2007 October 30

The ecological effects of war, like its horrific toll on human life, are exponential. When the Bush Administration and their Congressional allies sent our troops in to Iraq to topple Saddam’s regime, they not only ordered these men and women to commit crimes against humanity, they also commanded them to perpetrate crimes against nature.

The first Gulf War had a horrific effect on the environment, as CNN reported in 1999, “Iraq was responsible for intentionally releasing some eleven million barrels of oil into the Arabian Gulf from January to May 1991, oiling more than 800 miles of Kuwaiti and Saudi Arabian coastline. The amount of oil released was categorized as twenty times larger than the Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska and twice as large as the previous world record oil spill. The cost of cleanup has been estimated at more than $700 million”.

During the build up to George W Bush’s invasion of Iraq, Saddam loyalists promised to light oil fields afire, hoping to expose what they claimed were the US’s underlying motives for attacking their country: oil. The US architects of the Iraq war surely knew this was a potential reality once they entered Baghdad in March of 2003. Hostilities in Kuwait resulted in the discharge of an estimated seven million barrels of oil, culminating in the world’s largest oil spill in January of 1991. The United Nations later calculated that of Kuwait’s 1,330 active oil wells, half had been set ablaze. The pungent fumes and smoke from those dark billowing flames spread for hundreds of miles and had horrible effects on human and environmental health. Saddam Hussein was rightly denounced as a ferocious villain for ordering his retreating troops to destroy Kuwaiti oil fields.

However, the United States military was also responsible for much of the environmental devastation of the first Gulf War. In the early 1990s the US drowned at least eighty crude oil ships to the bottom of the Persian Gulf, partly to uphold the UN’s economic sanctions against Iraq. Vast crude oil slicks formed, killing an unknown quantity of aquatic life and sea birds while wrecking havoc on local fishing and tourist communities.

Months of bombing during the first Gulf War by US and British planes and cruise missiles also left behind an even more deadly and insidious legacy: tons of shell casings, bullets and bomb fragments laced with depleted uranium. In all, the US hit Iraqi targets with more than 970 radioactive bombs and missiles.

More than fifteen years later, the health consequences from this radioactive bombing campaign are beginning to come into focus. And they are dire. Iraqi physicians call it “the white death” -leukemia. Since 1990, the incident rate of leukemia in Iraq has grown by more than 600 percent. The situation was compounded by Iraq’s forced isolation and the sadistic sanctions regime, once described by former UN secretary general Kofi Annan as “a humanitarian crisis”, that made detection and treatment of the cancers all the more difficult.

Most of the leukemia and cancer victims aren’t soldiers. They are civilians. Depleted uranium is a rather benign sounding name for uranium-238, the trace elements left behind when the fissionable material is extracted from uranium-235 for use in nuclear reactors and weapons. For decades, this waste was a radioactive nuisance, piling up at plutonium processing plants across the country. By the late 1980s there was nearly a billion tons of the material.

Then weapons designers at the Pentagon came up with a use for the tailings. They could be molded into bullets and bombs. The material was free and there was plenty at hand. Also uranium is a heavy metal, denser than lead. This makes it perfect for use in armor-penetrating weapons, designed to destroy tanks, armored-personnel carriers and bunkers.

When the tank-busting bombs explode, the depleted uranium oxidizes into microscopic fragments that float through the air like carcinogenic dust, carried on the desert winds for decades. The lethal bits when inhaled stick to the fibers of the lungs, and eventually begin to wreck havoc on the body in the form of tumors, hemorrhages, ravaged immune systems and leukemias.

It didn’t take long for medical teams in the region to detect cancer clusters near the bomb sites. The leukemia rate in Sarajevo, pummeled by American bombs in 1996, tripled in five years following the bombings. But it’s not just the Serbs who are ill and dying. NATO and UN peacekeepers in the region are also coming down with cancer.

The Pentagon has shuffled through a variety of rationales and excuses. First, the Defense Department shrugged off concerns about Depleted Uranium as wild conspiracy theories by peace activists, environmentalists and Iraqi propagandists. When the US’s NATO allies demanded that the US disclose the chemical and metallic properties of its munitions, the Pentagon refused. Depleted uranium has a half-life of more than four billion years, approximately the age of the Earth. Thousand of acres of land in the Balkans, Kuwait and southern Iraq have been contaminated forever.

Speaking of DU and other war-related disasters, former chief UN weapons inspector Hans Blix, prior to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, said the environmental consequences of the Iraq war could in fact be more ominous than the issue of war and peace itself. Despite this stark admission, the US made no public attempts to assess the environmental risks that the war would inflict.

