A shameful injustice

Comment

---

Cuba's 50-year defiance of US attempts to isolate it is an inspiration to Latin America's people

Philip Agee
Saturday March 10, 2007
The Guardian

There is a wave of progressive change sweeping Latin America and the Caribbean after the many lonely years in which Cuba held high the torch, with free universal healthcare and education, and world-class cultural, sports and scientific achievements. Although you won't find a Cuban today who says things are perfect - far from it - probably all would agree that compared with pre-revolutionary Cuba, there is a world of improvement.

George Bush, the antithesis of this process, is now in Brazil at the start of a mission to lure five countries away from regional economic integration. However, the many thousands in the streets demonstrate the region's vast repudiation of Bush and what he stands for, something polls reflect unanimously.

---

---

All Cuba's achievements have been in defiance of US efforts to isolate Cuba; every dirty method has been used, including infiltration, sabotage, terrorism, assassination, economic and biological warfare and incessant lies in the media of many countries. I know these methods too well, having been a CIA officer in Latin America in the 1960s. Altogether nearly 3,500 Cubans have died from terrorist acts, and more than 2,000 are permanently disabled. No country has suffered terrorism as long and consistently as Cuba.

The Cuban revolution has always needed intelligence capabilities in the US for defence purposes, even before it took power in 1959. Such was the fully justified mission of the Cuban Five, who have been in jail since 1998 after being convicted of conspiracy to commit espionage in Miami, where they had no chance of a fair trial. Their sights were set exclusively on terrorist operations against Cuba - activities ignored by the FBI - and they neither sought nor received any classified government information. Their cases are still on appeal, and will be for years, but their biased convictions rank with the legal lynching in the 1920s of Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, the anarchist immigrants, among the most shameful injustices in US history.

Current US policy can be found in the 2004 report of the Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba (updated last year with a secret annexe). A fundamental goal - the same, I remember, as in 1959 - is the isolation of Cuba to stop this bad example spreading. If successful, this would mean no less than annexation by, and complete dependence on, the US, in fact if not in law. Other goals still intact are to foment an internal political opposition and economic hardship, leading to hunger and despair.

Yet nearly 50 years of US economic warfare hasn't worked, even though Cubans estimate the cost to them at more than $80bn. After the freefall in the early 1990s, with the collapse of the Soviet Union, the economy began to recover in 1995. By 2005 growth was 11.8% and in 2006 12.5%, the highest in Latin America. Exports of services, nickel and pharmaceutical and other products are booming, and the US has not been able to stop this.

In the end efforts to isolate Cuba have failed. Last September Cuba was elected, for the second time, to lead the Non-Aligned Movement of 118 countries, and two months later the UN voted for the 15th consecutive year to condemn the US embargo, by 183 to 4. In 2007 Cuba has diplomatic or consular relations with 182 countries, and Havana hosts seemingly endless international conferences. In recent years Cuba's resorts have been attracting more than 2 million tourists annually. Far from isolating Cuba, the US has isolated itself.

More than 30,000 Cuban doctors and health workers are saving lives in 69 countries, many in difficult areas. Meanwhile 30,000 young people from dozens of countries are studying medicine in Cuba on full scholarships. All come from areas lacking doctors.

Cuba's literacy programme, known as "Yes I can", has been adopted in nearly 30 countries, with thousands of Cuban volunteers teaching. The scheme, conducted in Spanish, Portuguese, English, Creole, Quechua and Aymara, has helped some 2 million people to read and write, most of whom continue their education afterwards.

Thanks to this international assistance, Cuban prestige and influence - and international solidarity with Cuba, - have never been greater. It was to defend these worthy programmes that the Cuban Five, unjustly convicted, went to Miami in the 1990s. Freedom for them should be the cause of everyone for whom human rights and justice are important, both in the US and around the world; and that cause can be supported in 300 Free the Five solidarity committees in 90 countries. Philip Agee, a former CIA secret operations officer, is author of Inside the Company: CIA Diary. He travels in Cuba and Latin America as a campaigner, and manages an online travel service to Cuba.

philipagee@yahoo.com

Iraq: Pulled Out Or Pushed Out

Robert Dreyfuss

March 09, 2007

Robert Dreyfuss is an Alexandria, Va.-based writer specializing in politics and national security issues. He is the author of Devil's Game: How the United States Helped Unleash Fundamentalist Islam , a contributing editor at The Nation and a writer for Mother Jones, The American Prospect and Rolling Stone. He can be reached through his website, www.robertdreyfuss.com.

