Yesterday:
CRIMES AND CORRUPTION OF THE NEW WORLD ORDER NEWS
Friday, December 8, 2006
Alaska Lawmaker Arrested in FBI Probe
Friday December 8, 2006 11:31 AM
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) - A state legislator was arrested on a federal bribery warrant, three months after federal agents raided the offices of at least six Alaska lawmakers in an investigation into a large oil field services company.
Rep. Tom Anderson was arrested Thursday at his Anchorage home and was being held at the city jail, FBI Special Agent Eric Gonzalez told The Associated Press.
Anderson's name had not appeared on a list of offices raided in late August and early September. Agents were searching for possible ties between the lawmakers and VECO Corp., officials and aides have said.
A copy of one of the search warrants obtained by the AP at the time linked the investigation to a new petroleum profits tax and a proposed natural gas pipeline contract.
No other arrests were made Thursday. Gonzalez said the investigation was ongoing and referred questions to the Department of Justice.
A message left late Thursday with Justice Department officials was not immediately returned.
Anderson, who was elected to the state House four years ago, did not seek re-election. He leaves office this month.
There was no home listing for him. His father, Tom Anderson, former director of the Alaska State Troopers, declined to comment on the arrest.
During the raids, about 20 warrants were executed across Alaska, but federal authorities would not say who received them.
VECO pledged to cooperate with the investigation.
``VECO was disappointed by the suggestion that there had been illegal or improper conduct on the part of the company or its executives,'' the company said on its Web site at the time.
The Baker Boys: Stay Half the Course
by Greg Palast
They’re kidding, right?
James Baker III and the seven dwarfs of the “Iraq Study Group” have come up with some simply brilliant recommendations. Not.
Baker’s Two Big Ideas are:
1. Stay half the course. Keeping 140,000 troops in Iraq is a disaster getting more disastrous. The Baker Boys’ idea: cut the disaster in half — leave 70,000 troops there.
But here’s where dumb gets dumber: the Bakerites want to “embed” US forces in Iraqi Army units. Question one, Mr. Baker: What Iraqi Army? This so-called “army” is a rough confederation of Shia death squads. We can tell our troops to get “embedded” with them, but the Americans won’t get much sleep.
2. “Engage” Iran. This is a good one. How can we get engaged when George Bush hasn’t even asked them out for a date? What will induce the shy mullahs of Iran to accept our engagement proposal? Answer: The Bomb.
Let me explain. To get the Iranians to end their subsidizing the Mahdi Army and other Shia cut-throats, the Baker bunch suggest we let the permanent members of the UN Security Council — plus, Germany — decide the issue of Iran’s nukes. Attaching Germany is the signal. These signers of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) agree that Iran should be allowed a “peaceful” nuclear power program.
Now, I am absolutely wary of neo-con nuts who want to blow Iran to Kingdom-come over its nuclear ambitions. But that doesn’t mean we should kid ourselves. Iran has zero need of “peaceful” nuclear-generated electricity. It has the second-largest untapped reserve of natural gas on the planet, a clean, safe, cheap source of power. There’s only one reason for a “nuclear” program, and it’s not to light Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s bedside lamp.
Here’s the problem with Baker’s weird combo of embedding our boys with Iraq’s scary army while sucking up to the Iranians: it won’t work. The mayhem will continue, with Americans in the middle, because the Baker brigade dares not mention two words: “Saudi” and “Arabia.”
Saudi Arabia is the elephant in the room (camel in the tent?) that can’t be acknowledged — and the reason Baker is so desperately anxious to sell America on keeping half our soldiers in harm’s way.
James III wants to seduce or bully Iran into stopping their funding of the murderous Shia militias. But the Shias only shifted into mass killing mode in response to the murder spree by Sunni “insurgents.”
Where do the Sunnis get their money for mayhem? According to a seething memo by the National Security Agency (November 8, 2006), the Saudis control the, “public or private funding provided to the insurgents or death squads.” Nice.
Baker wants us to bribe or blackmail Iran into stopping one side in Iraq’s uncivil war, the Shia. Yet we close our eyes to the Saudis acting as a piggy bank for the other side, the Sunni berserkers. (The House of Saud follows Wahabi Islam, a harsh, fundamentalist sect of Sunnism.)
Why is Baker, ordinarily such a tough guy, so coy with the Saudis? Baker Botts, the law firm he founded, became a wealthy powerhouse by representing Saudi Arabia. But don’t worry, the Iraq Study Group is balanced by Democrats including Vernon Jordan of the law firm of Akin, Gump which represents … Saudi royals.
Of course, the connections between Baker, the Bush Family and the Saudis go way beyond a few legal bills. (See, “The Best Little Legal Whorehouse in Texas” in my book Armed Madhouse.
