failed to follow the requirements of the Freedom of Information Act, thereby disobeying the law that demands disclosure of public information.

White House Chief of Staff Jack Lew said in July that the Obama administration “has been the most transparent ever.” But an analysis of government requests filed by Bloomberg News has found an alarming number of transparency violations, particularly when it comes to the taxpayer-funded cost of travel by top officials.

“When it comes to implementation of Obama’s wonderful transparency policy goals, especially FOIA policy in particular, there has been far more ‘talk the talk’ rather than ‘walk the walk,’’ Daniel Metcalfe, director of the Department of Justice’s office monitoring the government’s compliance with FOIA requests, told the news agency.

In 2009, the newly sworn in President Obama promised a new standard of transparency that his administration has not upheld – even accepting awards for what he oversaw as “the most transparent administration in history.”

“I will hold myself as president to a new standard of openness… Let me say it as simply as I can: Transparency and the rule of law will be the touchstones of this presidency,” he said while welcoming his senior staff and cabinet secretaries to his office. Two years later, the administration continued to boast about its supposed transparency.

“This president has demonstrated a commitment to transparency and openness that is greater than any administration has shown in the past, and he’s been committed to that since he ran for president and he’s taken a significant number of measures to demonstrate that,” White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said in May 2011, before the president accepted an award for transparency.

But Bloomberg’s report highlights specific instances in which secrecy was a normal part of the regime. Under FOIA, the news agency requested documents from 57 federal agencies regarding taxpayer-funded travel. Only eight of 57 agencies responded within the 20-day time frame required by the Act. The other agencies are under violation of FOIA for failing to submit the documents on time.

And Eric Newtown, senior advisor at the Knight Foundation, said there should be no excuses.

“In a 24/7 world, it should take two days, it should take two hours,” he said. “If it’s public, it should be just there.”

Bloomberg eventually received documents disclosing fiscal year 2011 travel costs from about half of the agencies, although most came well past the legal deadline.

Travel costs by top Obama officials, including the transportation secretary, energy secretary, environmental protection agency administrator and homeland security chief, remain undisclosed.

The lack of public disclosure regarding travel costs of many cabinet-level top officials has become concerning since the General Services Administration’s inspector general spent $823,000 of taxpayer money on a one-day event in Las Vegas in 2010.

Another one of Bloomberg’s FOIA request also found that federal agencies have increased their use of exemptions to block the release of information under the Obama administration. Cabinet agencies employed exemptions 466,402 times during Obama’s first year in office, which is a 50 percent jump from the last year of George W. Bush’s presidency.

“I don’t think the administration has been very good at all on open-government issues,” said Katherine Meyer, a Washington attorney. “The Obama administration is as bad as any of them, and to some extent worse.”

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September 29, 2012 Posted by | Corruption, Deception, Progressive Hypocrite | , , , , | Leave a comment

Afghanistan: U.S. out, China surges in

By Barry Lando | September 27, 2012

There’s got to be some symbolism—if not irony–in the fact that just as the last of the 33,000 troops surged by Obama two years ago supposedly to pacify Afghanistan pulled out, the highest ranking Chinese official to visit Afghanistan in almost half a century pulled in—arriving in Kabul for a secret round of meetings with top Afghan officials.

Question: How will China deal with the country that proved such an expensive and bloody disaster for both the U.S., its NATO allies–and the U.S.S.R before them?

In a brief visit, unreported until he had left Kabul,  Zhou Younkang, China’s chief of domestic security, met with Afghani leaders, including President Hamid Karzai. They talked about drugs, international crime, terrorism, and developing Afghanistan’s huge natural resources—just as visiting Americans have done for years.

The result, a cluster of agreements, among them an announcement that 300 Afghan police officers will be sent to China for training over the next four years.

Which is another irony of sorts—coming at the same time as news that the U.S. and its allies have been obliged to scale back joint operations with the Afghan military and police, because they can no longer trust the men they’ve trained. American troops in the field with their Afghan allies now keep weapons ready and wear body armor even when they’re eating goat meat and yoghurt.

So far this year 51 American and NATO troops have been gunned down by Afghan military or police:  a startling 20% of all NATO casualties this year.

The off-the-wall video from California ridiculing the prophet Mohammed has only further fueled anti-American hatred.

As the New York Times quoted one 20 year old Afghan soldier, NATO casualties could even be higher.

“We would have killed many of them already,” he said, “but our commanders are cowards and don’t let us.”

There are still some 68,000 American troops based in Afghanistan, but the plans are for them all to be out by the end of 2014. Which means that China will be confronting serious security problems of its own in Afghanistan. They already have direct investments of more than $200 million in copper mining and oil exploration, and have promised to build a major railroad east to Pakistan or north to Turkestan.