Blix was right. On the second day of President Bush’s invasion of Iraq it was reported by the New York Times and the BBC that Iraqi forces had set fire to several of the country’s large oil wells. Five days later in the Rumaila oilfields, six dozen wellheads were set ablaze. The dense black smoke rose high in the southern sky of Iraq, fanning a clear signal that the US invasion had again ignited an environmental tragedy. Shortly after the initial invasion the United Nations Environment Program’s (UNEP) satellite data showed that a significant amount of toxic smoke had been emitted from burning oils wells. This smoldering oil was laced with poisonous chemicals such as mercury, sulfur and furans, which can causes serious damage to human as well as ecosystem health.

According to Friends of the Earth, the fallout from burning oil debris, like that of the first Gulf War, has created a toxic sea surface that has affected the health of birds and marine life. One area that has been greatly impacted is the Sea of Oman, which connects the Arabian Sea to the Persian Gulf byway of the Strait of Hormuz. This waterway is one of the most productive marine habitats in the world. In fact the Global Environment Fund contends that this region “plays a significant role in sustaining the life cycle of marine turtle populations in the whole North-Western Indo Pacific region”. Of the world’s seven marine turtles, five are found in the Sea of Oman and four of those five are listed as “endangered” with the other listed as “threatened”.

The future indeed looks bleak for the ecosystems and biodiversity of Iraq, but the consequences of the US military invasion will not only be confined to the war stricken country. The Gulf shores, according to BirdLife’s Mike Evans, is “one of the top five sites in the world for wader birds, and a key refueling area for hundreds of thousands of migrating water birds”. The UN Environment Program claims that 33 wetland areas in Iraq are of vital importance to the survival of various bird species. These wetlands, the UN claims, are also particularly vulnerable to pollution from munitions fallout as well as oil wells that have been sabotaged.

Mike Evans also maintains that the current Iraq war could destroy what’s left of the Mesopotamian marshes on the lower Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Following the war of 1991 Saddam removed dissenters of his regime who had built homes in the marshes by digging large canals along the two rivers so that they would have access to their waters. Thousands of people were displaced. The communities ruined.

The construction of dams upstream on the once roaring Tigris and Euphrates has dried up more than ninety percent of the marshes and has led to extinction of several animals. Water buffalo, foxes, waterfowl and boar have disappeared. “What remains of the fragile marshes, and the 20,000 people who still live off them, will lie right in the path of forces heading towards Baghdad from the south”, wrote Fred Pearce in the New Scientist prior to Bush’s invasion in 2003. The true effect this war has had on these wetlands and its inhabitants is still not known.

The destruction of Iraqi’s infrastructure has had substantial public health implications as well. Bombed out industrial plants and factories have polluted ground water. The damage to sewage-treatment plants, with reports that raw sewage formed massive pools of muck in the streets of Baghdad immediately after Bush’s ‘Shock and Awe’ campaign, is also likely poisoning rivers as well as human life. Cases of typhoid among Iraqi citizens have risen tenfold since 1991, largely due to polluted drinking water.

That number has almost certainly increased more in the past few years following the ousting of Saddam. In fact during the 1990s, while Iraq was under sanctions, UN officials in Baghdad agreed that the root cause of child mortality and other health problems was no longer simply lack of food and medicine but the lack of clean water (freely available in all parts of the country prior to the first Gulf War) and of electrical power, which had predictable consequences for hospitals and water-pumping systems. Of the 21.9 percent of contracts vetoed as of mid-1999 by the UN’s US-dominated sanctions committee, a high proportion were integral to the efforts to repair the failing water and sewage systems.

The real cumulative impact of US military action in Iraq, past and present, won’t be known for years, perhaps decades, to come. Stopping this war now will not only save lives, it will also help to rescue what’s left of Iraq’s fragile environment.

Jeffrey St Clair is the author of Been Brown So Long It Looked Like Green to Me: the Politics of Nature and Grand Theft Pentagon (Common Courage Press, 2003). His newest book is End Times: the Death of the Fourth Estate (AK Press, 2007), co-written with Alexander Cockburn. This essay will appear in Born Under a Bad Sky, to be published in December. He can be reached at: sitka@comcast.net.

Seven years since the Blair slow hand-clap

Seven years since the Blair slow hand-clap, the WI is getting tough in Wales

GETTING a slow hand-clap from the massed ranks of Women’s Institute members was one of the first public displays of discontent with Tony Blair.

And while it was seen as a pivotal moment in his premiership, it has also proved a turning point for the WI, which had languished for decades under its “ jam and Jerusalem” label.

The protest at the 2000 conference marked the increasing politicisation of the movement, and has coincided with a growth in interest and more vociferous campaigning in Wales.

Four new WI branches have been established in Cardiff recently, because young women and professionals have suddenly started to notice that the WI is a campaigning organisation.

Although the WI is traditionally strong in rural areas – having started in Anglesey in 1915 – it is now attracting growing interest in urban areas of Wales.

Merched y Wawr, Wales’ own breakaway version of the WI, may also be taking notice of the WI’s campaigning edge.