Two parliaments, half a world away from each other, struggled with calls to end the war in Iraq yesterday. In Washington, Democrats in the U.S. Congress ended weeks of squabbling to settle on the outlines of a legislative plan to end the war no later than August, 2008, and perhaps sooner. Meanwhile, in Baghdad, a new constellation of political parties is beginning to take shape in the Iraqi parliament, united around the idea of asking U.S. forces to leave Iraq as soon as possible. Tremendous obstacles stand in the way of pro-peace forces both in Congress and in Iraq’s parliament, but if I had to guess, I’d bet that the Iraqis will ask the United States to get out of Iraq long before Congress can force the issue.

Most congressional progressives and members of the Out of Iraq Caucus aren’t thrilled with the plan cobbled together by Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Even so, let’s give credit where credit is due. Four months after an election in which American voters went to the polls to demand an end to the war, the Democrats responded by proposing a timetable to do just that, calling for the withdrawal of U.S. forces by the end of 2007 if President Bush can’t certify that the Iraqi government is meeting a series of specific benchmarks, and by August 2008 even if those benchmarks are met.

The Democratic House leadership is: facing a nearly unified Republican caucus in both the House and Senate opposed to any weakening of the U.S. role in Iraq; threatened by a promised White House veto; and dragged down by the anchor of several dozen conservative, Blue Dog Democrats afraid to challenge President Bush over the war. Nevertheless, House leaders have probably done about the best they could. It won’t satisfy anti-war activists, who’ll have to redouble efforts to turn up the heat on the congressional Dems. And it hasn’t exactly won plaudits from congressional progressives, who are pressing their own plan to force a more definitive exit, and sooner, by making more aggressive use of the power of the purse to force a withdrawal by the end of 2007—even though most of them are likely to hold their noses and vote for Pelosi’s watered-down plan, too.

But the harsh reality of the American political system, in which the White House holds most of the cards—from its veto power to the president’s role as commander in chief—means that Congress is playing politics, not making policy. To be sure, it’s good politics: over the next 18 months or so, the Democrats can draw a sharp distinction between their support for a withdrawal deadline and the president’s obsessive insistence on escalating the war. That, in turn, can help guarantee that the November 2008 election results in another Democratic landslide. A recent USA Today poll showed that a stunning 77 percent of Americans favor bringing U.S. troops home if the Iraqi government fails to end the civil-war violence there. But the House legislation isn’t likely to become law. Nor is an anti-war resolution in the Senate, where the Republicans are planning a filibuster to stop it.

And so, at least as far as Congress is concerned, the war will go on. True, Democrats might find a reservoir of courage that will enable them to conduct the kind of full-court press on Iraq that’s needed to end the carnage there. And true, if enough Republicans in Congress stopped acting like suicidal lemmings running over the Iraq War cliff and defected to the peace camp, the war would end quickly. But neither of those seems likely.

While Congress may be stymied, however, something important is happening in Iraq.

Few Americans pay attention to Iraqi politics, but over the past few days something has occurred that could change the course of the war. For the first time since the Iraqi election of 2005, a coalition of Sunni and Shiite Arab parties and leaders is starting to take shape, across the sectarian divide that has fueled the civil war. It began two days ago, with the announcement by the Fadhila (Islamic Virtue) party that it is leaving the United Iraqi Alliance (UIA), to become an independent political party.

With 15 seats in the Iraqi parliament and with a significant grassroots base throughout the Shiite areas of southern Iraq, Fadhila is a nationalist party committed to the idea of a unitary Iraqi state. It is opposed to the breakup of Iraq into regions or statelets. And its leader, Nadim al-Jaberi, is explicitly opposed to sectarianism. He is committed to reaching out to Sunni parties and secular groups to find common ground, and a new political coalition. Most important, like most of the Sunni parties in Iraq, al-Jaberi and Fadhila support the rapid withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq.

Fadhila is currently negotiating with Sunni and secular parties—including the Sunni religious bloc, a quasi-Baathist Sunni nationalist party and the secular Iraq National List led by former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi—on the formation of a new Sunni-Shiite-secular bloc in Iraq that would have nearly 100 votes in the 270-member Iraqi parliament.