But they could pour in billions more if Afghanistan were a secure, well-ordered country, free from the Taliban, free from kleptocratic war lords and venal government bureaucrats, patrolled by well-trained Afghan soldiers and police:  in other words, exactly the kind of country the U.S. would like to have left behind—and didn’t.

Instead, of course, despite America’s huge sacrifice in men and treasure –more than half a trillion dollars since 2001–things haven’t worked out that way.  [For a dramatic, running count of the enormous hemorrhage that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan still represent to the U.S. economy check out costofwar.com.]

Meanwhile, corruption is rampant, and it’s by no means certain that Afghanistan has—or ever will have–a national army and police force worthy of the name.

The U.S. Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, peered into the Pentagon’ s 1.1 billion dollars fuel program to supply the Afghan Army, and concluded that there was no way to be ascertain how much if any of that fuel is really being used by Afghan security forces for their missions. There was also no way to know how much was stolen, lost or diverted to the Taliban and other insurgent groups. Almost half a billion dollars worth of receipts detailing with fuel payments over the past four years have been shredded.

With the Americans heading for the exits, the challenge facing the Chinese—and anyone else, like India–interested in investing in the country–is how to navigate this imbroglio.

Indeed, the Chinese have apparently already run into problems in Afghanistan. Work at the Mes Aynak copper mine in Logar Province is already behind schedule, and no work has begun on the promised Chinese-built railroad yet. Various impediments have turned up, like recalcitrant bureaucrats, tensions provoked by the need to displace local populations, the discovery of Buddhist ruins, as well as ramshackle Soviet-era mines that first had to be cleared.

And then there’s the rival, rapacious warlords, who see the country’s resources as a way of fueling their own ambitions—like General Abdul Rashid Dotsum, who the government has accused of attempting to extort illegal payoffs from the Chinese oil company.

However, in their dealings throughout the developing world, from despots to democracies, the Chinese have shown themselves adept at navigating such quagmires. There’s no talk from Beijing of Chinese “exceptionalism”. They’ve been taking on the world as it is—not as someone in a Chinese think tank would want to remake it.

They’ve generally turned a blind eye to considerations of human rights, opted to pay off or work with the powers that be, and used offers of huge new infrastructure projects as bait, steadily increasing their share of the globe’s resources.

Many potential investors still shy away from Afghanistan. They have no idea what lies on the other side of the political abyss after 2014 when the U.S. completes its withdrawal.

China is also wary, but they’re also seriously planning their Afghan strategy for the post-American future.

As Wang Lian, a professor with the School of International Studies at the Paking University in Beijing, put it,  ”Almost every great power in history, when they were rising, was deeply involved in Afghanistan, and China will not be an exception.”

Unmentioned, of course, was what an unmitigated disaster that involvement turned out to be for the USSR, the US–and Afghanistan.

We’ll see how China fares.

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September 28, 2012 Posted by | Corruption, Economics | , , , , , | Leave a comment

USAID looks for ways around Russian ban

By Veronika Krasheninnikova | RT | September 24, 2012

Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs gave USAID until October 1 to shut its doors in Moscow. This is an excellent decision by the Russian Government. And Washington’s immediate and virulent reaction only confirms that Russia is right on target.

The New York Times next morning on the front page cited American officials who “quickly pledged to maneuver around the Kremlin.” Even before the public announcement, on Tuesday 18 September, US Ambassador to Moscow Michael McFaul and USAID leadership met with their Russian partners.

Grigory Melkonyants, deputy head of the Golos Association – one of the top recipients of USAID funding – confirmed after the meeting that the agency is “not going to leave Russia completely” and they are “brainstorming” about how to reorganize. In the meantime, Ambassador McFaul announced that “it will take at least a year” for USAID to exit Russia, according to Bloomberg News.

Brainstorming on how circumvent the Russian government’s decision – instead of how to pack up faster – is only one more demonstration of Washington’s utter disrespect for another country’s sovereignty. Indeed, there are a number of ways in which USAID can maneuver around its predicament.

Funding can be channeled directly from USAID headquarters in Washington to its Russian beneficiaries – no need to go through a Moscow office.

USAID funding can be redirected through a great number of other US institutions, beginning with the National Endowment for Democracy and its four mandated institutes; private funds such as MacArthur, Soros’s Open Society Institute, or Freedom House; universities’ Russia programs, etc.

To hide the American connection, USAID can channel funding through their partners in Ukraine, Poland or Georgia – for their very active operations in the Caucuses; in this case the money entering Russia will be Ukrainian, Polish or, God forbid, Saakashvili’s.

In October last year, USAID signed an agreement with Cisco Systems on joint 50/50 funding of Cisco Networking Academies for Public Service Program. Cisco and other major US corporations may continue running USAID programs.

A year ago Michael McFaul announced an initiative to create a new US$50 million fund, essentially an endowment for a private foundation established under Russian law for Russian civil society groups.