It is now demanding a Welsh-language commissioner and other measures to strengthen the language.

Tegwen Morris, Merched y Wawr’s national director, said, “The movement wants to see Welsh become an integral part of daily life. As things stand, the rights of our members are not respected.

“They cannot use numerous services through their language of choice and, as long as this continues, their rights are being trampled over.”

The language was the reason Merched y Wawr was established in 1967, when WI members in Bala were unhappy that all the WI correspondence they received was English-only and there was not a word of Welsh in the North Wales edition of the WI magazine.

Today Merched y Wawr and the WI still compete for members in Wales. If campaigning has drawn attention to the WI and attracted new members, it could achieve the same for Merched y Wawr.

“There’s always a bit of competition between organisations, even the Boy Scouts and Girl Guides,” said Eoin Redahan, of the National Federation of Women’s Institutes (NFWI). “The Boy Scouts now accept girls, therefore the Guides could lose members.”

“Certainly people learned from the WI’s calendar girls nine years ago. The number of calendars of half naked women and men has mushroomed.”

“It’s just attracted more attention since the Tony Blair clap. Since then the media has realised how involved the WI is within the community.”

Rhian Connick, head of NFWI Wales, said, “Most of our members are in rural areas, but we’re seeing more and more branches opening in the towns and cities.

“Women come in and say they’ve got an interest in campaigning work. They see that we make a difference. That attracts people, including young women in their 30s and some in their 20s. Most are young mothers and professionals.”

In the past two years four new branches have opened in Cardiff, doubling the total. Four others have opened in the Newport area, two in Swansea and one in Efail Isaf, near Pontypridd.

She said overall Welsh WI membership had fallen from 19,000 in 1997 to 16,000 now, but the decline had bottomed out.

The WI’s current campaign topics include farm-gate milk prices, too much packaging, climate change, saving community hospitals, children’s diet, and the effect of chemicals on public health.

BBC: Big Brother Cooperation

It’s a matter of alarm and concern that there are so many people out there who still believe that the BBC is a balanced and fair-minded source of news and current affairs. That belief was, at best ill-founded and at worst, typical of the hypocrisy of a British self-image of decency and fair-mindedness which, through that peculiarly British imperialist institution, the public school, gave succeeding generations the ideological veneer and justification for an unabashed and rapacious colonialism.

So successful were Britain’s ruling classes in persuading themselves of their manifest destiny to rule –an ideology which gained serious promotion through Rudyard Kipling’s obnoxious caricature of the ruled as being the White Man’s burden– that both Britain’s rulers and their ruled came to believe in their own Victorian spin.

It was out of that national hypocrisy that the BBC was born in the twilight decades of Britain’s decayed raj when, despite the harsh face of colonialism, a Scottish Presbyterian, Lord Reith, was canny enough to disguise the BBC’s real purpose of control through the instilling of elitist values by giving it the motto, “Let Nation Speak Peace Unto Nation”!

Today, in the post-Blair vassal state of a United Kingdom itself in collapse, Reith’s motto has become nothing more than an embarrassment for a corporation that is increasingly recognized as being little more than an exclusive conduit for state propaganda. The greater majority of BBC personnel may, as reports suggest, like to consider themselves to be liberal-minded nice guys but the message that Aunty puts out to the world is one of totalitarianism and brazen warmongering.

Its present, wholly one-sided, coverage of the war crime that was the invasion of Iraq and the imperialist occupation of that country and Afghanistan is just a case in point. Another is its calculated avoidance of any mention of the stolen US elections of 2000 and 2004 where the people of the United States were, in effect, hijacked by a group of robber politicians and a corrupt judiciary. Another is its continued promotion of the official Bush-instigated conspiracy theory of 911 and its silence over the extremely suspicious events surrounding that other probable conspiracy, the London bombings of 7 July 2005.

One could keep on with a long list of the BBC’s embedded reportage of events emanating as straight spin from the state’s sources, both in London and Washington. Keeping out any real, critical political analysis and barring its airwaves to anyone other than the apologists of the British state and its Washington boss, it stubbornly insists on promoting Neocon ideologues such as the unhinged John Bolton who is constantly given BBC airtime long after having been discredited and fired from office.

All that is bad enough but the role that the BBC is playing is much worse and far more deceptive than that.

Using anodyne language, innuendo and subtle suggestion, the BBC inverts the reality of affairs by creating an alternative reality and reporting on that instead as the authentic world.

The British media are masters in the art of deceit, they don’t distort reality so much as manufacture another version, casually dismissing the truth as an unrepresentative oddity.

Outright deception, delivered in a regular voice and pleasing prose, even and chirpy of tone, triumphs, as honesty is crowded out by the brilliant ruse that presents telling the truth not as the presence of honesty, but the absence of etiquette ..

