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The Fix Is In: Expect Democrats to Buckle

By Stephen Lendman | December 12, 2010

The criminal class in Washington is bipartisan. On core issues, Democrats are no different from Republicans. Expect more bluster before caving like Obama, enacting his deal with the devil worth up to $1 trillion dollars. The lion’s share goes to corporations and America’s wealthy, middle and low income workers getting crumbs. The fix is in. It’ll happen, promoted as stimulus to create jobs and revive economic growth. Not so. More on that below.

Given the makeup of both Houses, their voting records aren’t surprising. Getting reelected counts most. Under a corrupted electoral system, generous funding is needed, but wealthy and corporate donors expect lavish favors in return. They get them and much more.

As a result, Congress capitulates on virtually everything big money wants. Expect it again. Besides more handouts, preserving their tax breaks are key. Most congressional members, in fact, want their own kept. Otherwise, they’ll face big increases they don’t want and can avoid by benefiting from what they give millionaires, their own class. Read on.

Both the House and Senate are infested with millionaires. For some, their net worth exceeds $100 million. House examples include:

— Rep. Darrell Issa (R. CA), his maximum net worth estimated at $451 million;

— Rep. Jane Harman (D. CA), hers is $435 million;

— Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D. CA) up to $124 million; and

— Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D. CT), the House’s 25th richest member with nearly $27 million.

Senate ones include:

— John Kerry (D. MA) – heir through his wife to the HJ Heinz fortune; among their possessions, they own five homes with values well over $1 million each, the most expensive worth more than $9 million; he can afford them with a maximum net worth of $295 million;

— Mark Warner (D. VA), his at $283 million;

— Herb Kohl (D. WI), up to $231 million;

— Jay Rockefeller (D. WVA) at $136 million;

— Diane Feinstein (D. CA) $108 million;

— Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R. KY) a meager $33 million; and

— the Senate’s 25th richest member – Ron Wyden (D-OR) a paltry $7 million.

No wonder the body is called a millionaires club. In fact, a multimillionaire’s one, hardly anyone not rich gets in.

On November 25, 2009, The New York Times Economix section headlined, “Your Senator Is (Probably) a Millionaire,” saying:

In 2008, about “two-thirds of United States senators were millionaires,” according to a Center for Responsive Politics (Open Secrets.org) analysis. In 2009, over half of House and Senate members reported net worth wealth at more than $1 million, 55 $10 million or more, and eight over $100 million.

In 2009, the median net worth of House members was $765,010, up from $645,503 in 2008. In the Senate, it was $2.38 million, compared to $2.27 million the previous year.

Most have considerable wealth. They want it preserved and increased, including by paying no more taxes than necessary, and in some cases, less if they can get away with it. One of Rep. Charles Rangel’s transgressions was not reporting rental income from a Dominican Republic vacation property as well as hundreds of thousands of dollars in additional income and assets on his financial disclosure statements. Perhaps also to the IRS, thinking he was too important to audit.

Open Secrets estimates Obama’s 2009 net worth at up to $7.7 million. Expect that figure to grow substantially, especially after leaving office. Estimates put Bill Clinton’s wealth at $200 million, his wife Hillary another $35 million. Who said public service doesn’t pay well?

Obama’s Full Court Press for Passage

Calling Obama an embattled president, Washington Post writer Dan Balz headlined, “Bill Clinton takes the White House stage, again,” saying:

To sell his tax deal, he got center stage, first together, “then solo in the White House briefing room, as Obama slipped away to a holiday party.” On a Friday afternoon, it “was certainly a head-turner,” Clinton “look(ing) like he might never leave, as he fielded questions” from an eager press corp.

His message:

“The agreement taken as a whole is, I believe, the best bipartisan agreement we can reach to help the largest number of Americans and to maximize the chances that the economic recovery will accelerate and create more jobs and to minimize the chance that it will slip back.”

Prodding Democrats, he urged setting aside disagreements for the sake of the country and economy. Save your fights for later, he said, when Republicans try repealing other legislation they oppose.

On December 10, it was all Clinton, “still the center of attention and doing what he likes to do best,” trying to get Obama’s deal passed.

The Wall Street Journal was nonplussed, an editorial headlined, “Clinton and Obama for Bush,” said:

“We thought we’d seen everything in politics, but yesterday was truly miraculous: There in the White House press room was none other than former Democratic President Bill Clinton (with Obama) endors(ing) the” Bush era tax cuts, trying to mobilize reluctant Democrats and the party’s base for support.

On December 11, Wall Street Journal writer Jonathan Weisman called it “back to the future in the West Wing,” the “original practitioner of ‘triangulation.’ ” He called it compromise, saying “People do not see principled compromise as weakness. (It’s) an ethical thing to do.”

In fact, it’s a sellout. He won’t say it, nor Obama or supportive Democrats, even Bernie Sanders for eight hours on the Senate floor, performing rhetorically at best. Real filibusters don’t quit without succeeding. According to Senate historian Donald Ritchie, they occur “to prevent the majority from casting a vote.” Sanders spoke on Friday. A Monday vote is scheduled. Doing it then is what counts with others holding the floor nonstop.

Instead, after what he called “a long speech,” he concluded saying:

If “the American people are prepared to stand – and we’re prepared to follow them – I think we can defeat this proposal. I think we can come up with a better (one) which better reflects the needs of the middle class and working families of our country and, to me, most importantly, the children of our country. And with that, Madam President, I would yield the floor.”

No assertion he’ll be back on Monday, staying there with others uncompromisingly to kill the deal for a better one American families deserve. Instead, rhetorical bluster substitutes for resolute action, assuring wealth again defeats popular need. Democrats are as culpable as Republicans, showing not a dime’s worth of difference between them at voting time when it counts.

Another Big Gun for the Deal – David Broder

An earlier article exposed him as a symbol of major media depravity, accessed through the following link:

http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/2010/11/david-broder-symbol-of-major-media.html

Called the “dean” of political journalists, he’s distinguished more for supporting power and privilege than delivering real journalism, his December 8 column the most recent example headlined, “Obama takes his case to the independent center,” saying:

“In opting to accommodate reality by acceding to the Republican demand for maintaining all the Bush tax cuts (ones benefitting Broder greatly) and obtaining a better price than many expected for his concessions, Obama (did) almost all that is possible to create a favorable economic environment for the 2012 campaign. (That’s) a winning posture for a president seeking a second term, (placing himself) in the center of the American political spectrum.”

In fact, he’s far to the right of center, even further by his latest deal, proposing more wealth to those already with too much. He’s offering most to fat cats and corporate favorites, chump change by comparison to working Americans.

Broder, however, wants more – “tough love budgetary changes outlined by the presidential commission on deficits,” hitting ordinary American hard while lavishing more benefits on the rich and corporate America. He called it comparable to Clinton signing welfare reform in 1996, stiff-arming the nation’s poor, including many single mothers with children sacrificed to win votes for a second term. “This was (Obama’s) best showing….in many months,” selling out to power and privilege for the same thing.

Broder, so-called pundits, other corporate media writers, and some progressive ones won’t explain it, including Nation magazine editor Katrina vanden Heuvel. She’s an establishment figure, a regular on corporate TV, a Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) member, and unabashed Obama supporter, even when criticizing as she did in her December 7 Washington Post op-ed headlined, “Obama’s disastrous path,” reciting a checklist of objectionable policies, including, saying he’s:

“on the verge of kowtowing to Republican bluster and cutting a deal to extend (Bush era) tax cuts for the rich in exchange (one hopes) for extending unemployment insurance,” implying giving up lots for a little is OK.