Baker is more than aware that, two weeks ago, Dick Cheney dropped his Thanksgiving turkey to fly to Riyadh, at the demand of the Saudis, for a dressing down by King Abdullah. The King wants US forces to stay to baby-sit the Shias in Iraq’s army. The Saudis have made it clear that, if the US pulls out our troops, Saudi Arabians will crank up payments to their brothers, the Sunni warlords in Iraq, and Baghdad, or the entire region, will run with blood.
The outcome was foregone: King Abdullah’s wish is Cheney’s command — and Baker’s too. And so 70,000 of our soldiers will stay.
What gives King Abdullah the power to ghost-write the Iraq Study Group recommendations? It’s not because the Saudis sell us broccoli.
And therein lies the danger. Behind the fratricidal fracas in Iraq is something even more dangerous than civil war — a proxy war between Iran and Saudi Arabia over control of Iraq’s pivotal position in OPEC, the oil cartel.
Because what is painted by Baker’s Iraq Study Group as an ancient local clash between Shia and Sunni over the Kingdom of God, is, in fact, a remote control war between Iran and Saudi Arabia over the Kingdom of Oil.
*******
Greg Palast is the author of the New York Times bestseller, “Armed Madhouse” which includes Palast’s investigation, conducted for Harper’s Magazine, of the secret role of James Baker III and Saudi Arabia in the forming of US plans for Iraq’s oil.
Get a signed copy of Armed Madhouse for the holidays or browse for other signed gifts at www.PalastInvestigativeFund.org
Thursday, December 7, 2006
Time to leave Iraq
Outside View
By Douglas a. Macgregor
Dec 7, 2006, 14:41 GMT
WASHINGTON, DC, United States (UPI) -- More than two thousand years ago, a Spartan king resisted pressure to go to war saying, 'I am less afraid of the enemy`s strategy than I am of the mistakes we will make.' Today, no one in the Baker-Hamilton Iraq Study Group would question the Spartan King`s wisdom. It is painfully obvious that in Iraq, American power defeated itself.
The notion that a Muslim Arab country with no middle class or a culture that supports the rule of law could be transformed by Westerners in short order into anything resembling an Anglo-Saxon Democracy was fundamentally flawed. But applying the 'if we break it, we fix it' paradigm to Iraq, occupying and governing it directly with thousands of conventional U.S. combat troops under generals whose only strategy was brute force was even more disastrous. No nation wants foreign troops to police their country and Muslim Arabs loathe occupying Christian armies, especially brutal ones.
Any Arab, Sunni or Shiite, rebelling against such an occupation would always be able to cloak himself in nationalism, patriotism, and traditional religious values -- even if they were no better than criminals. And this is precisely what happened in Arab Iraq.
But this problem shrinks to insignificance next to the strategic blunder of defaulting to 'the Shiite strategy,' establishing with American military power in less than three years what the Iranian armed forces could not achieve in nearly a decade of war with Iraq: Shiite domination of Iraq`s army, police and administration.
Fearing the consequences of an Iranian-backed government in Baghdad, the Bush administration is turning to the Sunni Arab states that fear Iranian power. It makes sense. Sunni Arab leaders in Cairo, Amman and Riyadh understand that Iran aspires to be the core state of Islam, something Islam has lacked since the fall of the Ottoman Empire. For them, Shiite-dominated Iraq is a regional Frankenstein`s monster.
Unfortunately, it`s also a waste of time. Though Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt have a stake in curbing Iranian influence inside Iraq, they have no interest in allying themselves with an American military occupation that is illegitimate in the eyes of the whole Muslim World. Until U.S. forces leave Iraq, cooperation with them is a non-starter.
Given these developments, disengaging from Iraq would seem imperative. But the desire on both sides of the political divide, Democratic and Republican, to conceal the true scale of the disaster created by the American military occupation of Central Iraq makes immediate withdrawal unpalatable.
Instead, politicians of all persuasions insist that for U.S. forces to simply leave Iraq and turn it over to the Arabs who live there would be a disaster for all kinds of reasons -- terrorism, regional instability and the spread of weapons of mass destruction. Disengaging from Iraq, the argument goes, could lead to a replay of an August 1914-style slide into regional war.
Whether true or not, an American military force that cannot stop firefights or kidnappings on the streets of Baghdad, a force that is increasingly under attack from all sides, can do little to prevent a regional war, especially a conflict whose real issue is the Shia-Sunni struggle for control of Mecca and Medina and leadership of an Islamic movement that both Sunni and Shia Islamists believe will, once unified and purified, conquer the world.
Of course, if this is the regional war that is likely to occur, the real question is not how to stop it, but why U.S. forces should participate in it? Unless, America`s regional Sunni Arab partners ask for assistance, how would American involvement in such a conflict advance American security interests?
The answer is simple. It would not.
While Washington policymakers look for political cover on their way out of Iraq, the myth of American military omniscience and omnipotence, of limitless economic resources harnessed to a perpetual 'Wilsonian crusade for democracy,' is dying in Iraq along with American soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines.