Washington may use any combination of these and other possibilities. One way to put an end to USAID activities in Russia is not only to close their Moscow office, but to insist on shutting down all USAID programs and funding for Russia. This is American taxpayers’ money – give it back to the American people, use it to help them pay mortgages instead of throwing families out of their homes.

Obviously, USAID cannot be allowed to stay in Moscow beyond the set date. This delay will only serve to build up additional infrastructure – people and organizations – to run operations remotely.

The main lament of the Western press has been about how hard USAID closure will hit the sick, disabled, mothers, newborns and other children that the agency helps. Well, let’s take a look at USAID leadership to see how well they are suited for healthcare services.

Director of USAID/Russia Charles North, according to its official biography is “a 2004 graduate of the National War College, with an MS Degree in National Security Strategy.”

Earlier North served as Senior Deputy Director of USAID’s Afghanistan and Pakistan Task Force, and helped launch a presidential initiative to support Mexico and Central America in battling organized crime and drug trafficking.

In Washington, Assistant Administrator for Europe and Eurasia until last year was Douglas Menarchik: a 26-year career US Air Force officer, Vietnam veteran with 211 combat missions, assistant for terrorism policy at the Pentagon, where he developed the Defense Department’s Strategic Plan for Combating Terrorism, military advisor to the vice-president of the United States with a portfolio including terrorism and low intensity conflict. Earlier Menarchik was instructor at the Air Force Special Operations School, teaching combating terrorism and counter insurgency.

But that’s not all. If you check Charles North’s bio on USAID site, you will see a new “updated” version that excludes his National War College stint. However, a cached copy of his true biography is still available – and this snapshot shows the page as it appeared on September 14, 2012. Someone was cleaning house a few days before the public announcement.

Enough tales about healthcare dispensed by US military and national security cadre. USAID – out. Russia must take care of its own civil society, ill and disabled by itself instead of outsourcing it to Washington. Russia’s shutting USAID operations is also an excellent example for any other country where USAID operatives still work on “winning hearts and minds” of the local population.

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September 24, 2012 Posted by | Corruption, Deception | , , , , | Leave a comment

Russia shows USAID the door

RT | September 19, 2012

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has announced it will close its offices in Russia.

After 20 years of working in Russia, USAID officials said they were informed by the Russian government that their services were no longer required.

According to the Foreign Ministry, USAID was attempting to manipulate the election processes in the country.

“The character of the agency’s work…did not always comply with the declared aims of cooperation in bilateral humanitarian cooperation,” the Foreign Ministry said on its website. “We are talking about issuing grants in an attempt to affect the course of the political processes in the country, including elections at different levels and institutions in civil society.”

Russian civil society has become fully mature, the Foreign Ministry said, and did not need any “external direction.” Moscow is read to work with USAID in third-party countries, it said.

In an interview with Kommersant, Dmitry Peskov, President Putin’s press-secretary, suggested that the US agency was not abiding by the rules regulating their work with NGOs.

“As all foreign agencies that provide financial support for Russian NGOs, USAID should abide by Russia’s legal regulations,” Peskov said. “As long as the Americans abide by these norms, we obviously couldn’t make a decision to terminate their activities on Russian territory.”

Moscow‘s decision to halt USAID programs comes after Putin in July signed legislation that requires nongovernmental organizations that receive funds from abroad to register as “foreign agents.”

The law requires that Russian-based NGOs provide information as to how funds received from abroad are being used in Russia.

The United States has denied that USAID programs are aimed at interfering in Russia’s domestic affairs.

US State Department Spokeswoman Victoria Nuland announced the termination of USAID’s operations in Russia on Tuesday. The Kremlin notified US officials they have until October 1 to close the mission.

Washington began its USAID operations in Moscow following the unexpected collapse of the Soviet Union. At that time, Russia was a basket case, dependent on IMF loan transfusions just to keep its head above water. USAID spent more than $2.6 billion in Russia on various projects, like cleaning up the environment and fighting against infectious diseases.

Russia’s domestic situation began to turn around, however, when the presidency passed from Boris Yeltsin to Vladimir Putin. Today, Russia has not only returned its debts, but is now a lender of last resort for countries hammered by the 2008 financial crisis.

Although Russia’s reversal of fortunes is often explained by its vast natural resources, political will also played a significant role in the progress.

Since Russia no longer sees itself as a charity case, USAID activities were increasingly viewed as not only redundant, but even a little humiliating.

Aside from the growing irrelevance of such foreign-sponsored activities, there was the nagging suspicion inside Russia that these agencies served as fronts for purely political motives.

This year, for example, USAID was allotted $50 million to finance its Russia activities. Approximately 60 per cent of the budget was to be used for promoting democracy and human rights. This represents a dramatic increase compared with the former Bush administration.