Kola, Medialens, 28 October 2007

BBC News 24 is the corporation’s flagship, satellite broadcaster of news and current affairs, hence given a razzle-dazzle imagery of up-to-date, global news reportage accompanied with the sound of an urgent, authoritative yet vibrant, drumming rhythm heard in every airport departure lounge and hometown settlement across the planet.

But, together with the rest of the corrupt BBC, News 24 is feeding you and me, twenty four seven three sixty-five, what is little more than a carefully packaged, unmitigated lie.

A case in point was News 24’s recently broadcast programme in its Our World series, “Do they know who we are?” ostensibly a piece on the rapid growth of electronic surveillance technology but hidden beneath the packaging actually its promotion as something desirable that the majority of people want.

The attention span of the average viewer is no more than a few, brief seconds so the message has got to be put across in the first moments. It is then reinforced over and over with a few variations included such as an opposing view or argument which is then immediately demolished.

So this piece of surveillance promotion starts with a cheerfully upbeat version of the Harry Lime Theme from the Third Man, zither and all. This sets the mood for a positive reaction from the audience. If a negative reaction were required, the music would be appropriately anxious, even disturbing.

Almost immediately a message flashes across the screen: “75% want more security.” After some impressive clips showing Silicon Valley scientists predicting the inevitability of increasingly hi-tech surveillance technology we are introduced to the ‘product’, in this case a Gameboy-like hand-held sensor which can detect the presence of terrorists hiding inside a building whose architecture is predictably Muslim. Even their breathing, we are told, can be sensed through walls by this wonder gadget.

Then, rather cleverly, the reporter takes us to a Muslim community in Forest Gate, London and we are reminded how the police had conducted a heavy-handed raid on “suspect terrorists” last year, leaving one man shot and wounded. If the police had been able to use these sensors, the reporter suggests, perhaps all that would have been avoidable. Makes you think doesn’t it?

We are shown a group of Muslims being introduced to this technology by the reporter who, in an apparent concession to his audience, point out that there had been some immediate complaints about the imagery in the promotional video showing Muslim architecture. “But as soon as the audience were shown the technology being used in Iraq they accepted it,” he claims.

He picks on a young member of the audience who says, “We don’t need to worry. Anyone can watch us.” And then another older man who agrees that this kind of sensor could be used for “legitimate intelligence.” Thus, using recorded soundbites in a highly selective way, we see how a Muslim audience is persuaded that these highly intrusive sensors can be used in situations of war or surveillance, either against the enemy or an innocent public who should have nothing to worry about from ‘legitimate intelligence’!

Strange, is it not, that a Muslim audience could be persuaded of its use in the Iraq war? You would have expected a massive, negative reaction. But no. Instead, capitalising on guilt feelings among Muslims, they are sold the product as justifiable under wartime conditions. Once this breakthrough is achieved, the audience has been softened-up enough to accept its use by police or ‘legitimate intelligence’ (whatever that may be!) against a public that should not worry if it has nothing to hide!

This last is regularly used by the promoters of increased surveillance technology and totalitarianization. If you’ve nothing to hide, why worry? Using an individual’s anxiety (ie that he might have something to hide from ‘the Law’) and the principle of the Big Lie we are bullied into accepting further encroachments on our right to privacy.

The Big Lie is based upon the idea that most everyone tells little lies from time to time. Little lies and dishonesties are, therefore, understandable and acceptable. It’s what we all do. But Big Lies, on the other hand, are neither comprehensible or acceptable. So, when subject to a Big Lie, part of us –the part which governs our ‘little me’, personal values– shuts down, unable to deal with the enormity of it. But another part keeps running and is forced to come to terms with the unacceptable, to accept that as the message comes to us from a source of authority then it must, has to be, true.

This process is sometimes described by the mind manupilaters in blatant fashion as ‘thinking the unthinkable’, ‘pushing the envelope’, or put in another way which remains unsaid, of being coerced into accepting the unacceptable.

This process is called Cognitive Dissonance, the process used here to extract the appropriate soundbites from an audience made to feel guilty about the ‘war on terrorism.’ Well, that’s ok then, we are led to think. If a Muslim audience can accept this new technology (for they do have a problem with terrorism, don’t they?) then it should be perfectly acceptable to us. Again, the projection of our guilt (but we do have things in our life we prefer to keep hidden!) onto Muslims (who we know are susceptible to becoming terrorists).

The key-phrase to sum up this event was obtained from a man in his (responsible) ‘thirties who agrees that such intrusive technology would be fine when used by “legitimate intelligence,” meaning government authorities. Again, the phrase begs so many questions as to what is and isn’t legitimate but we aren’t given time to dwell on that.

Instead, we are taken to the final, reinforcing summation: there are already 4 million CCTV cameras in Britain so is our private life safe? We are then told (sources not revealed) that 75% want more surveillance and this ‘fact’ is borne out by an ‘expert’ from the US National Security Agency, a body with a suitably authoritative name (how many people would know that the NSC is a US government spy agency?)