Meanwhile, knowing that nothing with American fingerprints will survive the withdrawal of U.S. forces including Iraq`s corrupt and ineffective government, the most vexing question for the Iraq Study Group is not whether anything can be done to prevent the United States from looking ridiculous when the 'Green Zone' is overrun, looted and destroyed by enraged Arabs. It`s how fast we can end the U.S. and British military occupation of Iraq, an occupation that is both an enormous strategic benefit to Iran and a liability to the West and the Arab World.
(Retired U.S. Army Col. Douglas A. Macgregor, PhD is lead partner in Potomac League, LLC. He is the author of 'Breaking the Phalanx.' Macgregor served in the first Gulf War and at Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe during the Kosovo Air Campaign. he was an adviser to the Department of Defense on initial Second Gulf War plans and is an expert on defense policy issues of organization and transformation.)
Not What the American or Iraqi People Want
William M. Arkin on National and Homeland Security
For all the hype, the Iraq Study Group offers two fundamental recommendations that the president might even be able to implement: The group calls for the United States to engage Iraq's neighbors, specifically Iran and Syria. The group recommends a shift in U.S. military force posture and approach from "combat" to training and advice to Iraqi forces.
The Iraq Study Group should be thanked for its service to America in throwing a bucket of cold water on the White House. But post-election, the Commission's many recommendations are merely the opening salvo of a barrage of recommendations that will now emerge from the government, the think tanks, and the politicos.
The wise men have confirmed what the American public has known for some time: Iraq is finished. Our strategy, whatever it is, isn't working. It is mighty disappointing, but not surprising, though that the Study Group couldn't see that there is nothing left that the United States can do to really influence what will happen there. What is more, what it actually is proposing in its two fundamental points isn't necessarily going to make any difference.
I already have written skeptically as to whether Iran and Syria will see it in their interests to assist the Bush administration. I wonder, if the president were to engage them successfully, whether their input would help. Washington's latest sage rule is that we should talk to our adversaries, just as we did with the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Only an extremist -- the president and the vice president, that is -- would argue that we shouldn't at least talk. But I doubt that bringing Iran and Syria into the mix is the panacea that the study group and reasonable Washington now pretends it is.
So, I am left thinking that it is not even a decent bet that asking Iran and Syria to lend their good offices to a healthy Iraq would yield much. It isn't clear that they would play. It isn't clear that they would be helpful if they did. The "process" of diplomacy and the inevitable wait that the United States would have to accept while questionable parties huddled to "negotiate" and arm twist and cut their own deals merely kicks the day of reckoning further down the road.
In the short term, the study group recommends an unclear and contradictory course for the American military. The call for the withdrawal of the U.S. "combat" troops is so qualified and hedged, I'm not sure that the headlines -- that the study group is calling for the removal of all combat brigades by early 2008 -- is even true. On the one hand, the group recommends that the independent conventional forces be removed. On the other, it calls for a significant force to stay, including special operations forces.
What the group is fundamentally proposing though is that the core of the U.S. military effort switches from independent combat to a combined U.S.-Iraqi effort.The number of U.S. personnel in uniform embedded in Iraqi units would increase significantly under this proposal.
Regardless of whether the president surges more forces to Iraq, whether or not he follows through on the study group's suggestion and indeed draws down independent U.S. combat brigades, builds a rapid reaction force, reduces the American footprint, the accelerated training mission is already underway.
Just like the imagined silver bullet of diplomacy with Iran and Syria, the tough question here is whether the training and advisory approach will make a difference. I don't think so for a number of reasons. First, we are assigning U.S. troops to an even more sensitive and intimate mission with Iraqi players when we have already shown time and again that we are culturally challenged when it comes to understanding the Iraqis. Second, we are shifting responsibility for the security and success of U.S. forces to another party, one whose motivations and capabilities are suspect.
This is not some back-handed stay the course argument. I think we should get out altogether.
But let's be realistic about what will likely unfold even if we adapt the group's proposal: First, there is the question again of waiting for the Iraqis to assume the responsibilities we are thrusting upon them. No wonder Baker and others speak of "years" of continued U.S. presence. Second there remains the question of Baghdad's authority and national mandate. It isn't clear that the Shi'a dominated government -- the faction of the Shiite-dominated government -- is interested in a national military for the purpose of bringing the country together.
I understand that this "new" solution is Washington's way of withdrawing without saying it is withdrawing. But there is too much hope associated with the shift: hope that if we just redouble our effort with the Iraqis, they will all of a sudden get it and transform. In here as well is the strange article of faith that less capable Iraqi military units will succeed where more capable U.S. units failed. It seems to me that if we are admitting that there is no military solution to the problem, there is no Iraqi military solution either.
And then there is the question of Americans in uniform being thrust into an impossible position. I know that the embedded American will be there to teach their Iraqi counterparts how to shoot straight, as show an example of camaraderie, and to school them in human rights and the laws of war. But it is only a matter of time before Americans are thrust in the middle of blood letting and abuse.