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September 19, 2012 Posted by | Corruption, Deception | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Somalia’s Election Farce

By THOMAS C. MOUNTAIN | CounterPunch | September 18, 2012

While the international media might trumpet “Somalia’s First Free and Fair Elections in 50 Years” reality on the ground in Mogadishu reveals a truly grand farce of an “election” process.

First of all, the so called “Members of Parliament”, most of whom flew in from their foreign homes for the “election” (the newly “elected” President is camped out in a hotel where he escaped assassination just days after his inauguration) were not elected by anyone, rather appointed by a panel chosen by the previously western installed puppet regime.

That’s right, no one in Somalia actually voted for anyone who chose the new President of Somalia, though the position is little more than Mayor of the foreign army occupied former capital of Somalia, Mogadishu.

Secondly, it was the African Union army occupying Mogadishu and its immediate surrounds that had to provide security for the “election” for even the most trusted of the so called Somali Army and Police are apparently incapable of protecting the fly by night “Members of Parliament” who participated in this dog and pony show.

Insecurity was so rife that all of the foreign big wigs present were wearing bullet proof vests even in the supposedly secure environs of the election hall.

The outgoing government, headed by one Sheik Sharif was too corrupt to be tolerated by the gathered assembly with the truth challenged UN Monitoring Group for Somalia leaking the “secret” portion of its report on how he and his cronies have stolen hundreds of million$ of aid supposedly meant to feed the millions of starving Somalis suffering from the worst drought in 60 years.

The defeated “President” Sharif began his rise to infamy as titular head of the Union of Islamic Courts, the nationalist, Islamic organization that brought peace to Mogadishu in 2006 and was driven from power by the USA instigated Ethiopian invasion that year.

After being forced from power by the Ethiopians Sheik Sharif was listed by the USA as an “Al Queda linked terrorist” and was on a most wanted list of international criminals. Then the world went to sleep one night with Sheik Sharif a terrorist and woke up the next morning to the announcement that he was now the “democratically elected President of Somalia”, elected in Djibouti that is by a  hand picked mob of “Members of Parliament” under the watchful eye of the CIA and the US Army in Djibouti’s Camp Lemmoniere.

Apparently the irony that Sheik Sharif was once an “Al Queda linked terrorist” unfit to hold office in Somalia and then overnight transformed into the “democratically elected President of Somalia” was cause for the sort of selective amnesia the international media practices when it comes to the Horn of Africa and Somalia in particular.

Today its back to business as usual as the new Somali “MP’s” begin boarding planes to return to their homes abroad, the 20,000 strong African Union army occupying Mogadishu goes about its business of trying to defend itself from the guerilla attacks of the Al Shabab lead Somali resistance and the world will once again forget about the fact that millions of Somalis live in utter destitution, most of which has been directly caused by the very AU “peacekeepers” supposedly meant to protect them.

Thomas C. Mountain’s interviews on Somalia can be seen on RTTV and PressTV. He can be reached at thomascmountain at yahoo dot com.

September 18, 2012 Posted by | Corruption, Deception | , , | Leave a comment

U.S.A. Privatizes National Forests

By RYAN ABBOTT | Courthouse News Service | September 14, 2012

WASHINGTON – The U.S. Forest Service lets private companies charge people for using undeveloped public lands, in violation of federal law, an Oregon nonprofit claims in Federal Court.

Lead plaintiff BARK clams the Forest Service’s grants to concessionaires violates the Federal Lands Recreation Enhancement Act. BARK has 7,000 members, many of them who live near the Mt. Hood National Forest.

“Bark has been extensively involved in the administrative process concerning the challenged decision on the Mt. Hood National Forest covering the transfer of 28 sites (including the Big Eddy day use site and Bagby Hot Springs) to private management, and uses these areas on a regular basis,” the complaint states. “Barks’ members have been adversely affected by either having to pay new fees at these areas, or by being dissuaded from using them due to the new fees.”

Five citizens from Arizona and Colorado joined as plaintiffs, objecting to Uncle Sam’s handing out special permits that allow private companies to charge fees for the use of such land.

Under the Federal Lands Recreation Enhancement Act (REA), the federal government is authorized to collect fees at a limited number of recreational sites, so long as the sites have facilities that justify a fee.

The government may charge fees for public lands containing national conservation areas, national volcanic monuments or a visitor center, the complaint states. It also may charge fees if it has substantially invested in the land in the form of parking facilities, restrooms and trash receptacles.

But BARK says the government may not charge for recreational use of undeveloped land. That includes parking, picnicking, boating, horseback riding, using scenic overlooks and driving or walking through undeveloped, undesignated public land.

“The Forest Service issues special use permits to concessionaires that allow them to charge visitors to Forest Service areas managed by the companies even when visitors do not use any facilities or services of the area, but simply wish to enter Forest Service lands to engage in undeveloped recreation,” the complaint states.