Not only that, but Fadhila is a “Sadrist” party, whose origins lie in loyalty to the powerful Sadr clerical family. Fadhila is not loyal to Muqtada al-Sadr, the thirty-something mullah who leads the Mahdi Army. But there are enough ties between Fadhila and the Mahdi Army that perhaps Muqtada’s own bloc could be persuaded to join the emerging new coalition, too. (Late last year, Muqtada’s party pulled out of the Iraqi government, and according to Iraqi insiders Sadr is also talking to the same nationalist, Sunni and secular forces about the creation of a new “government of national salvation.”) Along with a handful of independent Shiite members of parliament, that would give the new coalition enough power in parliament to have a vote of no confidence in hapless U.S. ally Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, topple his government and then reconstitute a nationalist Iraqi government that could ask for the withdrawal of U.S. forces. Even part of the ruling Dawa party, Maliki’s own party, is said to favor the idea.

Yesterday, members of the Iraqi parliament representing all of those parties—Fadhila, Allawi’s bloc and the Sunni parties—held an unprecedented teleconference with a dozen members of Congress, both Democrats and Republicans, an event organized by Representative Jim McDermott (D.-Wash.). Fadhila’s Nadim al-Jaberi took part in the teleconference, and he minced no words. “Putting a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. troops is a very important step in giving Iraqis confidence that the occupation will end,” he said. Jaberi also added that by quitting the UIA, Fadhila has permanently splintered the Shiite bloc. “We have opened a very wide door in redrawing the Iraqi political map,” he said, hinting that Muqtada al-Sadr’s party might walk through that door and join the new bloc.

Other Iraqi parliamentarians, including Saleh Mutlaq of the Iraqi National Dialogue Front, along with representatives of the Iraqi Accord Front (Sunni) and the Iraq National List, also took part in the teleconference with Jaberi. All called for the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq, along with emergency efforts to reconstitute a new Iraqi government and to rebuild the Iraqi armed forces.

The emerging new Iraqi coalition is fragile, and it could easily fall apart or fall victim to intensified sectarian warfare. Many obstacles lie in its way, including the attitude of the Kurds, the opposition of the powerful Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) and other factors—including, of course, the machinations of the United States and its ambassador in Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad. But it’s at least possible that by the summer a new government could start taking shape in Baghdad, one that could (among other things) assert its nationalist credentials by demanding a timetable for a U.S. pullout.

President Bush, of course, would do everything he could to prevent the emergence of such a new coalition in Iraq, including possibly the use of military force against its leaders. Unlike with Nancy Pelosi’s legislation, however, at least the White House can’t veto something that the Iraqi parliament passes.

On Dave Obey, “Idiot Liberals” and Ending the War

The blogosphere is abuzz with talk of Wisconsin Rep. Dave Obey’s (D) frustrated outburst about Iraq caught on YouTube. Antiwar activists are high-fiving each other, almost as if catching Obey’s outburst about "idiot liberals" is as big a YouTube feat as catching George Allen saying "macaca." This is deeply troubling on a number of levels, and an opportunity for a bit of constructive self-reflection about where we as a progressive movement are.

I’m going to say a few things here that some of my readers aren’t going to like - some things that I’ve been pondering as I am writing my new book. But it’s important at times to look at ourselves and our movement critically if we are to continue advancing. Here’s the deal folks: There are some "idiot liberals" out there, and this episode actually highlights that reality.

Dave Obey represents a pretty conservative district that is not exactly easy for a Democrat to represent (this is why the NRSC can’t wait for him to retire). He originally voted against the war, he has been one of the most outspoken critics of the war, and he has repeatedly used his position as Appropriations Chairman to try to get the situation in Iraq under control. These are the facts, and I witnessed it first hand, having worked for him a few years ago.

Now, you can argue whether his tactics right now are smart. You can have a reasoned disagreement about whether he should be pushing a supplemental appropriations bill that includes new money for veterans medical care and binding language to end the war by March of 2008. There is a very legitimate case to be made that Democrats shouldn’t support any money to continue the war and that the supplemental appropriations bill that Obey is carrying does also do that.

However, berating one of the antiwar movement’s longtime leaders and then trying to mount his head on the virtual YouTube wall over a debate about the best WAY to end the war suggests that the antiwar movement fundamentally does not understand the very power structure it is trying to influence. It’s the same fundamental misunderstanding we at the Progressive States Network experienced when a few antiwar activists attacked us for pushing resolutions in state legislatures that "only" call for Congress to defund the Iraq escalation, as opposed to ending the war entirely (which, by the way, many of these resolutions do - Progressive States, unlike some other organizations on the left, is not in the top-down habit of dictating to state legislators what they exactly have to do - we provide models and templates and support so the effort is actually homegrown, and in that process our models and templates are customized).