Here's how I see Iraq playing out in the short term: The president makes an announcement within a month about his "new" plan. Washington is ever so pleased with a new approach. But the a la carte plan is seen by the Iraqis for what it is; it is not a U.S. timetable for withdrawal. It is not an unequivocal pledge not to establish permanent bases. It is sovereignty and authority in name only for Iraq with continued American control behind the scenes. I can't see who any of this equivocation will deflate the insurgency or stem the hatred for America that is fueled by our presence.
The "plan," in other words, is neither what the American people nor the Iraqi people want.
By William M. Arkin | December 7, 2006; 9:00 AM ET
For all the hype, the Iraq Study Group offers two fundamental recommendations that the president might even be able to implement: The group calls for the United States to engage Iraq's neighbors, specifically Iran and Syria. The group recommends a shift in U.S. military force posture and approach from "combat" to training and advice to Iraqi forces.
The Iraq Study Group should be thanked for its service to America in throwing a bucket of cold water on the White House. But post-election, the Commission's many recommendations are merely the opening salvo of a barrage of recommendations that will now emerge from the government, the think tanks, and the politicos.
The wise men have confirmed what the American public has known for some time: Iraq is finished. Our strategy, whatever it is, isn't working. It is mighty disappointing, but not surprising, though that the Study Group couldn't see that there is nothing left that the United States can do to really influence what will happen there. What is more, what it actually is proposing in its two fundamental points isn't necessarily going to make any difference.
I already have written skeptically as to whether Iran and Syria will see it in their interests to assist the Bush administration. I wonder, if the president were to engage them successfully, whether their input would help. Washington's latest sage rule is that we should talk to our adversaries, just as we did with the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Only an extremist -- the president and the vice president, that is -- would argue that we shouldn't at least talk. But I doubt that bringing Iran and Syria into the mix is the panacea that the study group and reasonable Washington now pretends it is.
So, I am left thinking that it is not even a decent bet that asking Iran and Syria to lend their good offices to a healthy Iraq would yield much. It isn't clear that they would play. It isn't clear that they would be helpful if they did. The "process" of diplomacy and the inevitable wait that the United States would have to accept while questionable parties huddled to "negotiate" and arm twist and cut their own deals merely kicks the day of reckoning further down the road.
In the short term, the study group recommends an unclear and contradictory course for the American military. The call for the withdrawal of the U.S. "combat" troops is so qualified and hedged, I'm not sure that the headlines -- that the study group is calling for the removal of all combat brigades by early 2008 -- is even true. On the one hand, the group recommends that the independent conventional forces be removed. On the other, it calls for a significant force to stay, including special operations forces.
What the group is fundamentally proposing though is that the core of the U.S. military effort switches from independent combat to a combined U.S.-Iraqi effort.The number of U.S. personnel in uniform embedded in Iraqi units would increase significantly under this proposal.
Regardless of whether the president surges more forces to Iraq, whether or not he follows through on the study group's suggestion and indeed draws down independent U.S. combat brigades, builds a rapid reaction force, reduces the American footprint, the accelerated training mission is already underway.
Just like the imagined silver bullet of diplomacy with Iran and Syria, the tough question here is whether the training and advisory approach will make a difference. I don't think so for a number of reasons. First, we are assigning U.S. troops to an even more sensitive and intimate mission with Iraqi players when we have already shown time and again that we are culturally challenged when it comes to understanding the Iraqis. Second, we are shifting responsibility for the security and success of U.S. forces to another party, one whose motivations and capabilities are suspect.
This is not some back-handed stay the course argument. I think we should get out altogether.
But let's be realistic about what will likely unfold even if we adapt the group's proposal: First, there is the question again of waiting for the Iraqis to assume the responsibilities we are thrusting upon them. No wonder Baker and others speak of "years" of continued U.S. presence. Second there remains the question of Baghdad's authority and national mandate. It isn't clear that the Shi'a dominated government -- the faction of the Shiite-dominated government -- is interested in a national military for the purpose of bringing the country together.
I understand that this "new" solution is Washington's way of withdrawing without saying it is withdrawing. But there is too much hope associated with the shift: hope that if we just redouble our effort with the Iraqis, they will all of a sudden get it and transform. In here as well is the strange article of faith that less capable Iraqi military units will succeed where more capable U.S. units failed. It seems to me that if we are admitting that there is no military solution to the problem, there is no Iraqi military solution either.
And then there is the question of Americans in uniform being thrust into an impossible position. I know that the embedded American will be there to teach their Iraqi counterparts how to shoot straight, as show an example of camaraderie, and to school them in human rights and the laws of war. But it is only a matter of time before Americans are thrust in the middle of blood letting and abuse.
Here's how I see Iraq playing out in the short term: The president makes an announcement within a month about his "new" plan. Washington is ever so pleased with a new approach. But the a la carte plan is seen by the Iraqis for what it is; it is not a U.S. timetable for withdrawal. It is not an unequivocal pledge not to establish permanent bases. It is sovereignty and authority in name only for Iraq with continued American control behind the scenes. I can't see who any of this equivocation will deflate the insurgency or stem the hatred for America that is fueled by our presence.