Then despite criticizing his current course, while stopping short of condemning and exposing it as hard right, she inflated him unjustly, saying he “has a historic mandate” like Lincoln to end slavery or Roosevelt during the Great Depression. Otherwise, he “risks a failed presidency.” She’s, in fact, clueless how corrupted, lawless, and failed he’s been for nearly two years, a record of shame, assuring his status as one of America’s worst ever leaders, serving power, not loyal constituents who elected him, the same ones again being betrayed.

Vanden Heuvel, other Nation writers, and more from the progressive left think Obama is one of them. Their level of intellectual dishonesty is shocking. Calling it blindness is too kind, including Christopher Hayes in the Nation’s December 27 issue headlined, “Tax Cuts Forever,” criticizing the deal, but saying:

“They know the economy needs more stimulus, and that Republicans are loath to allow them to deliver it. Through this deal they were able to secure some stimulative tax cuts….At this point, the White House will take what it can get,” or in other words bad deals are OK to get something.

“Obama didn’t create this system, but he is making it stronger before our eyes,” for capital, not working Americans, suckered into a bad deal Hayes won’t admit or maybe understand. Economist David Rosenberg does, calling it “a neutral for the economy,” not stimulus to create jobs and revive growth.

Progressive writers, not Obama, have “a historic mandate” to expose a failed president, a servant of wealth and power, an elitist, a corporatist betraying his base. He’s beyond rehabilitation. He and the entire Congress needs replacing for of, by and for the people governance. Try reading that in the Nation or most other left of center publications.

Democrats like Republicans are shameless. Their record belies their rhetoric. They’ll display it again next week, capitulating like always to wealth and power, calling it the best deal for Americans that they could get. For themselves, other rich folks, and their corporate allies for sure.

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

December 12, 2010 Posted by | Economics, Progressive Hypocrite | Leave a comment

Obama’s beginning of the end

By Eric S. Margolis | Khaleej Times | 12 December 2010

In 1956, Britain, France and Israel colluded to invade Egypt to overthrow its hugely popular nationalist leader, Gamal Abdel Nasser. US President Dwight Eisenhower deemed the tripartite Suez aggression immoral and damaging to American interests in the Muslim world. “Ike” ordered the British, French and Israelis to get out of Egypt at once – or else. They got out.

Fast forward to 2010. President Barack Obama demands Israel stop building illegal Jewish settlements around Jerusalem and on the West Bank. Obama rightly concludes the ongoing agony of Palestine has turned the Muslim world against the United States. It is also the primary cause of what Washington calls “terrorism.”

After the Suez invasion, Israel’s American partisans set about building an influence network that would ensure no American president could ever force Israel to do anything against its will. Their brilliant success was again confirmed this week as Benjamin Netanyahu, leader of Israel’s rightist coalition, literally spit in Obama’s face, sneeringly rejecting the president’s pleas to create a viable Palestinian state. The US Congress and rightwing media actually applauded the public humiliation of their president and vice president. How the mighty have fallen. Obama has shown himself utterly without spine, and terrified of the Israel lobby at a time when his political fortunes are plummeting. The White House understands that America’s vital interests in the Mideast are being increasingly undermined by Israel’s adamant refusal to allow a workable Palestinian state instead of apartheid-style Arab Bantustans.

A triumphant Netanyahu made clear Israel would retain all of Jerusalem, settlement blocks around it, water resources, key roads, the West Bank high ground and the Jordan River valley. In short, “useful Palestine.” The rest, waterless scrub and slums, might be left to the Arabs. Nothing was said about Israel’s illegal occupation of Syria’s Golan Heights.

Even Obama’s shameful offer of a multi-billion dollar bribe to Israel of 20 F-35 warplanes and unlimited diplomatic support, in exchange for a flimsy 90-day building freeze, was contemptuously rejected by Netanyahu. He knows the US Congress would give Israel the moon if asked. The US has already given Israel at least $114 billion since its creation in 1947.

What does Obama’s humiliation mean? His chances of being defeated in the next presidential election are growing. Obama’s arch-rival, the pro-Israeli Hillary Clinton, is positioning herself to take over the Democratic Party from Obama.

The US diplomatic, intelligence and military establishment has got the message, loud and clear: don’t mess with Israel. The last US president who tried to restrain Israel’s West Bank colonisation, George H.W. Bush, failed to win re-election; his able secretary of state, James Baker, was slandered as an “anti-Semite.” By caving in to Israel’s hard right over the West Bank, Obama sends a message of profound weakness to the rest of the world. He is signaling that Israel, not the White House, really makes America’s Mideast policy. Israel also increasingly influences US policy towards Pakistan, Afghanistan, India, Iran and North Korea. The humiliated Palestinian Authority is shown as a helpless puppet of the Americans and Israelis, as rival Hamas has long charged.

Obama’s defeat suggests Israel now has “carte blanche” to move ahead and attack Lebanon’s resistance movement Hezbollah, Syria, and eventually Iran. In fact, Israel now seems to have the power to plunge the US into war against Iran whenever it decides the time is right and the risk worthwhile.

Since the US has become a helpless giant, it’s up to the rest of the world to end the suffering in Palestine. Brazil and Argentina have taken an important step forward by recognising a Palestinian state in the pre-1967 borders. The 2002 Saudi peace plan still offers all parties concerned the fairest, most practical 
road to peace.

The UN General Assembly should again endorse this plan and call for more pressure on Israel. But Netanyahu and his fellow rightwing zealots are determined to hold on to every meter of the West Bank and Golan. Some far rightists want to expand Israel into Lebanon and Syria. Israel’s refusal to compromise over Palestine is at the heart of its increasingly dangerous confrontation 
with Iran.

Obama’s shameful failure will haunt the world 
for decades.

December 12, 2010 Posted by | Progressive Hypocrite, Wars for Israel | Leave a comment

Justice Department Prepares for Ominous Expansion of “Anti-Terrorism” Law Targeting Activists

By Michael Deutsch | t r u t h o u t | 11 December 2010

In late September, the FBI carried out a series of raids of homes and antiwar offices of public activists in Minneapolis and Chicago. Following the raids, the Obama Justice Department subpoenaed 14 activists to a grand jury in Chicago and also subpoenaed the files of several antiwar and community organizations. In carrying out these repressive actions, the Justice Department was taking its lead from the Supreme Court’s 6-3 opinion last June in Holder v. the Humanitarian Law Project, which decided that nonviolent First Amendment speech and advocacy “coordinated with” or “under the direction of” a foreign group listed by the Secretary of State as “terrorist” was a crime.

The search warrants and grand jury subpoenas make it clear that the federal prosecutors are intent on accusing public nonviolent political organizers, many of whom are affiliated with Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO), of providing “material support” through their public advocacy for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). The Secretary of State has determined that both the PLFP and the FARC “threaten US national security, foreign policy or economic interests,” a finding not reviewable by the courts, and listed both groups as foreign terrorist organizations (FTO).

In 1996, Congress made it a crime – then punishable by 10 years, which was later increased to 15 years – to anyone in the US who provides “material support or resources to a foreign terrorist organization or attempts or conspires to do so.” The present statute defines “material support or resources” as:

… any property, tangible or intangible, or service, including currency or monetary instruments or financial services, lodging, training, expert advice or assistance, safe houses, false documentation or identification, communications equipment, facilities, weapons, lethal substances, explosives, personnel and transportation except medicine or religious materials.