Dave Obey is an ally of the progressive movement on almost every issue, and on the war in specific. Go ahead and try to claim I’m only saying that because I once worked for him, but then take some time and look at his voting record and his actions. By any standard - other than those of a tiny group of, yes, "idiot liberals" - Obey is a progressive hero. Spending time and energy attacking him, as opposed to the true obstacles to ending the war, is both a waste, and potentially couterproductive, because someone like Obey, representing the district that he does, could easily just walk away (he won’t, because he’s Obey, but conceptually he certainly could).

The real news out of Obey’s outburst is that, as the Associated Press confirms, he really doesn’t have the votes in the Democratic caucus to cut off funding for the war, and that he courageously broke traditional etiquette by implicitly calling out the faction of pro-war Democrats who are standing in the way of stronger action on the war. These are the obstacles that the progressive movement should be focusing on pressuring. Obey’s frustration clearly comes from his perception (whether right or wrong) that he, an antiwar stalwart from a "tough district" is being unduly harassed at the very time he needs the progressive movement to help him whip votes out of other Democrats who are the real problem. And his frustration is grounded in reality - fairly often, progressive activists, and the Netroots in particular, give passes to conservative Democrats because they come from the same kinds of "tough districts" Obey comes from.

I’m in no way excusing Obey’s behavior that was caught on film. He didn’t take time to communicate properly, he got way too angry way too fast and his frustration translated into him mistreating the people who were asking him questions. That is unacceptable, and I’m happy he apologized. He needed to.

However, the troubling thing out of the spat is not Obey’s behavior: it is the reaction to it by the progressive movement, and what that reaction really says. The idea that Jack Murtha - the guy who voted for the war, the guy who was one of the most outspoken pro-war Democrats, the guy who has never seen a defense bill he didn’t try to increase - is now an antiwar saint beyond reproach, but Dave Obey is some sort of pro-war villain is so fundamentally absurd it suggests that at least some who liken themselves as progressive movement leaders really are "idiot liberals" because they have positively no idea how the hell basic movement building or power works (mind you - I’m not saying Jack Murtha hasn’t been courageous in opposing the war of late- he has, which is why I thought he should have been Majority Leader - but the point is that the basic understanding of "allies" and "enemies" can be wholly misunderstood).

If those working in professional movement politics really want to end the war - and not just be in a perpetual state of unproductive contrarian outrage - they can start by remembering the need to target pressure and the need to apply both the carrot and the stick. Shoving a stick up the rear end of an ally is the behavior of “idiots” - whether liberal or otherwise - because it only puts our goal farther out of reach.

COMMENTS: Go to Sirota's Working Assets site to comment on this entry

posted 3/10/2007 by David Sirota @ 12:28 pm | Permalink

In Iraq, Whispers of Soft Coup Arise

Posted GMT 3-9-2007 21:38:25

BAGHDAD -- Secular former prime minister and U.S. favorite Ayad Allawi is leading a new push to replace the Shiite-led administration of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki with a broad-based government that would focus on restoring order.

Amid deepening concerns among Sunnis and secularists about al-Maliki's performance, Allawi has emerged at the center of an initiative to create a "national salvation front," which his supporters say would be able to secure the backing of Iraqi insurgents, reunite the country and end the sectarian conflict that has prevailed for more than a year.

Though Allawi's aides deny that he wants to replace al-Maliki as prime minister, Allawi is preparing to embark on a tour of the region to win the support of Arab governments for his proposals, just as representatives of Iraq's neighbors are gathering with the U.S. in Baghdad for a regional conference intended to shore up support for the al-Maliki government.

The idea of a new coalition to overturn the current political process is not new, and the front has yet to be fully formed.

Sending a message

But the effort has been given new momentum by the reappearance on the Iraqi political scene of Allawi, a high-profile U.S. ally who is both a Shiite and a centrist; the defection this week of the Fadhila Party, a small faction from al-Maliki's ruling Shiite coalition; and a trip by Allawi in the company of U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad to visit the Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani last weekend.

U.S. Embassy officials refused to say why Khalilzad accompanied Allawi on the trip to Kurdistan or what was discussed during the talks.

But the Kurdistan visit was interpreted by many in Baghdad as a public display of support for Allawi by the U.S. It was also seen as a warning to al-Maliki that he cannot count on continued U.S. support if his Shiite-led government does not deliver on a range of promises intended to end the sectarian conflict and bring about real reconciliation with Sunnis.

"You see Allawi meeting with Barzani and the U.S. ambassador is with Allawi, so people analyze this as meaning that the U.S. supports Allawi," said Kurdish legislator Mahmoud Othman, who discussed the meeting with Barzani and does not believe the U.S. has made a decision to support the new front.