Neat one, eh? Being of a mischievous, cynical nature I was left wondering if the BBC got a nice little hidden backhander from some Silicon Valley manufacturer for having given airtime to this promotional piece? With government cutbacks on BBC revenue it is increasingly having to privatize and commercialize its operations. So, while doing what the government tells it to do, in this case to promote the totalitarianization of Britain, why not make a few dollars on the side?

And, I couldn’t help keep thinking of those Muslims in Forest Gate, my febrile imagination hearing their repeated cries of indignation against the way so many of the audience had left that meeting, feeling that they had been utterly conned into unwittingly cooperating with a foxy Big Brother BBC.

The Programming Language for Mass Surveillance

According to government documents studied by The New York Times, the FBI asked several phone companies to analyze phone-call patterns of Americans using a technology called “communities of interest”. Verizon refused, saying that it didn’t have any such technology. AT&T, famously, did not refuse.What is the “communities of interest” technology? It’s spelled out very clearly in a 2001 research paper from AT&T itself, entitled “Communities of Interest” (by C. Cortes, D. Pregibon, and C. Volinsky). They use high-tech data-mining algorithms to scan through the huge daily logs of every call made on the AT&T network; then they use sophisticated algorithms to analyze the connections between phone numbers: who is talking to whom? The paper literally uses the term “Guilt by Association” to describe what they’re looking for: what phone numbers are in contact with other numbers that are in contact with the bad guys?

When this research was done, back in the last century, the bad guys where people who wanted to rip off AT&T by making fraudulent credit-card calls. (Remember, back in the last century, intercontinental long-distance voice communication actually cost money!) But it’s easy to see how the FBI could use this to chase down anyone who talked to anyone who talked to a terrorist. Or even to a “terrorist.”

From the company that brought you the C programming language comes Hancock, a C variant developed by AT&T researchers to mine gigabytes of the company’s telephone and internet records for surveillance purposes.

An AT&T research paper published in 2001 and unearthed today by Andrew Appel at Freedom to Tinker shows how the phone company uses Hancock-coded software to crunch through tens of millions of long distance phone records a night to draw up what AT&T calls “communities of interest” — i.e., calling circles that show who is talking to whom.

The system was built in the late 1990s to develop marketing leads, and as a security tool to see if new customers called the same numbers as previously cut-off fraudsters — something the paper refers to as “guilt by association.”

But it’s of interest to THREAT LEVEL because of recent revelations that the FBI has been requesting “communities of interest” records from phone companies under the USA PATRIOT Act without a warrant. Where the bureau got the idea that phone companies collect such data has, until now, been a mystery.

According to a letter from Verizon to a congressional committee earlier this month, the FBI has been asking Verizon for “community of interest” records on some of its customers out to two generations — i.e., not just the people that communicated with an FBI target, but also those who talked to people who talked to an FBI target. Verizon, though, doesn’t create those records and couldn’t comply. Now it appears that AT&T invented the concept and the technology. It even owns a patent on some of its data mining methods, issued to two of Hancock’s creators in 2002.

Programs written in Hancock work by analyzing data as it flows into a data warehouse. That differentiates the language from traditional data-mining applications which tend to look for patterns in static databases. A 2004 paper published in ACM Transactions on Programming Languages and Systems shows how Hancock code can sift calling card records, long distance calls, IP addresses and internet traffic dumps, and even track the physical movements of mobile phone customers as their signal moves from cell site to cell site.

With Hancock, “analysts could store sufficiently precise information to enable new applications previously thought to be infeasible,” the program authors wrote. AT&T uses Hancock code to sift 9 GB of telephone traffic data a night, according to the paper.

The good news for budding data miners is that Hancock’s source code and binaries (now up to version 2.0) are available free to noncommercial users from an AT&T Research website.

The instruction manual (.pdf) is also free, and old-timers will appreciate its spare Kernighan & Ritchie style. The manual even includes a few sample programs in the style of K&R’s Hello World, but coded specifically to handle data collected by AT&T’s phone and internet switches. This one reads in a dump of internet headers, computes what IP addresses were visited, makes a record and prints them out, in less than 40 lines of code.

Another sample program included in the manual shows how a Hancock program could create historical maps of a person’s travels by recording nightly what cell phone towers a person’s phone had used or pinged throughout a day.

AT&T is currently defending itself in federal court from allegations that it installed, on behalf of the NSA, secret internet spying rooms in its domestic internet switching facilities. AT&T and Verizon are also accused of giving the NSA access to billions of Americans’ phone records, in order to data-mine them to spot suspected terrorists, and presumably to identify targets for warrantless wiretapping.

No evidence of Iran building nuclear weapons - U.N.

The head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog said Sunday he had no evidence Iran was working actively to build nuclear weapons and expressed concern that escalating rhetoric from the U.S. could bring disaster.