In the Humanitarian Law Project case, human rights workers wanted to teach members of the Kurdistan PKK, which seeks an independent Kurdish state, and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), which sought an independent state in Sri Lanka, how to use humanitarian and international law to peacefully resolve disputes and obtain relief from the United Nations and other international bodies for human rights abuses by the governments of Turkey and Sri Lanka. Both organizations were designated as FTOs by the Secretary of State in a closed hearing, in which the evidence is heard secretly.

Despite the nonviolent, peacemaking goal of the Humanitarian Law Project’s speech and training, the majority of the Supreme Court nonetheless interpreted the law to make such conduct a crime. Finding a whole new exception to the First Amendment, the Court decided that any support, even if it involves nonviolent efforts towards peace, is illegal under the law since it “frees up other resources within the organization that may be put to violent ends,” and also helps lend “legitimacy” to foreign terrorist groups. Writing for the majority, Chief Justice Roberts, despite the lack of any evidence, further opined that the FTO could use the human rights law to “intimidate, harass or destruct” its adversaries, and that even peace talks themselves could be used as a cover to re-arm for further attacks. Thus, the Court’s opinion criminalizes efforts by independent groups to work for peace if they in any way cooperate or coordinate with designated FTOs.

The Court distinguishes what it refers to as “independent advocacy,” which it finds is not prohibited by the statute, from “advocacy performed in coordination with, or at the direction of, a foreign terrorist organization,” which is, for the first time, found to be a crime under the statute. The exact line demarcating where independent advocacy becomes impermissible coordination is left open and vague.

Seizing on this overbroad definition of “material support,” the US government is now moving in on political groups and activists who are clearly exercising fundamental First Amendment rights by vocally opposing the government’s branding of foreign liberation movements as terrorist and supporting their struggles against US-backed repressive regimes and illegal occupations.

Under the new definition of “material support,” the efforts of President Jimmy Carter to monitor the elections in Lebanon and coordinate with the political parties there, including the designated FTO Hezbollah, could well be prosecuted as a crime. Similarly, the publication of op-ed articles by FTO spokesmen from Hamas or other designated groups by The New York Times or The Washington Post, or the filing of amicus briefs by human rights attorneys arguing against a group’s terrorist designation or the statute itself could also now be prosecuted. Of course, the first targets of this draconian expansion of the material support law will not be a former president or the establishment media, but members of a Marxist organization who are vocal opponents of the governments of Israel and Colombia and the US policies supporting these repressive governments.

In his foreword to Nelson Mandela’s recent autobiography “Conversations with Myself,” President Obama wrote that “Mandela’s sacrifice was so great that it called upon people everywhere to do what they could on behalf of human progress. … The first time I became politically active was during my college years, when I joined a campaign on behalf of divestment, and the effort to end apartheid in South Africa.” At the time of Mr. Obama’s First Amendment advocacy, Mr. Mandela and his organization the African National Congress (ANC) were denounced as terrorist by the US government. If the “material support” law had been in effect back then, Mr. Obama would have been subject to potential criminal prosecution. It is ironic – and the height of hypocrisy – that this same man who speaks with such reverence for Mr. Mandela and recalls his own support for the struggle against apartheid now allows the Justice Department under his command to criminalize similar First Amendment advocacy against Israeli apartheid and repressive foreign governments.

December 12, 2010 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Progressive Hypocrite, Wars for Israel | Leave a comment

Time for Nuclear Savings Bonds?

The Nuclear War Reserve

By ROBERT ALVAREZ | CounterPunch | December 10, 2010

Although it’s been 20 years since the Cold War ended, the U.S. is still holding on to a grossly oversized nuclear arsenal – most of which are no longer needed by the military. Thanks to Hans Kristensen at the Federation of America Scientists, I’ve learned that 70 percent of the America’s warheads are not being deployed and that more than 40 percent has been discarded by the military. Some 2,500 nuclear warheads are currently deployed, with a comparable number held in the “war reserve,” and 3,500 are awaiting elimination. The “war reserve” is needed as a hedge just in case Russia decides to rekindle the nuclear arms race – a sacrosanct U.S. policy based on the logic that the winner of a nuclear war is the one with the most left over. The current U.S. nuclear arsenal has a destructive power about 400 times greater than the explosives used by all combatants during World War II.

nukegraph

The current backlog of retired nuclear warheads will take 15 years to eliminate. My children might live long enough to see the existing stockpile of discarded weapons disappear. This is because the Obama administration plans to curb nuclear warhead dismantlement spending by 50 percent over the next five years. If the New START treaty is approved, nearly 80% of U.S. nuclear warheads will not be deployed with as many as 5,000 warheads waiting to be eliminated. According to Kristensen and his colleague Robert S. Norris at the Natural Resources Defense Council, the current rate of weapons dismantlement is what it was in the 1950s during the height of the Cold War.

But, if proponents of increased nuclear spending, led by Senator John Kyl (R-AZ), have their way, our great-grandchildren will find America still bristling with nuclear arms. While most of the government stands to see budget cuts, in an effort to garner Kyl’s support for the New START treaty, spending by the Obama administration to maintain the nuclear arsenal and to refurbish the nuclear weapons complex will increase next year by18 percent.

The spending logic of these numbers seems simple. The more nuclear warheads we have sitting around, the more money can be spent on delivery systems, baby-sitting bombs, while trying to make more. Since World War II, America has spent about $5.6 trillion to make and stockpile them – creating a powerful nuclear entitlement culture that commands two thirds of the U.S. Energy department’s budget.

According to Steve Schwartz of the James Martin Center on Non-Proliferation, the U.S. Spent about $54 billion in 2009 on nuclear weapons and their delivery systems (bombers, ground and submarine missile launchers). If you include these expenses, each nuclear warhead costs about $6.3 million per year to keep around.

Wonder why America can’t seem to keep up with nations like Germany and China when it comes to an advanced energy policy? Perhaps it’s because the Energy department spends 10 times more on nuclear weapons than energy conservation.

The National Nuclear Security Agency within DOE estimates it will need about $85 billion over the next ten years and about $168 billion over twenty years to maintain the nuclear arsenal and refurbish the U.S. weapons complex. This does not include the additional $100 billion estimated for the weapons delivery systems in the Defense department. Given that the Obama administration sees no need to further tax the wealthy and that hundreds of billions of dollars will have to be borrowed from China for nuclear weapons, consideration might be given to issuing new “Nuclear Savings Bonds” to help pay for all of this. I’ve created a prototype of what they might look like.

savbond

Robert Alvarez, an Institute for Policy Studies senior scholar, served as senior policy adviser to the Energy Department’s secretary from 1993 to 1999. www.ips-dc.org

December 10, 2010 Posted by | Economics, Militarism, Progressive Hypocrite | Leave a comment

While the US stumbles with Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, others are taking the lead

By Audrey Farber | Mondoweiss | December 8, 2010

Yesterday brought us the news that the Obama administration is giving up on pressuring Netanyahu on settlements.

Are they giving up, or are they just losing their edge? Apparently, “U.S. officials said they were not abandoning the peace effort altogether, just changing tactics.” Unfortunately, “it was not immediately clear what other proposals the Obama administration might put forward.” So is there something better up their sleeve? Such a change – after all, the American focus in Israel has been dedicated to settlement freezes for almost the entirety of Obama’s reign – could indicate its abdication of the role of mediator, the recognition of the futility of the “peace process”, and the first steps towards recognizing Palestine. Or more likely, it indicates that the Israeli government has a worse stranglehold on the US than we previously thought and ever dared dream. Obviously the Obama administration realizes the futility of the process, though it’s a shame they’re handing Netanyahu this victory on a silver platter.