"Maybe the U.S. is using this to put pressure on Maliki to deliver more, to remind him that there are alternatives," Othman said.

Sunnis and secularists staunchly opposed to the Islamist Shiite parties now running the government have unsuccessfully tried to find ways to block Shiite rule since the December 2005 election, which gave Shiites a plurality, though not an outright majority, in the Iraqi parliament.

For any new coalition to have a chance of outvoting the al-Maliki government in parliament, it would have to secure the backing of the Kurds, the second-largest parliamentary bloc. The Kurds teamed up with the Shiite coalition to form a majority in the current government.

Triggering rumors

The Kurds are not prepared to abandon their Shiite partners for now, said Othman, which makes it difficult to see how Allawi can succeed in his efforts.

The U.S. has also given no indication that it is considering abandoning al-Maliki. Addressing reporters at his first news conference on Thursday, Gen. David Petraeus, the new commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, expressed full confidence in al-Maliki, saying that he and his team are "striving to be leaders for all Iraqis and responsive to the desires of all Iraqis."

The political maneuvering has nonetheless triggered rumors across Baghdad that a coup plot is being hatched, stirring fury among al-Maliki's supporters.

"If there is any conspiracy or plot against Maliki's government, millions of people will take to the streets," Shiite legislator Hassan Snaid, one of al-Maliki's closest advisers, told Al-Hurra TV, in a reminder that the Shiite government enjoys the support of the vast majority of ordinary Shiites.

Supporters of the new front deny that they are conspiring to remove al-Maliki. They say they will seek to replace him only if he fails to fulfill a set of demands that includes the formation of a new government, an overhaul of the de-Baathification law, which prevents many former Baathists from returning to public life, and a review of the constitution.

These are longstanding Sunni demands, backed by the U.S., that al-Maliki has repeatedly said he will address. They also include a revamp of his Cabinet, which he has promised in the coming week.

"Our problem is not with Mr. Maliki as a person. Our problem is with the system, which must be modified," said Izzat Shahbandar, a parliamentarian from Allawi's bloc who is closely involved in the new effort.

"The first step is for Mr. Maliki to make changes, and if he doesn't respond we are ready to form a parliamentary bloc that is big enough to remove the prime minister."

The latest challenge to al-Maliki has the support of most members of the main parliamentary Sunni and secular blocs, and efforts are also under way to lure support away from the Shiite coalition, which controls 128 seats. Past efforts to split the United Iraqi Alliance have failed, though the small Fadhila Party, with 15 seats, announced it was leaving the coalition earlier this week.

But with the Kurds in control of 53 seats, that still leaves the Allawi initiative far short of the 138 seats needed to bring about a parliamentary coup.

"I'm not optimistic that it will succeed," said Othman, the Kurdish legislator. "I'd prefer a secular government, but the Shiites are sticking together and they're a strong coalition."

By Liz Sly
Chicago Tribune

Iraq: The Genocide Option

by Edward Herman

ZNet Commentary (January 24 2007)

It was claimed early in 2005 that the United States was considering resort to what has been called the “Salvadoran Option” in Iraq, in which, as had been done in El Salvador in the 1980s, US Special Forces would train paramilitary squads to hunt down and assassinate rebel leaders and their supporters. {1} A year earlier, it was reported that a sizable fund had been appropriated for the creation of an exile-based paramilitary unit for Iraq, and that the money would more broadly “support US efforts to create a lethal, and revengeful Iraqi security force”. It was expected that this would lead to “a wave of extrajudicial killings” of armed rebels, but also of “nationalists, other opponents of the US occupation and thousands of civilian Baathists”. {2}

The rise of the death rate in Iraq, and the evidence of large-scale assassinations and slaughters frequently carried out by uniformed men, suggests that the Salvadoran option was put in place and that it has done its work well even if failing to bring victory to the Shiite leaders and militias and their sponsors.

However, along with the Salvadoran option the US military had also stepped up its own activities in one of a series of “surges”, among them the assault on Fallujah in November 2004, and using the Fallujah model, with the application of massive firepower in Sunni-dominated areas, much of it from the air, moving from town to town, in an effort to kill Sunni resistance fighters and render their home bases unusable. Because of the lavish use of firepower and limited concern with Iraqi civilian casualties, this process is very costly to civilians in the area of attack. Civilians also suffer from the fact that the invading troops not only don’t speak their language, but become extra hostile as they suffer casualties from a resistance that lives among the local population. This results in greater ruthlessness and increasing numbers of cases of literal direct mass murder as in Haditha. {3}

This is reminiscent of US policy during the Vietnam war, where torture and multiple Haditha-type massacres, enormous firepower, napalm, B-52 bombing raids, and chemical warfare applied to jungles and peasant farms, ravaged the country, leaving much of it a wasteland, killing several million civilians, and leaving a heritage of traumatized, injured and chemically damaged people as well.