The "plan," in other words, is neither what the American people nor the Iraqi people want.
By William M. Arkin | December 7, 2006; 9:00 AM ET
Strong in spite of themselves
Now is the time for America's Arab allies to whisper advice to Washington, thanks to the resistance in Lebanon, Iraq and Palestine, writes Azmi Bishara
It will take more than a speech at Sde Boker, the Negev kibbutz where Ben Gurion lived until his death, to turn Ehud Olmert into Ben Gurion II. Taking advantage of a ceremony in honour of the first prime minister of Israel in that historic location was little more than a ploy devised by someone given to petty party intrigue. The not-so-historic speech itself succeeded only in treading the well-worn paths of the "empty quarter" of politics.
Olmert's announcement that Israel would be willing to agree to a geographically contiguous Palestinian state on the West Bank is far from original. It was almost a word for word repetition of Sharon's announcement after having received Bush's letter of guarantees, the White House's version of the Balfour Declaration. Of course, what Sharon, Bush and then Olmert meant was that they would agree to a Palestinian state in exchange for the Palestinians relinquishing their demands for the right to return, for Jerusalem as their capital and even for Israel to withdraw to pre-June 1967 borders. But even this comes at a price: the Palestinians have to meet certain conditions in order to prove themselves worthy of an offer they have rejected. What are these conditions? Now we must be getting down to the point which made Olmert make his announcement. The Palestinians must accept the Quartet's conditions: relinquish terrorism, recognise Israel and abide by all previous agreements, even those Israel no longer recognises or never abided by to begin with.
Olmert, and those behind him, are trying to meddle in the Palestinian dialogue over a national unity government. They're churning the curds but in order to understand what kind of cheese they want to produce we need to recall that before this diplomatic offensive they subjected the Palestinians to an economic blockade that ultimately succeeded in forcing an elected government to concede to the need to change itself. So be it. Let there be change as long as it offers the only way out of a crisis that threatened to precipitate civil war. However, the dissolution of the present Palestinian government and its replacement by a national unity government is not exactly what Israel is after. Israel wants to force the Palestinians to accept the conditions of the Quartet and the Palestinian resistance to throw in the towel. To get this it needs the right type of Palestinian government with the right type of popular base.
The Palestinian politicians relying on international pressures on the Hamas government only agreed to the National Concord Charter grudgingly, and as a stopgap. Officially they claimed that while this document may form the basis for a national unity government it cannot form the basis for negotiations with Israel. Still they bowed to popular pressures, driven by the instinctive desire to avert civil war, and signed the charter on the grounds that it would serve as the foundation for domestic change. But what about the blockade, which is what made an elected government agree to change? No progress there. In Palestine they promised Hamas that the blockade would be lifted as soon as the national unity government was formed. Then it transpired that a new national unity government would have to accept the Quartet's conditions. The difference this time is that the debate over these conditions will take place among the members of a government with a different composition. Hunger is a powerful master and food is almost within reach. Hamas, they will say, has been very flexible till now and there is such a small distance between its current position and the Quartet's, so why not accept them? Then if Hamas sticks to its position it will be blamed for jeopardising the national unity government and obstructing the lifting of the blockade.
The national unity government is supposed to be a means to get the blockade lifted and enable the Palestinians to continue to hold out for as long as possible precisely because there is no just solution in sight. To some, however, it is no more than a tool to force Hamas into accepting the Quartet's conditions.
Hamas leaders are clearly aware of this situation and if they hadn't been, Egypt took the trouble to spell it out: Hamas had to take some solid steps towards a compromise with the Europeans and Americans. Until then it was decided to put issues relating to the national unity government on hold pending a clear assurance that the blockade would be lifted once such a government is formed and also pending an agreement over positions and portfolios. In other words, there are now two preconditions for forming a national unity government: receiving an unequivocal promise from some outside power that the blockade will be lifted and agreeing internally to the distribution of ministerial posts.
Then Olmert steps in with his speech -- erroneously dubbed an "initiative". Look at all the advantages you'll gain by accepting the Quartet's conditions compared to your current wretchedness under the blockade, he's telling them, in the hope the Palestinian people, or at least an influential segment of them, will push for settlement of their leadership issue. The speech is immediately greeted by applause from Europe, which couldn't wait to hail Olmert for his courage, even if it entailed no more than blowing the dust off of Sharon's ideas. Simultaneously, from inside Palestine, he expected voices announced these ideas were "positive" and could "serve as the basis for beginning negotiations".
As astute as Olmert thinks he is at reading the Palestinian map and intervening in favour of "moderate forces", these very "moderate forces" could reject his meddling because, even if they don't realise it, they are much stronger than before. They are strengthened by the Iraqi resistance which they hate, strengthened by Hizbullah's victory which they mock and by the fact that the US needs them more than ever now that the warmongering policy it initiated post 11 September is in crisis.