“We have information that there has been maybe some studies about possible weaponization,” said Mohamed ElBaradei, who leads the International Atomic Energy Agency. “That’s why we have said that we cannot give Iran a pass right now, because there is still a lot of question marks.

“But have we seen Iran having the nuclear material that can readily be used into a weapon? No. Have we seen an active weaponization program? No.”

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice accused Iran this month of “lying” about the aim of its nuclear program. She said there is no doubt Tehran wants the capability to produce nuclear weapons and has deceived the IAEA about its intentions.

Vice President Dick Cheney has raised the prospect of “serious consequences” if Iran were found to be working toward developing a nuclear weapon. Last week, the Bush administration announced harsh penalties against the Iranian military and state-owned banking systems in hopes of raising pressure on the world financial system to cut ties with Tehran.

‘We cannot add fuel to the fire’
ElBaradei said he was worried about the growing rhetoric from the U.S., which he noted focused on Iran’s alleged intentions to build a nuclear weapon rather than evidence the country was actively doing so. If there is actual evidence, ElBaradei said he would welcome seeing it.

“I’m very much concerned about confrontation, building confrontation, because that would lead absolutely to a disaster. I see no military solution. The only durable solution is through negotiation and inspection,” he said.

“My fear is that if we continue to escalate from both sides that we will end up into a precipice, we will end up into an abyss. As I said, the Middle East is in a total mess, to say the least. And we cannot add fuel to the fire,” ElBaradei added.

Sen. Carl Levin, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, agreed that the current “hot rhetoric” from the U.S. could prove dangerous.

“We ought to make it clear that there’s always a military option if Iran goes nuclear, but that we ought to just speak more softly because these hot words that are coming out of the administration, this hot rhetoric plays right into the hands of the fanatics in Iran,” said Levin, D-Mich.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said strong action might be needed because he does not believe the United Nations adequately has kept Iran in check.

“I think the United Nations’ efforts to sanction Iran have been pitiful because of Russia and China vetoing a resolution. The European Union has some sanctions. They’re fairly weak.”

“So in this regard, I agree with the following, that the diplomatic efforts to control Iran need to continue. They need to be more robust but we’re sending mixed signals,” Graham said.

ElBaradei spoke on CNN’s “Late Edition,” and Levin and Graham appeared on CBS’ “Face the Nation.”

Coming Soon - Police in Schools

Swansea’s police are to go back to class in a new drive to have community police based at every comprehensive school in the city within a year.

The plan was announced by Chief Superintendent Mark Mathias during a speech he made at the annual meeting of the Age Concern Swansea charity at St Mary’s Church in the city centre.

He said it would be an opportunity for the officers to get to know pupils and to become further involved with the community. But he stressed the initiative was not about policing the pupils.

“It is my intention, between now and this time next year, to have a police officer working from every comprehensive school in Swansea,” he said.

“I’ve had significant support from all the head teachers. The officers will patrol from those schools, and liaise with pupils at those schools.”

The system has already begun in some schools in the county, including Pontarddulais - an area which has come under the spotlight during recent months for anti-social behaviour.

Mr Mathias said addressing the concerns of older residents, tackling anti-social behaviour and improving community policing had been his priorities since becoming Swansea’s top officer.

He said that now the Swansea region of South Wales Police had 55 neighbourhood officers and 62 Police Community Support Officers, there was one dedicated beat officer for every community in the county.

“I believe that if our force support, manage and sometimes control young people, it would be better for us all,” he said.

“Not all young people are drug users or behave in an anti-social manner. In fact, of the 14 people in Swansea who have Asbos, only two of them are young people.

He added: “Young people today have far more pressure on them than years ago.”

Blackwater guards ‘given immunity’

Private US security guards being investigated over a shooting in Iraq that left 17 civilians dead, have reportedly been offered immunity by the US state department.

The Blackwater employees, who were guarding an embassy convoy at the time of the shooting, were told they would not be prosecuted over statements to officials, the Associated Press news agency said.

“Once you give immunity, you can’t take it away,” a senior law enforcement official familiar with the investigation told the Associated Press on Monday.

US state department officials would not confirm or deny that immunity had been granted.

But one official, who refused to be quoted by name, told Associated Press: “If in fact such a decision was made, it was done without any input or authorisation from any senior state department official in Washington.”

Three senior law-enforcement officials said that all the bodyguards involved in the incident, both in the vehicle convoy and in at least two helicopters above, were given immunity.

The company has said that the convoy was under attack before it opened fire in west Baghdad’s al-Nisoor Square on September 16.

A follow-up investigation by the Iraqi government, however, concluded that Blackwater’s actions were unprovoked.

An initial incident report by US Central Command, which oversees military operations in Iraq, also indicated “no enemy activity involved” in the incident.

The report says Blackwater guards were travelling against the flow of traffic through a roundabout when they “engaged five civilian vehicles with small arms fire” at a distance of 50 metres.