It is important to understand that the most violent warfare, including My Lai and its many many look-alikes, as well as the use of napalm and dioxin-based herbicides, was applied in the southern part of the country, which the United States was allegedly “protecting” from an invasion from the north. The methods of warfare themselves demonstrated that the alleged protection and “saving” was a lie, but it should be recognized that the reason these horrors could be applied more lavishly in the south rather than the north is that the south was controlled by the US occupation and its puppet government, so that, unlike North Vietnam, the terrible violence wrought against the southern peasantry could be relatively hidden and kept from public and international scrutiny.

The US attack on Vietnam may be termed the “Genocide Option”, as the killing and destruction went far beyond anything that took place in El Salvador, and threatened the survival of the southern population. Southern Vietnam had its US-organized death squads, with Operation Phoenix famously accounting for possibly 40,000 assassinations of NLF cadres and unknown other victims of this murder program.

El Salvador also had impressive death squads, but couldn’t match the scope and intensity of the violence wrought by the United States on the distant peasant society, which brought into play all weapons in the US high-tech arsenal short of the nuclear - many being tested against live experimental victims - used in enormous volume, without moral restraint (and with minimal protest from the “international community”).

By 1967 the level of violence had reached a point where Vietnam scholar Bernard Fall warned that “Vietnam as a cultural and historic entity” is threatened with extinction … [as] “the countryside literally dies under the blows of the largest military machine ever unleashed on an area of this size”. {4} In the south, 9,000 out of 15,000 hamlets were damaged or destroyed, along with some 25 million acres of farmland and twelve million acres of forests. One and a half million cattle were killed, and the war left a million widows and 800,000 orphans. The chemical defoliation operations were vast and their effects could take many generations to reverse, and they resulted in a further generation of malformed children (500,000 in one 1997 estimate). {5}

This was a truly genocidal attack, both in volume and threat to viability and with its demand that the resistance surrender as the condition for termination of the assault. (In a marvel of transference, the oft-expressed US position was that the refusal to surrender demonstrated a low Vietnamese valuation of Vietnamese life! In a further marvel of Western impudence, the Krstic decision by the NATO-organized Yugoslavia tribunal found that “genocide” had been committed by a NATO target group [Bosnian Serbs] because killings - which explicitly spared women and children - might have ended the viability of a single small town in Bosnia.)

Another feature of the Vietnam War of relevance today is that all through its murderous course it was argued in the United States that it must go on in order to avoid a post-occupation “bloodbath”! The huge ongoing and genocidal bloodbath was needed to prevent a hypothetical one that never did materialize. {6}

The genocide option threatens Iraq, where the United States is engaged in direct military action against another virtually defenceless population - in contrast with El Salvador where proxies did the dirty work. Military technology has advanced further, and the complete amorality of the Deciders and their willingness to kill without limit to achieve their goals or save face is clear. It is important for the Deciders that not too many US service personnel be killed, as this has a definite negative effect on the national willingness to move forward to “victory” (or at least temporarily fending off acknowledging defeat). If US casualties can be reduced by more intensive firepower, at the expense of greater Iraqi civilian casualties, that has been and will continue to be the route taken. Furthermore, US pacification violence applied to Sunni-dominated towns is implemented out of sight of the mainstream media (although not completely hidden given the bravery of some non-imbedded Western journalists and Al Jazeera).

The Bush “surge” is a desperation maneuver, and in a context of ever-stronger political objections to more US personnel in Iraq and sensitivity to US casualties, there is good reason to believe that the Bush answer will be even more intensive firepower in Baghdad and other cities and villages in which the insurgents mingle easily with the civilian population. Bush even warns US citizens of more blood and gore “even if our new strategy works exactly as planned”. Furthermore, partly via the use of the Salvadoran Option and partly by US manipulation of sectarian conflict, {7} the invasion-occupation has produced a deadly civil war in which the Sunnis and Shiites engage in large-scale communal ethnic cleansing and killing, adding to the toll.