The Arabs still seem unaware they've become more powerful in spite of themselves. Perhaps they are suffering a form of jetlag from the rush of post-11 September events, because they act as though the US still wants to overthrow their regimes and, therefore, they feel that in order to get the US to back off with regard to their domestic affairs they have to offer concessions on Iraq, on Palestine and a range of other Arab issues and, above all, that they have to placate Israel. So, in spite of the fact that they don't have to ingratiate themselves to the US because now they have considerable leverage, they are still determined to play the butler ever vigilant over his employer's interests. Many Arabs are incapable of recognising their own strength when it's staring them in the face. But even if they do -- if, for example, they find people speaking to them more deferentially now in some conference or summit -- they get confused, avert their eyes, and continue taking orders. They're now so comfortably settled into playing the weakling before the American bully that any thought of standing up for themselves throws them entirely off balance.
But the fact is that with the American quagmire in Iraq, the failure of American plans to sort Lebanon out after the assassination of Rafik Al-Hariri and the failure of the Israeli adventure in Lebanon to straighten that out the Arabs could adopt a tougher tone towards the US. They could, for example, pound the table and insist the Europeans and Americans accept the results of the Palestinian consensus over the national unity government as reason to lift the blockade and they could caution them as to what might happen if they refuse this demand. They, or at least some of them, could offer advice to Washington over the folly of its confrontational policy against Syria and its determination to ignore Syrian opinion.
Any sane person who knows Iraq will never regain independence and security unless its neighbours, notably Saudi Arabia, Iran and Syria, agree to cooperate in restoring stability in exchange for a complete and comprehensive withdrawal of American forces. America's Arab allies are in a position to persuade Washington that such an understanding among regional powers is the sensible course of action and that to obstruct it would only compound its follies. Similarly, Washington could really use a third party to tell it to pressure its allies in Lebanon into accepting the idea of national unity and not to prod them towards civil war by means of disastrous promises and reassurances that everything will be alright and nothing changes, least of all American policy.
But, in addition to the regimes that don't realise that thanks to the Iraqi, Lebanese and Palestinian resistance movements they are in a position to do all of the above, there are regimes that prefer not to offer any advice at all. They're simply happy to bask in America's attention. It's not just that these regimes have grown accustomed to the indentured servant relationship they have with Washington, they have also developed an interest in keeping the relationship on that footing. Some of these are now economically dependent upon selling their security services to the Americans and, therefore, have no desire to see American policy change. Others have linked themselves so strongly to American policies that they were as upset by the outcome of the Congressional elections as any gung-ho Republican.
Some of these countries built up their sources of strength stealthily and resolved to use every piastre they have to ensure the perpetuation of the principle that an ounce of old policies is better than a pound of new. Rather than pressing their advantages on behalf of Arab causes and in defence of Arab positions, they press for their old list of demands pertaining to their narrow interests, or the interests of facilitating dynastic succession.
These are not regimes which regard rule as an instrument for implementing political, economic and social projects that promise to enhance the welfare of their countries. These are regimes that are incapable of thinking in any other terms than the benefits of rule to those who rule.
© Copyright Al-Ahram Weekly. All rights reserved
Al-Ahram Weekly Online
Chavez uses petro-dollars to help the poor - in America
Sheldon Alberts
CanWest News Service
Tuesday, December 05, 2006
CARACAS, Venezuela - Hugo Chavez coasted to another six-year term as Venezuela's president on the strength of petro-dollars and promises to spread more of his country's oil wealth to the poor.
But as Chavez struggles to alleviate poverty for eight million of his own citizens, the 52-year-old leftist leader is using his oil riches in an unlikely way - by paying the winter heating bills for hundreds of thousands of underprivileged Americans.
Even as Chavez demonized the United States as an evil imperialist empire during campaign events leading to his re-election Sunday, Venezuela's state-owned oil company renewed a deal to provide 40 per cent discounts on furnace oil to 400,000 people in 15 U.S. states and the District of Columbia.
The act of generosity is dismissed by Chavez's critics as pure propaganda - an attempt to embarrass the Bush administration - and it is drawing mixed reaction among Venezuelans.
''I think he is just giving the money away,'' huffs Carmen Herrara, a retiree who lives in a suburb of east Caracas. ''There is a lot of poverty in this country that needs to be solved first.''
The heating-oil program offered by Venezuelan-owned Citgo is but one element of an incredibly complex, carrot-and-stick relationship Chavez and the U.S. have with each other, one revolving predominantly around the politics and economics of oil.
Chavez won Sunday with 61 per cent of the vote.
In Washington, the Bush administration expressed hope the U.S. could improve relations with Venezuela even though Chavez called his victory another "defeat for the devil."
Sean McCormack, the State Department spokesman, said "we hope that we could have a positive constructive relationship" with Chavez in the future.
"There are, of course, well-reported frictions on some issues. From our standpoint, there don't have to be any frictions," said McCormack, who added the U.S. was awaiting reports from international election observers before passing final judgement on the election.