This settlement freeze failure is making the US administration the laughing stock of Israel and Palestine alike. Ehud Barak claimed “talks with U.S. officials over a settlement freeze had stopped because Washington was distracted by the WikiLeaks controversy and its need to focus on the confrontation with North Korea.” You’d think they’d be able to multi-task, but I guess asking one small thing from Netanyahu on top of all these other concerns was just too much. From another side, aide to Abbas, Yasser Abed Rabbo, criticized this newfound weakness of the American role in negotiations. If the US is “the one who couldn’t make Israel limit its settlement activities in order to conduct serious negotiations, how can he be able to make Israel accept a fair solution?…This is the big question now.” The illusion of America’s role as team leader in this “peace process” has been shattered, and we see now that when it comes to Israel and Palestine, as far as the US is concerned, the Israelis will get what they want.

As this is just further proof that the Netanyahu-Lieberman military-industrial complex has us exactly where they want us and we’re a fairly useless ally for peace and justice, it’s time for someone else to step up to the plate and have a go at this perennial intractability. Indeed, both Israel and Palestine are prepared for this eventuality. Barak sees Barack’s withdrawal as putting Israel in “danger of becoming increasingly isolated internationally. Israel is concerned with the success of one Palestinian tactic: persuading countries to recognize an independent Palestinian state within borders that existed before the 1967 Middle East War.” … Full article

December 8, 2010 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Progressive Hypocrite | Leave a comment

START for Israel; START against Iran

Ali Gharib | Lobe Log | November 22nd, 2010

Earlier today on National Review’s The Corner blog, Foundation for Defense of Democracies head honcho Cliff May wrote:

I’m now hearing from more than one source on the Hill that the Obama administration has just added a new argument in favor of lame-duck ratification: failure to adopt START will “hurt Israel.”

May demurs, naturally (the New START is an Obama Administration initiative, after all), then tells a joke, sets up a straw man, and knocks it down. May thinks the Obama administration scare tactic will be that without START, Russia’s nukes will  start “somehow leaking out and getting into the hands of Iran’s bad boys or other terrorists.”

But that wasn’t the Israel angle played by Jewish groups later in the day — though their tack does have something to do with Iran.

Laura Rozen reports for Politico:

Both the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and the National Jewish Democratic Council (NJDC) cited the importance of passage of the U.S.-Russian nuclear arms reduction treaty in order to maintain American-Russian cooperation in countering the Iran nuclear threat.

“We are deeply concerned that failure to ratify the New START treaty will have national security consequences far beyond the subject of the treaty itself,” the ADL said in a letter sent to every Senator Friday.

“The U.S. diplomatic strategy to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons requires a U.S.-Russia relationship of trust and cooperation,” ADL continues. “The severe damage that could be inflicted on that relationship by failing to ratify the treaty would inevitably hamper effective American international leadership to stop the Iranian nuclear weapons program.”

The New START treaty may indeed be a necessary step for global security, but questions should be raised about linking it to Iran. This support by pro-Israel groups may prove to haunt U.S. policy towards Iran in the future.

One might compare this tack in pushing START to the sort of message Benjamin Netanyahu took away from meeting with Barack Obama about engaging in Palestinian-Israeli peace talks: that getting the job done (or at least getting to the table) will help the U.S. isolate Iran and contain its nuclear ambitions.

How many of these bargains can Obama enter into before he must pay the piper and make the ultimate escalation against Iran? If the diplomatic strategy fails, then what?

Perhaps this is pointing out the obvious: Something is truly amiss when a treaty to limit nuclear proliferation is being sold as the way to defend and protect a country that has an ever expanding — and clandestine — nuclear arsenal.

Update:

Obama Pushes START Treaty to Top of Legislative Agenda

By Jim Lobe | IPS | December 2, 2010

WASHINGTON – With time running out before he faces a much more hostile and Republican Congress, President Barack Obama appears to have made Senate ratification of the pending New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) with Russia his top legislative priority.

Not only has he bowed to Republican demands to allocate more money for Washington’s nuclear arms programme, but he has suggested that he’s also willing to cave in to Republican demands to extend tax cuts for high-income households – despite record federal deficits – in order to gain START ratification.

And he’s getting considerable help from big guns in what remains of the Republican foreign policy Establishment, including five former secretaries of state whose service spanned the last five Republican administrations.

In an op-ed heralded by the White House on the eve of its publication in Thursday’s Washington Post, former secretaries Henry Kissinger, George Shultz, James Baker, Lawrence Eagleburger and Colin Powell concluded that the New START was “clearly in our national interest” and should be ratified. […]

Obama, who had promised during the 2008 election campaign not to raise taxes on households earning 250,000 dollars a year or less, had hoped that allowing the cuts to expire on those earning more than that would help cut the federal deficit by several hundred billion dollars over the next few years.

His apparent willingness to compromise on this issue in order to secure START is causing growing dismay among his supporters. … Full article by Jim Lobe

December 5, 2010 Posted by | Progressive Hypocrite, Wars for Israel | Leave a comment

Spiralling out of Control: The Risk of a New Korean War

By Gregory Elich | Global Research | December 4, 2010

An artillery duel between North and South Korean forces on November 23 has set in motion a series of events which threaten to spiral out of control.

On November 22, South Korea began its annual military exercise, involving including 70,000 troops, dozens of South Korean and U.S. warships and some 500 aircraft. The following day, South Korean artillery stationed on Yeonpyeong Island began a live ammunition drill, firing shells into the surrounding sea.

The island is situated quite near to the North Korean mainland, and lies in disputed waters. At the end of the Korean War in 1953, U.S. General Mark Clark unilaterally established the western sea border to North Korea’s disadvantage. Rather than in a perpendicular line, the Northern Limit Line was drawn to curve sharply upwards, handing over islands and a prime fishing area to the South that would otherwise have gone to North Korea. The North, having had no say in the delineation of its sea border, has never recognized the Northern Limit Line. (1)

South Korean troops have been based on the island since the end of the Korean War. There is also a small fishing village in close proximity to the military base; unavoidably so, given that the island is less than three square miles in size.

In response to the South Korean announcement of an impending artillery drill, North Korea telephoned the South Korean military on the morning of November 23, urging them to cancel plans to fire shells into what the North regarded as its territorial waters. The North warned that if the drill proceeded, they would respond with a “resolute physical counter-strike.” (2)

Nevertheless, the artillery drill proceeded and four hours later, North Korean artillery fired on the island. In the first round, 150 shells were shot, of which 60 hit the island. Then 20 more shells were fired in a second round. In all, four people on the island were killed and 18 wounded. (3)

The South Korean military telegraphed the North, asking them to cease, but to no avail. Then their artillery returned fire at the North, firing 80 shells. One shell directly hit a North Korean military barracks. Although many of the shells appeared to have inflicted little damage, an official at the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff noted, “Satellite images show our shells landed on a cluster of barracks in North Korea, so we presume there have been many casualties and considerable property damage.” (4)

Facing a barrage of criticism from domestic hawks for having responded in too tepid a manner, South Korean Defense Minister Kim Tae-young resigned from his position. Yet the South Korean response probably could not have been increased significantly without risking a wider conflict.

During the drill, South Korean artillery on Yeonpyeong Island fired in a southward direction, away from the North Korean mainland, and this was not the first time that such drills had been conducted. North Korean forces could have made their point sufficiently by splashing some shells into the sea. Instead, they overreacted in a manner that manifested an inexcusable disregard for human life by targeting the island.