BARK claims that private companies charge an $8 parking fee at Rose Canyon Lake in the Coronado National Forest in Arizona, and walk-ups must pay $1 apiece if they park at within 3 miles, regardless of whether they use any facilities or services.

BARK claims that in Oregon, the Forest Service granted a special-use permit to a private company to charge for use of the Mount Hood National Forest, “including the ‘Big Eddy’ day-use area, where visitors have traditionally parked to swim in the Clackamas River free of charge.”

And, “Under the new special use permit, the concessionaire now charges $5 per person to soak in Bagby Hot Springs, regardless of how they arrive.”
BARK says the Forest Service issued the special use permits without public notice or allowing for comment.

It wants the fees enjoined at Rose Canyon Lake, Second Crossing, Rampart Reservoir, Walton Lake and Big Eddy as violations under the REA.

It also wants the court to declare that imposing new fees for recreation areas through special permits handed out without public notice violates the Administrative Procedures Act.

And it wants all of the special-use permits that allow private companies to charge such fees to be set aside, and the Forest Service ordered to pay back the money it illegally collected.

BARK is represented by Matt Kenna, with Public Interest Environmental Law, of Durango, Colo.  

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September 16, 2012 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Corruption, Economics | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Qatari in Egypt: Buying Foreign Policy

By Mohammad Khawly | Al Akhbar | September 11, 2012

Cairo – Qatar’s recent announcement that it plans to invest $18 billion in Egypt following President Mohammed Mursi’s controversial statements on Syria may herald a new era in Egyptian-Qatari relations, observers say.

Qatari Prime Minister Hamad bin Jassem announced the proposed investments at a joint press conference with Egyptian Prime Minister Hisham Kandil on September 6. This new wave of investment comes on the heels of a $2 billion Qatari loan to the Egyptian state, the first installment of which was deposited at the Central Bank of Egypt on August 23.

The announcement came just a week after Mursi made headlines at the Non-Aligned Movement summit in Tehran when he announced his full support for the Syrian revolution against what he called an “oppressive regime.”

At the opening session of the council of Arab ministers last Wednesday, Mursi reiterated his call for the regime leadership to step down.

“Now is the time for change,” Mursi said, addressing the Syrian regime. “There is no room for arrogance or presumptuousness. Do not listen to those voices tempting you to stay, for you will not remain for long.”

Many in the region see a link between Egypt’s unyielding stance on Syria and the recent spike in Qatari investments in Egypt. Whether this influx of Gulf money was the goal behind Cairo’s posturing or rather the loan and investments were a result of Mursi’s anti-Syrian position, which has broad support at home, no one can say. At least some factions in Egypt, including the Hazemoun movement linked to former Salafi presidential candidate Hazem Abu Ismail, view the Syrian uprising through a religious, sectarian lens as a jihad against an “infidel” Alawi army.

The investments involve $8 billion in major projects in Sharq al-Tafria, East Port Said, and another $10 billion will be spent on a gigantic tourism project on the northern coast including a marina for luxury yachts.

The projects are expected to provide job opportunities for thousands of workers, but some worry such projects could become a tool in the hands of the Qatari regime and a means of leverage in any future dispute.

Al-Akhbar spoke to the founder of the Ibn Khaldun Center for Development Studies Saad Eddin Ibrahim, who is familiar with Qatari politics.

In his opinion, Qatar wants Egypt’s support on political issues, particularly when it comes to internal Gulf disputes with Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, as well as other Arab countries.

Qatar is a small country that needs strong allies, said Ibrahim, but its relationships with its direct neighbors – Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq – are fraught with difficulties. An ally in Egypt would not covet Qatari resources, making it a safe and powerful friend. In addition to increasing its political clout, Qatar also sees Egypt as a ripe investment opportunity.

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September 11, 2012 Posted by | Corruption, Economics | , , | Leave a comment

Qatar to invest $18bn in Egypt over next 5 years

Ahram Online – September 6, 2012

Qatar will inject $18 billion worth of investments into Egypt over the course of the coming five years, Hamad Bin Jassim, the oil-rich gulf state’s foreign minister, said at a press conference in Cairo on Thursday.

Of the pledged investment, some $8 billion will be allocated to electricity and natural gas projects in areas east of the Suez Canal, where Egypt has longstanding plans to build a massive industrial city. Another $10 billion will go to a planned tourist resort on Egypt’s north coast.

In yet another indication of new found warmth between the two nations, Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi met with Bin Jassim following the latter’s arrival to Cairo on Thursday.

In early August, Qatar pledged to deposit $2 billion in the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) as a means of easing the country’s balance-of-payments deficit. The promise was made following a visit by the Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani, to Egypt, where he too met with Morsi.

Later in August, Qatar deposited the first tranche – worth some $500 million – in the CBE.

Egyptian Prime Minister Hisham Qandil, for his part, said at a Thursday press conference that Qatar would transfer the rest of the pledged $2 billion in three installments within the next two-month period.