The New York Times said on Monday that the immunity offer was made by agents from the Bureau of Diplomatic Security, the investigative arm of the agency, although they do not have the authority to do so.

The report said Blackwater guards had been offered what officials described as limited-use immunity, meaning they would not be prosecuted over statements as long as they were true.

FBI agents, who took over the investigation from the state department earlier this month, have reportedly been trying to collect evidence in Baghdad without using statements from the employees who were given immunity.

Officials told the Associated Press that the FBI took over the case after prosecutors in the justice department realised they could not bring charges against Blackwater guards based on their interviews with state department investigators.

The FBI has reinterviewed some of the Blackwater employees, but one official said on Monday that some of them had refused to answer questions, citing their constitutional right to avoid self-incrimination.

Any new statements that the guards give to the FBI could be used to bring criminal charges.

North Carolina-based Blackwater has about 1,000 employees in Iraq. It is the largest of three private security firm protecting US diplomats in the country.

The immunity offer is likely to further strain relations between Washington and Baghdad, which is demanding the right to launch its own prosecution of the Blackwater bodyguards.

Nuri al-Maliki, the Iraqi prime minister, has said his cabinet is drafting legislation that would force the state department to replace Blackwater with another security company.

Human rights expert calls for Guantanamo closure

A United Nations human rights expert called on the US to put on trial or release all people detained as “unlawful enemy combatants”, move quickly to close the Guantanamo Bay prison camp in Cuba and abolish military commissions.

In a report, Martin Scheinin, the UN’s independent investigator on human rights in the fight against terrorism, expressed grave concern at US detention practices, the existence and operation of military courts, and interrogation techniques.

Navy Cmdr Jeffrey Gordon, the US Defence Department spokesman on Guantanamo, said: “The unlawful enemy combatants held at Guantanamo are afforded more due process than any other captured enemy fighters in the history of warfare.

“While we have stated our desires to close Guantanamo, it would be irresponsible to release these dangerous men into the general population.”

‘When President does it, it’s not illegal’

In 1975 the Select Senate Committee headed by Sen Frank Church (D-ID) began looking into allegations first reported by Seymour Hersh in the NYT and found that the CIA, NSA, FBI and other federal agencies had been involved in everything from plots to assassinate foreign leaders, illegal storage of poisons and biological warfare agents including anthrax, warrantless opening of mail and wiretapping and other intel-gathering on US citizens, and misuse of the IRS , just to name a few of the abuses by the Executive Branch they discovered. One of the ways Congress responded to try and restore checks and balances was by passing the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) of 1978, which established a secret court to oversee all domestic wiretapping activity. Bill Moyers looks at the undoing of Congress’ checks and balances put in place following the Church Committee hearings and the unprecedented expansion of Executive authority in the wake of 9-11. You can watch the entire episode online here.

Shouting at the Devil

“America touts itself as the land of the free, but the number one freedom that you and I have is the freedom to enter into a subservient role in the workplace. Once you exercise this freedom you’ve lost all control over what you do, what is produced, and how it is produced. And in the end, the product doesn’t belong to you. The only way you can avoid bosses and jobs is if you don’t care about making a living. Which leads to the second freedom: the freedom to starve.”

Does my profanity offend? If so, accept my sincere apologies for having the audacity to use a vulgar expletive in reference to the malignant force that is raping the Earth and murdering its sentient inhabitants. Then take my ‘deeply sincere’ pleas for forgiveness, and with the aid of an unlubricated rod of significant diameter, ram them firmly up the collective asses of the plutocratic bags of shit who comprise the ruling elite in the United States.

1. Few would argue with the conclusion that greed, selfishness, ruthlessness, and egocentrism are qualities that all of us humans possess, to varying degrees of course. Equally compelling is the argument that nearly all of us are capable of acting with kindness, compassion, justice, honesty, generosity, and empathy. Yet despite the sweeping epidemic of unnecessary suffering caused by torrential waves of avarice, self-centeredness, and brutality, our filthy moneyed elite, their well-compensated sycophants, and countless millions of deeply inculcated members of the working class defend the sacred cow of capitalism with the zeal of the Siccari. What a brilliant way to conduct human affairs and organize ourselves socioeconomically! Not only do we embrace the inevitability of our human frailties; we willfully and perpetually embrace a system that ensures that the worst elements of the human psyche will predominate AND which amply rewards those who act the most reprehensibly.

2. One of the idiocies advanced as a logical argument to justify the continued existence of the abomination of capitalism is that while it may be flawed, it is still better than any alternative. If capitalism is the best humanity can do, it’s time to cash in our chips and leave Earth to our non-human animal counter-parts. They may not have opposable thumbs and formidably sized frontal lobes, but at least they don’t engage in the systematic destruction of themselves and the rest of the planet. However, before we act too hastily and engage in mass Seppuku, perhaps it would make more sense to implement a mass reorganization of our socioeconomic structure, basing the new paradigm on far more egalitarian, sustainable, democratic, just, and rational principles. Or we could just keep destroying each other and the fucking planet….