Why the North did so can best be explained by recent developments in relations between the two Koreas. This was, after all, the first artillery duel between the two nations in forty years, so something led to it.

President Lee Myung-bak of the conservative Grand National Party took office in February 2008, vowing to reverse the Sunshine Policy of warming relations with North Korea. The government of Lee’s predecessor, Roh Moo-hyun, had signed several agreements on economic cooperation with North Korea, including joint mining operations in the North. Lee killed every one these agreements, ensuring that they would never be implemented. The railroad leading from the South to the North, which had just been reconnected under former President Roh, is now closed for good. That project had promised to benefit both Koreas, providing the South with a cheaper and more convenient route for shipping goods to China and Russia, and giving the North added income through user fees. South Korean tourist operations at Mt. Kumgang in the North are closed. Reunions of family members separated by the border have stopped. The only remaining remnant of the Sunshine Policy is the presence of South Korean firms operating at an industrial park in Kaesong, North Korea, and its days are probably numbered.

Then there was the incident in which the South Korean corvette Cheonan was sunk, in May of this year. In a stacked investigation, South Korea concluded that a North Korean submarine had targeted the vessel with a torpedo. The evidence, however, does not fully back that assertion and a Russian team’s investigation determined that an accidental encounter with a sea mine was a more likely cause. (5) North Korea’s repeated requests to participate in an investigation, or to at least view the evidence, were consistently rebuffed. Instead the Lee Administration utilized the incident to further sour relations between the two Koreas.

Perhaps most significantly, when Roh Moo-hyun was president of South Korea, emergency communication channels were established between the two Koreas, specifically for the purpose of opening dialogue and limiting or preventing armed conflicts whenever they arose or threatened to do so. On a number of occasions, those communication channels stopped potential conflicts before they either occurred or escalated. Those channels no longer exist, thanks to Lee’s dismantling of agreements with North Korea, and as a result four South Koreans and an unknown number of North Koreans are now dead. (6)

That North Korea would feel threatened is not surprising. Its economy is crippled by the imposition of draconian Western sanctions, and the annual South Korean-U.S. military exercises are intended to intimidate. Furthermore, the rhetoric from Washington has been unremittingly hostile, and now with a more conservative government, so is South Korea’s.

Nor is North Korea unaware of the fact that in February 2003, President Bush told Chinese President Jiang Zemin that if the nuclear issue could not be solved diplomatically, he would “have to consider a military strike against North Korea.” (7) One month later, Bush ordered a fleet into the region, including the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson. Six F-117 Stealth bombers were sent to South Korea, and nearly 50 fighters and bombers to Guam. The possibility of military action was on the table, Bush told a South Korean official. (8) Due to the efforts of China and South Korea’s progressive president at the time, Bush chose dialogue, albeit offset to a large degree by his imposition of further sanctions against North Korea. It has also certainly not gone unnoticed by North Korea that any halting diplomatic efforts have ceased altogether once President Obama took office. And with the pronounced deterioration in relations set in motion by President Lee Myung-bak, his administration has made it clear that he has no interest in diplomacy either.

Following the clash over Yeonpyeong, China called for dialogue and a reduction of tensions, sending envoys to both South and North Korea. It proposed that the six nations that had at one time participated in denuclearization talks, South and North Korea, the U.S., Japan, China and Russia, meet for emergency discussions “to exchange views on major issues of concern to the parties at present.” The meetings would not be a resumption of talks on denuclearization, although China hoped that “they will create conditions for their resumption.” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei stated, “The starting point for China proposing emergency consultations is to ease the tensions on the Korean Peninsula and provide a platform of engagement and dialogue.” (9)

The Chinese proposal should have been welcomed as the only sensible approach to the problem. But officials of the Obama Administration condemned China for being “irresponsible” by putting forth such a proposal. Instead, they urged China to get on board with the program of pressuring North Korea and further escalating tensions and the risk of war. White House spokesman Robert Gibbs snottily dismissed the proposal by saying that the U.S. and other nations “are not interested in stabilizing the region through a series of P.R. activities.” (10)

South Korea, too, rejected China’s proposal. The U.S., South Korea, and Japan willfully misrepresented China’s proposal as merely being a call for a resumption of the six-party talks on denuclearization. Domestic audiences were not hearing that the proposal’s purpose was to prevent further conflict. Instead, Japan said that talks would be “impossible” under the circumstances, while a South Korean official said that President Lee “made it clear that now is not the time for discussing” six-party talks. (11) Indeed. Not when one’s goal is to further inflame the situation. To further that objective, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is meeting with the foreign secretaries of South Korea and Japan to map out a common program in dealing with North Korea. (12) It goes without saying that dialogue with North Korea will not be part of that program.

President Lee has promised to take a much harder line on North Korea, and already the South has sent 400,000 propaganda leaflets across the border on balloons. (13) There has also been talk of resuming loudspeaker broadcasts across the border. The sending of leaflets was in violation of a 2004 agreement between the two sides to halt propaganda campaigns aimed at each other.

By the end of December, South Korea plans to hold another round of artillery drills on islands lying in disputed waters, including, dismayingly enough, Yeonpyeong Island. Nothing could be calculated to be more provoking under the circumstances. In preparation for the response to the drills that are expected from North Korea, island defenses are being beefed up. South Korea has added multiple rocket launchers, howitzers, missile systems and advanced precision-guided artillery to the Yeonpyeong arsenal. (14)

According to a South Korean official, “We decided to stage the same kind of fire drill as the one we carried out on the island on November 23 to display our determination.” (15)

The new drills appear calculated to provoke a conflict, and this time South Korea is intent on an asymmetrical response. The military is revising its rules of engagement so as to jettison concerns about starting a wider conflict. If former Defense Minister Kim Tae-young is to believed, if there is another North Korean strike, then warships and fighter jets of both South Korea and the U.S. will launch attacks on the North. (16)

Incoming Defense Minister Kim Kwan-jin is if anything even more determined to fan the flames of conflict into a wider conflagration. The South Korean military will immediately launch “psychological warfare,” including, presumably, loudspeaker broadcasts across the border. The North has promised to target loudspeakers if they are put in operation, and that would in turn provide the pretext for the South Korean military to launch combat operations. If there is another exchange of fire with the North, Kim announced, “We will definitely air raid North Korea.” All combat forces available would be mobilized, he promised. The newly minted rules of engagement are also going to permit “preemptive” strikes on North Korea based on the presumption of a possible attack. In other words, if North Korea fails to provide a pretext for military action, the Lee Administration can attack the North without provocation, if it chooses to do so. (17)

Lee Myung-bak has already achieved his dream of demolishing the Sunshine Policy. Relations between the two Koreas are at their lowest point since the end of military dictatorship in South Korea. Now he aims to deliberately trigger armed conflict in order to demonstrate “toughness,” and not incidentally, drive the final nail into the coffin of the Sunshine Policy. Defense Minister Kim Kwan-jin feels that the risk of war is low. “It will be difficult for North Korea to conduct a full-scale war because there are some elements of insecurity in the country, such as the national economy and power transfer.” (18) Those may be arguments against North Korea’s ability to successfully sustain a long-term war over the course of a year or two, but it seriously misreads the ability and will of the North Korean military to put up a determined fight. The extent of possible South Korean air strikes on the North is not clear, but anything other than an extremely limited and localized action is likely to trigger total war. And that is a war that the U.S. will inevitably be drawn into. Even presuming a quick defeat of the North (which would be unlikely), eighty percent of North Korea is mountainous, providing ideal terrain for North Korean forces to conduct guerrilla warfare. The U.S. could find itself involved in another failing military occupation. With both sides heavily armed, the consequences could be much worse for Koreans, and casualties could reach alarming totals. Four million Koreans died in the Korean War. Even one percent of that total in a new war would be unconscionable, and Lee Myung-bak is deluded if he believes he can ride the tiger of armed conflict and remain in control of the path it takes.