Chavez had rankled President George W. Bush in August 2005 when he offered to ship emergency fuel supplies to New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.
He followed up by personally endorsing a plan by Citgo, the U.S. subsidiary of state-owned Petroleos de Venezuela S.A., to offer the heating oil discounts through a non-profit Massachusetts-based group called Citizen's Energy Corp.
The latest public-relations bonanza from that venture was a splashy press conference two weeks ago at the home of 75-year-old widow Matilda Winslow in Dorchester, a hardscrabble neighbourhood of Boston.
With Venezuelan officials present, Winslow took delivery of a winter's worth of heating oil.
''No matter the differences we might have, there is always room for co-operation,'' said Bernardo Alvarez, the Venezuelan ambassador to the U.S.
In a telephone interview Monday, Winslow said she had no qualms about accepting discounted oil from a country whose leader called Bush ''Mr. Danger'' following Sunday's elections.
''Bush bothers me, not Chavez,'' said Winslow, who has survived on Social Security since the death of her husband five years ago. ''I figure that Bush should wake up and think about the elderly and low-income people out here.''
American critics of Chavez are not as impressed.
In an editorial last week, the Wall Street Journal questioned Chavez's motives. The Venezuelan leader ''is trying to shape U.S. public opinion in the hope that more gringos will come to see the Chavez government as benevolent,'' the newspapers said.
But Brian O'Connor, a spokesman for Citizens Energy, said the Venezuelan oil is vital to low-income families because funds for a U.S. government heating-fuel assistance program have failed to grow in line with rising energy costs.
''It's about need, not politics,'' said O'Connor, who said Citgo was the only major company to respond to appeals for assistance to poor U.S. families.
Despite the political differences between governments in Washington and Caracas, Venezuela and the U.S. have a mutually dependent relationship.
Venezuela exported almost 560-million barrels of oil and petroleum products to America last year - not only from Citgo but from U.S. companies such as Chevron and Exxon, which have major operations here.
''What Citgo is doing is providing 2.4-million barrels, which is one half of one per cent of all the oil products sold into the U.S. from Venezuela,'' said O'Connor. ''So how do you criticize that tiny fraction that is used to help the poor?''
Chavez's anti-U.S. rhetoric, however, is threatening to damage his nation's oil industry.
After the Venezuelan president called Bush ''the devil'' at the United Nations in September, the 7-Eleven convenience store chain announced it was dropping Citgo as the gasoline supplier to more than 2,000 stations across the U.S.
''Regardless of politics, we sympathize with many Americans' concerns over the derogatory comments about our country and its leadership,'' 7-Eleven said in a statement.
Citgo's heating-oil subsidies in the U.S. are modeled after Chavez's PetroCaribe program, which provides oil to a dozen Caribbean nations, including Cuba. The program, which allows countries to defer payments for 25 years on low interest, has helped Chavez gain influence over the U.S. in Latin America.
Venezuelans benefit too - gasoline here sells at about 17 cents a gallon thanks to government price controls.
But some domestic opponents say Chavez's penchant for peddling discount oil comes at the expense of Venezuelans.
An estimated 33 per cent of the country's 25 million residents live in poverty.
Chavez has also used oil revenues to pay for infrastructure in countries such as Bolivia and Uruguay.
''He has been using very audaciously money from oil to buy support, in the same imperial way of the United States,'' says Teodoro Petkoff, editor of Caracas' Tal Cual newspaper and a senior opposition party strategist.
''This country can afford to be generous. But if you give money for a hospital in Uruguay when the majority of Venezuelan hospitals are worth nothing, then people resent that.''
But not everyone.
In Caracas neighbourhoods such as Petare, a sprawling hillside barrio, many residents approve of Chavez selling low-cost oil, even to the richest nation in the world.
''He is not giving it to the government of the United States,'' says Manuel Jose Petate, 46. ''He is giving it to poor people who need it, who live in poor neighbourhoods like this. If it is necessary, then I think it is good that some of these Americans have it.''
CanWest News Service
EDs: Updated with U.S. reaction to Chavez win in firstoptional cut
© CanWest News Service 2006
CanWest News Service
Tuesday, December 05, 2006
CARACAS, Venezuela - Hugo Chavez coasted to another six-year term as Venezuela's president on the strength of petro-dollars and promises to spread more of his country's oil wealth to the poor.
But as Chavez struggles to alleviate poverty for eight million of his own citizens, the 52-year-old leftist leader is using his oil riches in an unlikely way - by paying the winter heating bills for hundreds of thousands of underprivileged Americans.
Even as Chavez demonized the United States as an evil imperialist empire during campaign events leading to his re-election Sunday, Venezuela's state-owned oil company renewed a deal to provide 40 per cent discounts on furnace oil to 400,000 people in 15 U.S. states and the District of Columbia.
The act of generosity is dismissed by Chavez's critics as pure propaganda - an attempt to embarrass the Bush administration - and it is drawing mixed reaction among Venezuelans.