In 2011, Qatar had said it would provide Egypt with a $10 billion grant, with which to support Egypt’s post-revolution economy, but only ended up disbursing $500 million later in the year.

Qatar’s name has begun to resonate among Egyptian business circles, with Qatar’s National Bank recently offering to buy a controlling stake in National Societe Generale Bank, one of Egypt’s largest private lenders.

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September 8, 2012 Posted by | Corruption, Economics | , , , , | Leave a comment

What Obama Has Wrought

By Glen Ford | Black Agenda Report | September 5, 2012

Most people don’t want to be a perceived as party-poopers – which is why the principled folks that have protested the evil antics of the corporate, imperial parties, in Tampa and Charlotte, are so much to be admired. Frankly, who wants to be the one to point out, in the middle of the festivities, that Michelle Obama was just a Chicago Daley machine hack lawyer who was rewarded with a quarter million dollar a year job of neutralizing community complaints against the omnivorous University of Chicago Hospitals? She resigned from her $50,000 seat on the board of directors of Tree-House Foods, a major Wal-Mart supplier, early in her husband’s presidential campaign. But, once in the White House, the First Lady quickly returned to flaking for Wal-Mart, praising the anti-union “death star” behemoth’s inner city groceries offensive as part of her White House healthy foods booster duties.

She also serves on the board of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, the corporate foreign policy outfit to which her husband dutifully reported, each year, in his pucker-up to the presidency. The Obama’s are a global capital-loving couple, two cynical lawyers on hire to the wealthiest and the ghastliest. They are no nicer or nastier than the Romneys and the Ryans, although the man of the house bombs babies and keeps a kill list. Yet, former “green jobs” czar Van Jones, a convention night chatterer on CNN who was fired by Obama for no good reason, chokes up when he speaks of the Black family that fronts for America – a huge act of national camouflage.

It is as useless to anchor a serious political discussion to this year’s Democratic and Republican convention speeches, as to plan the liberation of humanity during Mardi Gras. Truth is no more welcome at the former than sobriety is at the latter. So, forget the conventions and their multi-layered lies. Here are a few highlights of what Barack Obama has inflicted on the nation and the world:

Preventive Detention

George Bush could not have pulled off such an evisceration of the Bill of Rights, if only because the Democrats and an aroused street would not have allowed it. Bush knew better than to mount a full-court legislative assault on habeas corpus, and instead simply asserted that preventive detention is inherent in the powers of the presidency during times of war. It was left to Obama to pass actual legislation nullifying domestic rule of law – with no serious Democratic opposition.

Redefining War

Obama “led from behind” a 7-month Euro-American air and proxy ground war against the sovereign nation of Libya, culminating in the murder, after many attempts, of the nation’s leader. The president informed Congress that the military operation was not subject to the War Powers Act, because it had not been a “war” at all, since no Americans were known to have been killed. The doctrine was thus established – again, with little Democratic opposition – that wars are defined by the extent of U.S. casualties, no matter how many thousands of foreigners are slaughtered.

War Without Borders

Obama’s drone war policies, greatly expanded from that inherited from Bush, have vastly undermined accepted standards of international law. This president reserves the right to strike against non-state targets anywhere in the world, with whatever technical means at his disposal, without regard to the imminence of threat to the United States. The doctrine constitutes an ongoing war against peace – the highest of all crimes, now an everyday practice of the U.S.

The Merger of Banks and State

The Obama administration, with the Federal Reserve functioning as a component of the executive branch, has funneled at least $16 trillion to domestic and international banking institutions, much of it through a virtually “free money” policy that could well become permanent. This ongoing “rescue” of finance capital is unprecedented in sheer scope and in the blurring of lines between Wall Street and the State. The routine transfer of multi-billions in securities and debts and assets of all kinds between the U.S. Treasury, the Federal Reserve and corporate accounts, has created de facto structures of governance that may be described as institutional forms of fascism.

These are world-shaking works of Obama-ism. Even Obama’s “lesser” crimes are astounding: his early calls for austerity and entitlement-axing (two weeks before his inauguration) and determined pursuit of a Grand Accommodation with the GOP (a $4 trillion deal that the Republicans rejected, in the summer of 2011) reveal a politician intent on ushering in a smoother, more rational corporate hegemony over a thoroughly pacified civil society. Part and parcel of that pacification is the de-professionalization of teaching – an ambition far beyond de-unionization.

Of course, Obama begins with the delegitimization of Black struggle, as in his 2004 Democratic Convention speech (”…there is no Black America…only the United States of America.”) To the extent that the nation’s most progressive, anti-war constituency can be neutralized, all of Obama’s corporate and military goals become more doable. The key to understanding America has always been race. With Obama, the corporate rulers have found the key that fits their needs at a time of (terminal) crisis. He is the more effective evil.

Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com.

September 5, 2012 Posted by | Corruption, Deception, Militarism, Progressive Hypocrite | , , , | Leave a comment

Syria FM Moallem: US Major Player in Syria Crisis, Other Countries Instruments

Al-Manar | August 28, 2012

Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem stressed that the United States is the major player in the ongoing crisis in the country, adding that the other countries are instruments.

“We believe that the US is the major player against Syria and the rest are its instruments,” al-Moallem told The Independent.

The daily quoted Moallem as saying that America was behind Syria’s violence.

“When the Americans say, ‘We are supplying the opposition with sophisticated instruments of telecommunications’, isn’t this part of a military effort, when they supply the opposition with $25m – and much more from the Gulf and Saudi Arabia?”

Addressing the US, the Syrian FM said: ‘You must read well what you did in Afghanistan and Somalia. I don’t understand your slogan of fighting international terrorism when you are supporting this terrorism in Syria’.”

“I tell the Europeans: ‘I don’t understand your slogan about the welfare of the Syrian people when you are supporting 17 resolutions against the welfare of the Syrian people,” Moallem addressed the European states.

As he stressed that about 60 percent of the violence going on in the country was from abroad, al-Moallem said: “Before I am a minister, I am a Syrian citizen, and I feel sad at seeing what’s happening in Syria, compared with two years ago.”

“There are many Syrians like me – eager to see Syria return to the old days when we were proud of our security,” he added.

The Independent reporter told the Syrian FM that the Emir of Qatar was enraged last year at what he called President Bashar al-Assad’s “lies”, claiming that the Syrian President had reneged on a deal to allow Muslim Brotherhood members to return home.

On this issue, Moallem said: “If you met the same Emir two years ago, he was praising Assad, and considered him a dear friend. They used to have family relations, spending family holidays in Damascus and sometimes in Doha. There is an important question: what happened? I met the Emir in Doha in, I think, November 2011, when the Arab League started their initiative [resulting in the sending of League observers to Syria] and we reached agreement … The Emir told me: ‘If you agree to this initiative, I will change the attitude of Al Jazeera and I will tell [Sheikh] Qaradawi [a popular prelate with a regular slot on the television chain] to support Syria and reconciliation, and I have put down some billions of dollars to rebuild Syria…’ .”

“At the same time, when I was waiting to enter a meeting, there was the head of the Tunisian party Ennahda and the Emir issued orders to pay Ennahda $150m to help his party in the elections. Anyway, this was their business. But I asked the Emir: ‘You were having very close relations with Muammar Gaddafi and you were the only leader in his palace when Gaddafi hosted you during the summit – so why are you sending your aircraft to attack Libya and be part of Nato?’ The Emir said simply: ‘Because we don’t want to lose our momentum in Tunis and Egypt – and Gaddafi was responsible for dividing Sudan’,” Moallem added.

On the relation between Syria, Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas, the Syrian FM said: “We were told by some Western envoy at the beginning of this crisis that relations between Syria and Iran, Syria and Hezbollah, Syria and Hamas are the major elements behind this crisis. If we settle this issue, they [the Americans] will help end the crisis. But no one told us why it is forbidden for Syria to have relations with Iran when most if not all the Gulf countries have very important relations with Iran.”

When asked about chemical weapons, Moallem said if Syria had such weapons, they would never be used against its own people.

“We are fighting armed groups inside Aleppo, in the Damascus suburbs, before that in Homs and Idlib and this means fighting within Syrian cities – and our responsibility is to protect our people,” he said.

August 28, 2012 Posted by | Corruption, Wars for Israel | , , , , | Leave a comment

Wage Cuts hit Millions of US workers

By Patrick Martin | Global Research | August 27, 2012

According to a report by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, released Friday, millions of American workers who lost their jobs after the Wall Street crash of 2008 have failed to find work, while millions more have gone back to work only after taking substantial wage cuts.

According to the BLS, some 12.9 million workers were displaced from their jobs between January 2009 and December 2011. The BLS study focused on those who had lost jobs they had held for at least three years, who comprised just under half the total, some 6.1 million workers.

Of these 6.1 million workers, 27 percent were still unemployed but looking for work, while 17 percent have stopped looking for work, effectively dropping out of the labor force. Of the 56 percent who had found new jobs, slightly more than half took jobs that paid less than their old jobs. For those who took new jobs with pay cuts, the majority lost 20 percent or more compared to their previous wages, on top of the loss of earnings due to part-time work or reduced overtime.

All told, only 1.1 million out of the 6.1 million workers had been rehired at full-time jobs paying as much or more as they earned before the crash. In other words, of the workers hit hardest by the slump, barely 15 percent have been able to regain a position comparable to what they lost.

There is the starkest contrast between these figures, which give a glimpse of the mass suffering and hardship in the working class, and the conditions facing corporate America, where most large companies are enjoying bumper profits, stock prices are back to the levels before the crash, and CEO salaries and perks have broken all records.