Notes

(1) For a map of the Northern Limit Line and Yeonpyeong’s placement, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Map_of_the_shelling_of_Yeonpyeong.svg The blue line identifies the Northern Limit Line recognized by South Korea and the U.S., and the red line, the border as recognized by North Korea. Yeonpyeong Island is marked #1 on the map.

(2) “Panmunjom Mission of KPA Sends Notice to U.S. Forces Side,” KCNA (Pyongyang), November 25, 2010.

(3) “Military Under Fire for Response to N. Korean Attack,” Chosun Ilbo (Seoul), November 25, 2010.

(4) “Military Suggests Counterfire Caused ‘Many Casualties’ in N. Korea,” Yonhap (Seoul), December 2, 2010. Jung Sung-ki, “Satellite Image Shows Damages in NK Artillery Site,” Korea Times (Seoul), December 2, 2010.

(5) http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=20367

(6) “Containment After N.Korea’s Unacceptable Provocation,” Hankyoreh (Seoul), November 24, 2010.

(7) Hwang Doo-hyong, “Bush Expresses Frustration at China’s Reluctance to Dissuade N. Korea from Going Nuclear: Memoir,” Yonhap (Seoul), November 10, 2010.

(8) “Bush Admits He Considered a Military Strike Against North Korea,” Korean Broadcasting System (Seoul), March 18, 2004. “Carl Vinson Strike Group CVN-70 ‘Gold Eagle’,” http://www.globalsecurity.org Will Dunham, “U.S. Military Operations for N.Korea Fraught with Peril,” Reuters, April 25, 2003.

(9) Kim Young-gyo, “China Calls for Emergency Talks on N. Korean Nukes,” Yonhap (Seoul), November 28, 2010. “China Calls for Resumption of Dialogue, Negotiations for Korean Peninsula Situation,” Xinhua (Beijing), November 30, 2010. “Chinese FM Talks with DPRK, ROK, U.S. Diplomats on Korean Peninsular Situation,” Xinhua (Beijing), November 26, 2010.

(10) Helene Cooper and Sharon LaFraniere, “U.S. and South Korea Balk at Talks with North,” New York Times, November 30, 2010.

(11) Hwang Joon bum and Park Min-hee, “Lee Administration Rejects Six-Party Talks Proposal,” Hankyoreh (Seoul), November 29, 2010. Tania Branigan, “US Rejects Talks with North Korea,” The Guardian (London), November 30, 2010.

(12) “Kim, Clinton Agree to Reject China’s Proposal for Talks on N. Korea,” Yonahp (Seoul), December 1, 2010.

(13) “S. Korea Sent Propaganda Leaflets to N. Korea After Artillery Attack,” Yonhap (Seoul), November 26, 2010.

(14) Jung Sung-ki, “Seoul Plans Live-Fire Drill Next Week,” Korea Times (Seoul), December 1, 2010. “New Defence Minister to Decide When to Stage Firing Drills in Yellow Sea,” Yonhap (Seoul), December 3, 2010. “Tension Mounts as Firing Drill Planned,” JoongAng Ilbo (Seoul), December 2, 2010.

(15) “S. Korea to Stage Fresh Firing Drill on Yeonpyeong Island,” Chosun Ilbo (Seoul), November 30, 2010.

(16) Jung Sung-ki, “Seoul Vows Naval, Air Strikes on NK,” Korea Times (Seoul), November 29, 2010.

(17) “Defense Minister Nominee Vows Air Strikes if Attacked by N. Korea,” Yonhap (Seoul), December 3, 2010. Kim Kwang-tae, “SKorea Defense Nominee Vows Airstrikes on North,” Associated Press, December 2, 2010. Song Sang-ho, “Kim Warns Air Strike on North Korea,” Korea Herald (Seoul), December 3, 2010. Na Jeong-ju, “Defense Chief-Nominee Vows Air Strikes if Attacked,” Korea Times (Seoul), December 3, 2010. Mark McDonald, “South Korean Outlines Muscular Military Postures,” New York Times, December 3, 2010.

(18) “Defense Minister Nominee Vows Air Strikes if Attacked by N. Korea,” Yonhap (Seoul), December 3, 2010.

Gregory Elich is on the Board of Directors of the Jasenovac Research Institute and on the Advisory Board of the Korea Truth Commission. He is the author of the book Strange Liberators: Militarism, Mayhem, and the Pursuit of Profit.

December 4, 2010 Posted by | Militarism, Progressive Hypocrite | Leave a comment

US-led troops abduct Afghan journalist

Press TV – December 4, 2010

US-led forces have abducted an Afghan journalist in the eastern province of Khost amid escalating anti-American sentiments in the war-ravaged country.

The troops stormed into the journalist’s home overnight and took him and his three brothers. Reports say they have been taken to a military base.

The move has caused uproar among other Afghan journalists, who say he is arrested without being charged. They maintain that even if he is to face charges he should be tried at an Afghan court. US-led troops in Afghanistan have abducted four other journalists in recent months.

This comes two days after Afghan President Hamid Karzai ordered an investigation into the NATO killing of a local Afghan official in the country’s south.

According to Karzai’s office, troops broke into the house of a former district governor in the province of Helmand earlier this week, killing him and arresting six members of his family.

Local officials say preliminary investigations have revealed that the man was innocent. They say NATO forces have not responded to inquiries about the killing.

The developments follow US President Barack Obama’s brief visit to Bagram airbase and prison, located north of the capital Kabul, on Friday. He spent a total of four hours on the ground in Afghanistan.

Obama has told US troops that they will have difficult days during their stay in the war-torn country. “Progress comes slow” and “there are going to be difficult days ahead,” Obama told thousands of US troops at Bagram Airbase.

US-led forces have some 150,000 soldiers deployed in Afghanistan. They are often accused of killing civilians during operations against the country’s militants.

December 4, 2010 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, Progressive Hypocrite, War Crimes | Leave a comment

Obama’s Israel Policy: Speak softly and carry a very big carrot

December 3, 2010 by Maidhc Ó Cathail

Even those familiar with the long and shameful history of America’s appeasement of Israel were taken aback by the Obama administration’s extraordinary offer to Netanyahu.

In exchange for a paltry one-off 90 day freeze on illegal settlement expansion in the occupied West Bank (excluding East Jerusalem), Israel will get 20 F-35 stealth fighter jets worth $3 billion and a slew of other goodies. Yet Secretary of State Hillary Clinton reportedly gave up to eight hours with Netanyahu trying to persuade him to accept “one of the most generous bribes ever bestowed by the United States on any foreign power.” Praising the Israeli Prime Minister for eventually agreeing to put the offer to his security cabinet, President Obama took it as “a signal that he is serious.”

But is there any reason to believe that Netanyahu is any more “serious” about consenting to the creation of a viable Palestinian state today than he was in 2001? In a video aired on Israel’s Channel 10 this summer, Netanyahu was seen during the second intifada bragging to West Bank settlers about how he had sabotaged the Oslo Accords. “I’m going to interpret the accords in such a way that would allow me to put an end to this galloping forward to the ’67 borders,” he told them. In that secretly filmed conversation, Netanyahu also revealed his dismissive attitude toward the United States. “I know what America is,” he said. “America is a thing you can move very easily, move it in the right direction. They won’t get in the way.”