''I think he is just giving the money away,'' huffs Carmen Herrara, a retiree who lives in a suburb of east Caracas. ''There is a lot of poverty in this country that needs to be solved first.''
The heating-oil program offered by Venezuelan-owned Citgo is but one element of an incredibly complex, carrot-and-stick relationship Chavez and the U.S. have with each other, one revolving predominantly around the politics and economics of oil.
Chavez won Sunday with 61 per cent of the vote.
In Washington, the Bush administration expressed hope the U.S. could improve relations with Venezuela even though Chavez called his victory another "defeat for the devil."
Sean McCormack, the State Department spokesman, said "we hope that we could have a positive constructive relationship" with Chavez in the future.
"There are, of course, well-reported frictions on some issues. From our standpoint, there don't have to be any frictions," said McCormack, who added the U.S. was awaiting reports from international election observers before passing final judgement on the election.
Chavez had rankled President George W. Bush in August 2005 when he offered to ship emergency fuel supplies to New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.
He followed up by personally endorsing a plan by Citgo, the U.S. subsidiary of state-owned Petroleos de Venezuela S.A., to offer the heating oil discounts through a non-profit Massachusetts-based group called Citizen's Energy Corp.
The latest public-relations bonanza from that venture was a splashy press conference two weeks ago at the home of 75-year-old widow Matilda Winslow in Dorchester, a hardscrabble neighbourhood of Boston.
With Venezuelan officials present, Winslow took delivery of a winter's worth of heating oil.
''No matter the differences we might have, there is always room for co-operation,'' said Bernardo Alvarez, the Venezuelan ambassador to the U.S.
In a telephone interview Monday, Winslow said she had no qualms about accepting discounted oil from a country whose leader called Bush ''Mr. Danger'' following Sunday's elections.
''Bush bothers me, not Chavez,'' said Winslow, who has survived on Social Security since the death of her husband five years ago. ''I figure that Bush should wake up and think about the elderly and low-income people out here.''
American critics of Chavez are not as impressed.
In an editorial last week, the Wall Street Journal questioned Chavez's motives. The Venezuelan leader ''is trying to shape U.S. public opinion in the hope that more gringos will come to see the Chavez government as benevolent,'' the newspapers said.
But Brian O'Connor, a spokesman for Citizens Energy, said the Venezuelan oil is vital to low-income families because funds for a U.S. government heating-fuel assistance program have failed to grow in line with rising energy costs.
''It's about need, not politics,'' said O'Connor, who said Citgo was the only major company to respond to appeals for assistance to poor U.S. families.
Despite the political differences between governments in Washington and Caracas, Venezuela and the U.S. have a mutually dependent relationship.
Venezuela exported almost 560-million barrels of oil and petroleum products to America last year - not only from Citgo but from U.S. companies such as Chevron and Exxon, which have major operations here.
''What Citgo is doing is providing 2.4-million barrels, which is one half of one per cent of all the oil products sold into the U.S. from Venezuela,'' said O'Connor. ''So how do you criticize that tiny fraction that is used to help the poor?''
Chavez's anti-U.S. rhetoric, however, is threatening to damage his nation's oil industry.
After the Venezuelan president called Bush ''the devil'' at the United Nations in September, the 7-Eleven convenience store chain announced it was dropping Citgo as the gasoline supplier to more than 2,000 stations across the U.S.
''Regardless of politics, we sympathize with many Americans' concerns over the derogatory comments about our country and its leadership,'' 7-Eleven said in a statement.
Citgo's heating-oil subsidies in the U.S. are modeled after Chavez's PetroCaribe program, which provides oil to a dozen Caribbean nations, including Cuba. The program, which allows countries to defer payments for 25 years on low interest, has helped Chavez gain influence over the U.S. in Latin America.
Venezuelans benefit too - gasoline here sells at about 17 cents a gallon thanks to government price controls.
But some domestic opponents say Chavez's penchant for peddling discount oil comes at the expense of Venezuelans.
An estimated 33 per cent of the country's 25 million residents live in poverty.
Chavez has also used oil revenues to pay for infrastructure in countries such as Bolivia and Uruguay.
''He has been using very audaciously money from oil to buy support, in the same imperial way of the United States,'' says Teodoro Petkoff, editor of Caracas' Tal Cual newspaper and a senior opposition party strategist.
''This country can afford to be generous. But if you give money for a hospital in Uruguay when the majority of Venezuelan hospitals are worth nothing, then people resent that.''
But not everyone.
In Caracas neighbourhoods such as Petare, a sprawling hillside barrio, many residents approve of Chavez selling low-cost oil, even to the richest nation in the world.
''He is not giving it to the government of the United States,'' says Manuel Jose Petate, 46. ''He is giving it to poor people who need it, who live in poor neighbourhoods like this. If it is necessary, then I think it is good that some of these Americans have it.''
CanWest News Service
EDs: Updated with U.S. reaction to Chavez win in firstoptional cut
© CanWest News Service 2006
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