In the midst of this bonanza for profits and CEO pay, the giant corporations have stepped up the assault on working-class living standards, following the example set by the Obama administration in its bailout of General Motors and Chrysler, which slashed wages for new hires by 50 percent and imposed sharp cutbacks on health and pension benefits.

Last week Caterpillar and the International Association of Machinists pushed through a draconian deal at the company’s Joliet, Illinois plant, as the union called off a 14-week strike and engineered acceptance of a contract that cuts real wages by 20 percent over six years, even though the company is making record profits.

A second report released last week showed that median household income has fallen 4.8 percent during the three years of the “recovery” touted by the Obama administration (July 2009 through June 2012), a bigger drop than the 2.6 percent during the two years officially recorded as “recession” (July 2007 through June 2009). Median incomes have fallen most for African Americans (down 11.1 percent) and residents of the Western states, the focal point of the housing market collapse (down 8.5 percent).

Since the official start of the recession, December 2007, median household income has fall 7.2 percent. From 2000 to 2012, over three presidential terms, two of George W. Bush and one of Obama, real incomes in the United States have fallen by 8.1 percent.

This social reality is ignored by both the capitalist parties competing in the 2012 presidential election, and it will go largely unacknowledged at the convention of the Republican Party, which opens Tuesday in Tampa, Florida, and at the similar gathering of the Democrats the following week.

The Republican Party and the Mitt Romney campaign hope, of course, to profit politically from the catastrophic conditions for working people, focusing their fall campaign on key Midwestern and industrial states like Ohio, Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania.

Their protestations of concern for laid-off factory workers and struggling single mothers are cynical lies, given that the policies advanced by the Republican campaign involve the destruction of the social safety net on which millions of unemployed and impoverished working-class families depend.

The true attitude of the Republicans will be demonstrated behind the scenes at the convention in Tampa, where hundreds of banquets, receptions and other lucrative “private events” will be mounted by corporate and billionaire backers of the Romney campaign. Some 1,500 Romney donors—“Stars” who have raised at least $250,000 and “Stripes” who have raised at least $500,000—will get top-level special treatment.

As the New York Times noted Sunday, when the delegates arrive in Tampa, “hundreds of lobbyists, corporate executives, trade associations and donors will be waiting for them, exploiting legal loopholes – and the fun-house atmosphere – that make each party’s quadrennial conventions a gathering of money and influence unrivaled in politics.”

There are no unemployed or displaced workers among the Republican influence peddlers, nor among their equivalents at the Democratic convention when it assembles the following week in Charlotte, North Carolina.

The Obama campaign is, if anything, even more cynical and false than Romney’s, because it portrays the Democratic incumbent as the defender of working people against Wall Street interests and the wealthy, when the truth is the direct opposite. Obama spearheaded the destruction of jobs and wages with the auto bailout, and helped launch the war on public education that has accounted for the largest single cut in jobs of the past three years: the wiping out of 600,000 jobs of teachers and support workers by state and local governments.

Last week, the Obama administration announced that it was extending its wage freeze for federal government workers, already two years long, for an additional six months, until April 2013, on the pretext that this would help reduce the federal budget deficit. No such considerations, of course, were allowed to affect the colossal Treasury handout of public money in the Wall Street bailout.

The capitalist politicians, like the giant corporations and banks they serve, welcome the growth of unemployment, wage cutting and poverty, because these are central components of a vast transfer of wealth from the working class—and large sections of the middle class—to the super-rich.

As the Federal Reserve Board noted in a report released in June, the real wealth of the average American household plummeted 38.9 percent from 2007 to 2010, essentially wiping out all the gains made by working people over the previous two decades.

This was not merely the result of the collapse in the housing market, which slashed the value of the only sizable asset owned by most workers. It was the direct consequence of decisions made in corporate boardrooms and in Washington to benefit the wealthy at the expense of working people.

These policies will continue and intensify regardless of whether Obama or Romney occupies the White House next year, and whether the Democrats or the Republicans control Congress. The American ruling class is waging war against the jobs, living standards and social conditions of working people, and both the official parties are enlisted on behalf of the financial aristocracy.

This truth was underscored by an interview Obama gave Saturday to the Associated Press, in which he pledged to reach agreement with the Republicans in Congress if he is reelected. “I’m prepared to make a whole range of compromises,” he said, including concessions that would be opposed within his party, because “the American people will have voted.”

In other words, once the election is safely over, the two parties can drop their populist phrases and their pretense of intransigent hostility and get down to business: meeting the demands of their corporate masters to slash the federal deficit by gutting programs like Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, and enacting new tax breaks for the corporations and the wealthy.

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August 27, 2012 Posted by | Corruption, Economics, Progressive Hypocrite | , , | Leave a comment

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