There can be little doubt that the rate of civilian killing in Iraq is about to rise from something like the recent Lancet estimate of 655,000 to a larger figure. If “genocide” was committed in Bosnia, where recent establishment analysts concluded - embarrassingly, given the earlier institutionalized total of 250,000 - that approximately 100,000 people died on all sides, including military personnel, {8} surely we have a case of genocide in Iraq just during the period 2003 to 2006. And Bush is about to give us more, with the Democrats and UN looking on but doing nothing to restrain the killing machine.

Wouldn’t it be nice if democracy worked and a popular antiwar vote had some effect? And if the global double standard now in force was not so gross and the perpetrators responsible for this genocidal outburst could be brought before a real tribunal in the interest of real global justice before their next surge?

Endnotes:

1. Michael Hirsh and John Barry, “‘The Salvadoran Option’”, Newsweek (January 14 2005).

2. Quoted in Craig Murrary, “Civil War in Iraq: The Salvadoran Option and US/UK Policy”, http://www.uruknet.org.uk/?s1=1&p=27587&s2=20.

3. Tom Engelhardt, “Collateral Damage: the ‘Incident’ at Haditha” http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/printer_060806O.shtml;
Chris Floyd, “Lesson Plan” http://www.moscowtimes.ru/stories/2006/06/02/120.html;
Linda Heard, “Media and Tal Afar”: http://www.iraq-war.ru/article/63044;
Ghalil Hassan, “Iraq: A Criminal Process”, Global Research (November 27 2005).

4. Bernard Fall, Last Reflections on a War (Doubleday, 1967).

5. Peter Waldman, “Body Counts: In Vietnam, the Agony of Birth Defects Calls an Old War to Mind”, Wall Street Journal (December 12 1970).

6. Gareth Porter, “The Bloodbath We Created”, http://www.commondreams.org/views06/1214-32.htm

7. Ibid.

8. See Ewa Tabeau and Jakub Bijak, “War-related Deaths in the 1992-1995 Armed Conflicts in Bosnia and Herzegovina: A Critique of Previous Estimates and Recent Results”, European Journal of Population, Vol 21, No 2-3 (June 2005), pages 187-215, www.yugofile.co.uk/onlynow/EJP_all.zip .
Also see the ongoing work of Mirsad Tokaca et al at the Sarajevo-based Research and Documentation Center, which produces month-by-month updates of the latest estimates for deaths attributable to the war on the webpage “The Status of Database by the Centers”, http://www.idc.org.ba/aboutus/Overview_of_jobs_according_to_%20centers.htm
Fear of Shia death squads, perhaps secretly controlled by the Badr Brigade, the leading Shia militia, frightens the Sunni. The patience of the Shia is wearing very thin. But their leaders want them to consolidate their strength within the government after their election victory in January.

Contractor linked to Bush admin. won $120 million deal to maintain Walter Reed

Privatized Walter Reed Workforce Gets Scrutiny
Army Facility Lost Dozens Of Maintenance Workers

By Steve Vogel and Renae Merle
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, March 10, 2007; A03

The scandal over treatment of outpatients at Walter Reed Army Medical Center has focused attention on the Army's decision to privatize the facilities support workforce at the hospital, a move commanders say left the building maintenance staff undermanned.

Some Democratic lawmakers have questioned the decision to hire IAP Worldwide Services, a contractor with connections to the Bush administration and to KBR, a Halliburton subsidiary.

Last year, IAP won a $120 million contract to maintain and operate Walter Reed facilities. The decision reversed a 2004 finding by the Army that it would be more cost-effective to keep the work in-house. After IAP protested, Army auditors ruled that the cost estimates offered by in-house federal workers were too low. They had to submit a new bid, which added 23 employees and $16 million to their cost, according to the Army.

Yesterday, the American Federation of Government Employees, the largest federal workers union, blamed pressure on the Army from the White House's Office of Management and Budget for the decision to privatize its civilian workforce.

"Left to its own devices, the Army would likely have suspended this privatization effort," John Gage, president of the organization, said in a statement. "However, the political pressure from OMB left Army officials with no choice but to go forward, even if that resulted in unsatisfactory care to the nation's veterans."

The Army selected IAP for the five-year deal in January 2006, but IAP did not take over management until last month. During that period, the number of facilities management workers at Walter Reed dropped from about 180 to 100, and the hospital found it hard to hire replacements.

Maj. Gen. George W. Weightman, who was Walter Reed's commander until he was relieved last week, testified this week that the privatization -- in combination with a decision by the Pentagon in 2005 to close Walter Reed by 2011 -- "absolutely" contributed to the problems.