And there is good reason for the Israeli leader’s arrogance. In a pre-midterm election interview with the Jewish Daily Forward, Congressman Gary Ackerman stressed that “Israel’s best bet for addressing any concerns about Obama’s policy” was for the Democrats to retain power. As evidence of their pro-Israel influence, Ackerman and other Jewish Democrats cited “the forceful criticisms they conveyed to the White House when they thought that Obama was leaning too hard on Israel.” Ackerman, who chaired the subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, said that if Israel wanted “positive influence on the White House” it needed what he called the “first-class team” of Howard Berman, Barney Frank, Henry Waxman, Sander Levin and himself to continue chairing key House committees, because “we are all pro-Israel and we all have major, major, major influence in the executive branch.”

The Republicans’ subsequent gains in those midterms, however, are only likely to boost Netanyahu’s confidence in his ability to move America “in the right direction.” On the eve of his November 11 meeting with Hillary Clinton, the Israeli Prime Minister had what has been described as an “unusual, if not unheard of” (read: illegal) one-on-one meeting with incoming House Majority Leader Eric Cantor. According to Cantor’s office, the Congressman assured Netanyahu that “the new Republican majority will serve as a check on the Administration.” It wouldn’t be the first time that Cantor— set to become the highest ever ranking Jewish member of　Congress—has attempted to undermine official U.S. policy in Israel’s behalf. Last year, while leading a delegation of 25 Republican congressmen to Israel, Cantor publicly criticised the Obama administration for interfering in such internal Israeli matters as the eviction of Palestinian families from their East Jerusalem homes and the ongoing 43-year Jewish colonization of the West Bank.

Given who has been shaping Obama’s Middle East policy, his administration may not require that much checking though. Since 2002, he has been advised by Lee Rosenberg, a key member of “a close-knit network of Chicago Jews,” who, in the words of the Chicago Tribune, “nurtured and enabled” Obama’s political career. According to Rosenberg, the then U.S. Senate hopeful “reached out” to the jazz recording industry entrepreneur and venture capitalist “to learn more about the issues affecting Israel and Middle East, and the U.S.–Israel relationship.” Later, when Obama’s Chicago backers made it clear to him that Israel was an issue “he had to get educated on,” Rosenberg accompanied the then-senator on his first trip to Israel, where he learned “an appreciation of the security needs.” A longtime board member (and currently president) of AIPAC, Rosenberg also introduced the presidential candidate at the pro-Israel lobby’s 2008 conference, when Obama, in contradiction of international law, vowed that Jerusalem “will remain the capital of Israel, and it must remain undivided.”

Dennis Ross, one of the principal authors of that speech, is also the originator of the incentive package. Having convinced Obama of the need “to come off as friendlier” to Netanyahu, the president’s current top adviser on the Middle East worked closely with Ehud Barak and Yitzak Molho, Netanyahu’s adviser, on preparing the original proposal which Netanyahu subsequently rejected. Ross, dubbed “Israel’s lawyer” for his over-solicitousness to Tel Aviv’s interests as President Clinton’s chief negotiator, was accused by an American government official earlier this year of being “far more sensitive to Netanyahu’s coalition politics than to U.S. interests.” A fellow at the AIPAC-sponsored think tank, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, he also served, until his government appointment, as founding chairman of the Jerusalem-based Jewish People Policy Planning Institute, which views intermarriage with non-Jews as an “insidious” challenge. On hearing that Ross had joined Obama’s team, one Chicago-based pro-Israel activist commented, “now … we have no concerns whatsoever.”

And yet there are some who believe that Obama is anti-Israel…

December 3, 2010 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Progressive Hypocrite | Leave a comment

Ex-CIA official: Obama’s only peace process is to ‘hope for a miracle’

By Adam Horowitz | Mondoweiss | December 3, 2010

Robert Grenier, CIA’s chief of station in Islamabad, Pakistan, from 1999 to 2002 and director of the CIA’s counter-terrorism center, writes in disbelief at the current Obama administration strategy with the peace process (which he considers long dead). He comments on the Al Jazeera English website about the rumored bundle of incentives the White House is offering Israel for a 90-day extension of the partial settlement freeze:

After witnessing US policy toward Israel and the Palestinians for over 30 years, I had thought I was beyond shock. This development, however, is breathtaking. In effect, along with a whole string of additional commitments, including some potentially far-reaching security guarantees which it is apparently afraid to reveal publicly, the Obama administration is willing to permanently cast aside a policy of some 40 years’ duration, under which the US has at least nominally labelled Israeli settlements on occupied territory as “obstacles to peace,”. All this in return for a highly conditional settlement pause which will permit Netanyahu to pocket what the US has given him, simply wait three months without making any good-faith effort at compromise, and know in the end that Israel will never again have to suffer the US’ annoying complaints about illegal settlements.

Leave aside the fact that as of this writing, the Israeli cabinet may yet reject this agreement – which seems even more breathtaking, until one stops to consider that virtually everything the Americans have offered the Israelis they could easily obtain in due course without the moratorium. No, what is telling here is that the American attempt to win this agreement, lopsided as it is, is an act of sheer desperation.

What gives rise to the desperation, whether it is fear of political embarrassment at a high-profile diplomatic failure or genuine concern for US security interests in the region, I cannot say. It seems crystal clear, however, that the administration sees the next three months as a last chance. Their stated hope is that if they can get the parties to the table for this brief additional period, during which they focus solely on reaching agreement on borders, success in this endeavour will obviate concerns about settlements and give both sides sufficient stake in an outcome that they will not abandon the effort.

No one familiar with the substance of the process believes agreement on borders can be reached in 90 days on the merits; consider additionally that negotiators will be attempting to reach such a pact without reference to Jerusalem, and seeking compromise on territory without recourse to off-setting concessions on other issues, and success becomes virtually impossible to contemplate.

The Obama administration is coming under heavy criticism for having no plan which extends beyond the 90 days, if they can get them. There is no plan for a 91st day because there is unlikely to be one. The Obama policy, absurd as it seems, is to somehow extend the peace process marginally, and hope for a miracle. The demise of that hope carries with it the clear and present danger that residual aspirations for a two-state solution will shortly be extinguished with it.

Grenier believes the two state solution is no longer possible (“no conceivable Israeli government could remove [the settlements] even if it wanted to”) and the long term outcome is “the progressive delegitimation of the current state, and the eventual rise of a binational state in its place.”

December 3, 2010 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Progressive Hypocrite | Leave a comment

“Unconstitutional” food bill driven by Big Food lobby dollars

By Rady Ananda | The People’s Voice | December 2, 2010

While over 200 organizations lobbied on S.510, the Food Safety Modernization Act, no one seemed to notice an unconstitutional section in the bill until after it passed on Tuesday. That day, Roll Call advised that the bill contained a provision, Sec. 107, allowing the Senate to raise revenues. This violates Article I, Section 7, of the U.S. Constitution, granting that power exclusively to the House. S.510 opponents now celebrate the House’s use of the “blue slip process” to return the bill to the Senate.

The Alliance for Natural Health figures that: “The only possible ‘quick fix’ would be a unanimous consent agreement in the Senate to strike that revenue-raising provision from the bill—but Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) has already stated that he will oppose, so unanimity will be impossible.” ANH believes it is unlikely that the Senate will return to a debate on S.510, given its full agenda. Its only other option is to “allow the bill to die at the end of this Congress [which means] a new Food Safety Bill will be introduced next year.”

After S.510 passed, President Obama issued a statement: “I urge the House — which has previously passed legislation demonstrating its strong commitment to making our food supply safer — to act quickly on this critical bill, and I applaud the work that was done to ensure its broad bipartisan passage in the Senate.”

Apparently, the Senate moved too quickly. Their overreach only supports the natural foods movement assertion that the entire bill is over-reaching as the federal government seeks complete control over local foods.

The Money and the Vote

In an email, Canada Health whistleblower Shiv Chopra noted, “It is all about corporate control of food and public health.” He’s not alone in believing that a ‘hidden corporate agenda’ is driving the federal government to impose itself on local food production and distribution. This belief is bolstered by a detailed look at the financial contributors in support of food control legislation. Open Secrets.org reports that 208 groups lobbied on S.510. According to an analysis by Maplight.org, financial supporters of S.510 include:

* The US Chamber of Commerce (no friend to small business);

* Kraft Foods North America (the world’s second largest food and beverage company;

* General Mills (which earned $15 billion in revenue in 2009); and the

* American Farm Bureau Federation (a Big Ag and insurance industry lobbyist that supports the use of genetically modified foods).

According to data at Open Secrets.org, AFB spent $9.5 million since 2009 to lobby for S.510 and against the House version. Food & Water Watch noted that AFB president Bob Stallman “condemn[s] consumers and farmers who oppose the industrial model of agriculture, referring to them as ‘extremists who want to drag agriculture back to the day of 40 acres and a mule.’” Clearly, the American Farm Bureau Federation does not favor small farms.

Breaking agribusiness lobby spending down by sector, Open Secrets reports that in 2009, the:

* Crop production and basic processing industry spent $20.3 million;
* Food processing and sales industry spent $30.2 million; and the
* Agriculture services and products industry spent $34.4 million.

In 2009 and 2010, Pepsi spent over $14 million and Coca-Cola spent $4.5 million on both S.510 and HR 2749 (the House version). Other groups supporting S.510 include the International Bottled Water Association, International Dairy Foods Association, International Foodservice Distributors Association, and the Snack Food Association. Hardly advocates of small producers or natural foods.

Under the guise of food ‘safety,’ food control legislation has been widely supported by major food industry lobbyists, who spent over $1 billion since 1998 to influence Congress. Do the American people even have a voice in food choice, when measured against the hundreds of millions of dollars multinational corporations foist on Congress to influence legislation?

Monsanto and the Tester Amendment

Two final comments are in order: one on the ineffectual Tester Amendment and the other on Monsanto’s influence over food safety.

First, the Tester Amendment “exemption” — defined as those generating less than $500,000 a year in revenue — is ludicrously low. Kraft Foods generates that every seven minutes: it earned $40 billion in revenue in 2009. There can be no single bill that adequately addresses food production when talking about producers as disparate as these. Small farms are in a different universe from multinational corporations.

A ten-million-dollar exemption is more reasonable. Farms earning less than $10 million a year are much more similar to Mom & Pop operations than they are to Kraft Foods or Monsanto. Farms earning between a half million and ten million annually are more likely than Mom & Pop to achieve product consistency and, because of a higher output, lower market price, thus appealing to locavores on three levels. That ludicrously low $500,000 figure only highlights the overreach of an obese federal government.

Second, the Tester Amendment does not exempt small food producers as broadly as proponents claim. Eric Blair noted that “even a ‘very small business’ making less than $500K per year, doing business ‘within 275 miles’ and directly with ‘end-user customers’ is still required to adhere to all of the [other] regulations” in the massive food control bill.

In order to qualify for exemption, he points out that small producers must file three years of detailed financial records, detailed hazard analysis plans, and detailed proof of compliance with local, county and state laws. Then, the Secretary of Health and Human Services must approve each exemption.

How many “food producers” who donate food to the homeless, or who supply homemade products at bake sales, county fairs, church bazaars, and community picnics are going to bother with such hyper-regulation? Obama’s vision of food “safety” destroys the local economy, and it destroys community relations.

S.510 opponent Sen. Tom Coburn has repeatedly stressed that the bill will not make our food supply any safer and will “drive small producers out of business.” No wonder so many multi-billion dollar corporations support it.

Finally, let’s not forget that Obama has stacked his administration with former employees of Monsanto, making Michael Taylor his Food Czar. Anything this Administration supports in the way of food control will surely benefit Monsanto, while harming the natural foods industry and small producers. Indeed, the Food and Drug Administration is already waging a bureaucratic war on private food contracts and natural food producers.

Meanwhile, the battle for food freedom rages on, with a temporary reprieve now that S.510 has been recalled to the Senate Chamber. Yes, we do have food freedom, even if it means defying unjust laws.

December 2, 2010 Posted by | Corruption, Progressive Hypocrite | Leave a comment

Obama’s Kleptocracy Initiative

What About Wall Street?

By RUSSELL MOKHIBER | CounterPunch | December 2, 2010

Earlier this year, we heard that the Justice Department was about to launch a “kleptocracy initiative.”

Knowing President Obama and his Attorney General Eric Holder as we do, we suspected that this initiative had nothing to do with controlling corporate thieves in the United States.

Instead, we guessed, the initiative was targeted at foreign kleptocrats.

And lo and behold, we were right.

In July, Holder announced the Justice Department’s kleptocracy initiative at the African Union Summit in Kampala, Uganda.

Holder said that the initiative was aimed “at combating large-scale foreign official corruption and recovering public funds for their intended – and proper – use – for the people of our nations.”

“We’re assembling a team of prosecutors who will focus exclusively on this work and build upon efforts already underway to deter corruption, hold offenders accountable, and protect public resources,” Holder said.

The kleptocracy initiative fits well with Obama’s take on concentrated corporate power and corporate crime – stand up and fight it overseas, enable it at home.

Kleptocracy – from the Greek – is literally government by thieves.

Merriam Webster puts it this way – “government by those who seek chiefly status and personal gain at the expense of the governed.”

Of course, this definition is a perfect fit for our military industrial complex.

For the Wall Street/Washington axis.

And most visibly, for our health insurance cabal – made up of the major private health insurance corporations – UnitedHealth, Aetna, CIGNA, Wellpoint – and their handlers in Washington – most recently and most prominently – President Obama, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Senator Max Baucus, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi.

These are the officials who controlled government health insurance policy.

They had in their hands a policy that would strip the thieves – health insurance corporations – of their power over the governed – the rest of us.

Single payer national health insurance.

Obama knew how to fight back against the health insurance kleptocracy – and in fact in 2003 said he would in fact push for a single payer system – once the White House and Congress were in the hands of the Democrats.

But when Obama and the Democrats took power, they became part of the health insurance kleptocracy.

Under a single payer system, the private insurance corporations would be given the death sentence.

(Yes, we are for the corporate death penalty when it comes to private health insurance corporations.)

In their place, we’d create a public insurance pool – everybody in, nobody out.

This would save the governed about $400 billion a year, cover everyone, and save about 45,000 lives a year.

(Yes, 45,000 Americans die every year from lack of health insurance.)

So, we hereby propose a kleptocracy initiative for the United States.

End the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Crack down on corporate crime.

Slash corporate welfare.

And pass single payer.

And when we finally get a President willing to fight kleptocracy at home as well as abroad – maybe he or she will launch the new initiative not in Uganda.

But right here in the USA.

Onward to single payer.

Russell Mokhiber edits Single Payer Action.

December 2, 2010 Posted by | Progressive Hypocrite | Leave a comment

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