IAP said in a statement it has "responded with a sense of urgency to address maintenance concerns throughout the [Walter Reed] complex."

Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski (D-Md.) charged this week that the Bush administration had unfairly blamed federal workers for problems "that are a direct result of the Bush administration's contracting out policy."

The White House did not respond to a request for comment.

IAP, based in Cape Canaveral, has provided such services to the government as delivering ice in the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina and helping maintain Afghanistan's air traffic control system. In 2006, the firm had $393 million in military contracts, according to Pentagon data.

IAP is owned by Cerberus Capital Management LP, an asset-management firm chaired by former Treasury secretary John W. Snow. The company is headed by two former high-ranking executives of KBR, formerly known as Kellogg Brown & Root. Al Neffgen, IAP's chief executive, was chief operating officer for a KBR division before joining IAP in 2004. IAP's president, Dave Swindle, is a former KBR vice president.

The company has worked at Walter Reed since 2003, providing housekeepers, computer analysts and clerks under a Treasury contract.

In an unrelated case, the U.S. attorney's office in Maryland announced that a Rockville contractor, Leon Krachyna Jr., pleaded guilty yesterday to a charge of bribing a Walter Reed official.

The official, Kevin R. Roach, was indicted in October for conspiracy and obstruction. According to court papers, Roach, a civilian contract specialist for the Army Medical Command, received kickbacks between 1999 and 2003 in exchange for favorable treatment of companies controlled by Krachyna and his partner, Louis Pisani Jr. Roach and Pisani await trial.

At a Fort Myer ceremony yesterday, the Army bade farewell to Secretary Francis J. Harvey, forced to resign over Walter Reed. Leaders, he said, must show "that they will be held personally accountable for their decisions."

Fed warned of foreclosure crisis as loan growth slows

business

By Craig Torres and Carlos Torres
Bloomberg News
Denver Post
Article Last Updated:03/08/2007 10:00:37 PM MST

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and other policymakers were warned that rising mortgage foreclosures are likely to get worse, as the central bank on Thursday reported the slowest pace of loan growth in four years.

The Federal Reserve Board's Consumer Advisory Council, including consumer advocates and banks, met in Washington, with Bernanke and Fed Governors Susan Bies, Randall Kroszner and Frederic Mishkin in attendance. Home-mortgage foreclosures were the first agenda item, and the officials heard anecdotes of default and families at risk.

"We have found neighborhoods with abandoned homes, 200 at a shot," said Louise Gissendaner, senior vice president and director of community development in Cleveland at Fifth Third Bancorp, the 10th-biggest U.S. bank by assets. She said abandoned housing has "devastated our city to a great degree."

Mortgage borrowing rose by $792.5 billion last year, the smallest gain since 2002, according to the Fed's quarterly Flow of Funds report. The increase last quarter was the smallest since 1998, as two years of Fed interest-rate increases depressed loan demand and slowed the housing industry.

The Fed raised its benchmark rate to 5.25 percent in June, compared with an average target of 3.2 percent in 2005, a year when net new mortgage borrowing soared by a record $1 trillion. Economists surveyed by Bloomberg News expect the Fed will hold the rate through the third quarter, the median estimate shows.

Fed officials heard stories from Denver, Cleveland, Philadelphia and New York, where neighborhoods are deteriorating as borrowers struggle to pay loans or abandon their homes in foreclosure, a process where lenders take possession of property.

Bernanke and the other governors didn't comment on interest rates, the economy or the direction of regulatory policy. They listened to comments from advocates and bankers, who indicated that foreclosures are likely to increase further.

"We feel like a canary in a coal mine," said Stella Adams, executive director of the North Carolina Fair Housing Center in Durham. "It is sad for us to know that there are 1.2 million families at risk from foreclosure."

Some 1.2 million foreclosures were reported nationwide last year, up 42 percent from 2005, according to Irvine, Calif.-based RealtyTrac, which has a database on foreclosed properties.

Delinquency rates on real-estate loans rose to 2.11 percent for all banks last quarter, the highest in four years, according to Fed data unadjusted for seasonal patterns.

Much of the deterioration in mortgage quality was the result of subprime loans, or credits to borrowers with little or poor credit history. Banking regulators on March 2 issued proposed guidance on subprime mortgages.

Consumer advocates at Thursday's meeting said poor underwriting standards in the subprime market were behind the rising foreclosure rates.

"We are facing a foreclosure crisis in this country," said Adams. "There is a distinct problem in the subprime market that is contributing to the foreclosures."