3. Capitalismo has raped Central and South America nearly to death. Unlike the “Land of the Free,” most of those horribly victimized nations have a vibrant, thriving, and well-organized Left to stand in opposition to the scourge of humanity and the Earth. US-sponsored death squads, torture, disappearances, privatization, “free” trade, deregulation, union busting, evisceration of social programs, coups, and vilification of leaders with the audacity to defy the status quo of avarice on steroids have assailed our southern neighbors since we in the United States (the self-appointed champions of capitalism) began our wholesale exploitation, imperialism, and neoliberalism by “acquiring” half of Mexico. Let’s see now. Remind me again. How many invasions has that “dire threat” to humanity named Hugo Chavez launched? How much “collateral damage” has he inflicted?

4. Capitalism is an anachronism that long ago out-lived its usefulness (except to the morally rotten parasites comprising our de facto aristocracy) and has proven itself to be an abject failure as a means of human interaction and organization. It’s one step removed from feudalism, for Christ’s sake! (Oops! Sorry, I forgot about mercantilism—the transition to capitalism made such a difference). One of humanity’s strengths is our capacity to evolve. Given that, why in the hell do we stubbornly cling to a system that enables a fraction of a percent of the population to live in OBSCENE opulence while 35,000 of our fellow human beings die of starvation-related causes each day? Are the rest of us truly inane enough to believe that asinine myth that any of us has a REALISTIC chance of becoming the next Bill Gates, if we “just work hard enough.” Or that there is an ounce of moral virtue in pursuing the accumulation of excessive wealth?

5. Resting upon the “pillars” of greed, selfishness and hyper-competitiveness, capitalism is irrational and unstable. Crisis and resource wars are chronic and inevitable. How could we expect it to be otherwise? Unleashing some of the ugliest aspects of the human spirit and creating artificial shortages in a world of abundance (by allowing a select few to hoard most of the resources as “their property”), capitalism doesn’t exactly engender an environment of peace and brotherly love. While our filthy ruling plutocracy has allowed a degree of socialism to diminish their power to rape, pillage and plunder, they only did so to quell social unrest during times of serious instability (i.e. The New Deal). Meanwhile, reactionary elements in our “democracy” are consistently scheming to eliminate the use of public monies to actually benefit the public. Witness George Bush’s ongoing demands for an open purse to fund our insanely bloated military and the war crimes we are committing in Iraq. Compare that to his recent refusal to spend an additional $35 billion to provide health care for 3.9 million children. Bush and the moneyed interests for whom he is fronting are inflicting gaping, cankerous wounds upon humanity and the Earth. How much more obvious could it be? (And this administration isn’t an aberration; they are simply bold enough to reveal their agenda—that’s the scary part).

6. Thanks to our slightly adulterated yet plenty virulent infestation of capitalism, the United States is not the “Christian nation” it touts itself to be. While we certainly abide by the Golden Rule in the sense that “he who has the gold makes the rules,” there is little about the manner in which we conduct ourselves as a nation (particularly in terms of foreign policy) of which the person meeting the Biblical description of Jesus Christ would have approved. Let’s just run through a few highlights. We have killed millions of Iraqis via two invasions and barbaric economic sanctions (the sanctions alone killed over half a million children—they’re on your tab, Bill Clinton)—and these are people who NEVER attacked us nor posed a true threat to our “national security.” We arm and support Israel, the diseased enforcer of the mental illness known as Zionism. Ethnic cleansing. Now there’s a spiritually nourishing Christian pastime for you. We revere, idolize, and empower talented, “beautiful” people whose moral evolution came to a screeching halt at about age five. They are our CEOs, politicians, celebrities, athletes, billionaires, pundits, and Wall Streeters whose smug, hubristic “all-American” mugs, talking heads, and ‘surgically enhanced’ bodies are blasted into our homes 24/7 via Fox, CNN, ABC, and a host of other disseminators of the fetid garbage of infotainment. Sorry folks. Calvinism is about as close as our culture comes to the compassion and love modeled by Christ. And with John Calvin in the saddle, we fall significantly short of that mark. As his unwitting disciples, we are imbued with cynicism and self-hatred (we are, after all, “original sinners”), a sadistic desire to inflict ample doses of punishment for the smallest of transgressions (hence the US having the largest prison population in the world—comprised largely of non-violent drug offenders) and the notion that being rich means one has acquired God’s stamp of approval. (Thoughts of camels, needles, and kingdoms of heaven keep throwing me into a horrid state of cognitive dissonance in my desperate efforts to be a good little capitalist by embracing Part III of the Calvinist doctrine…..). Somehow I don’t think Christ had capitalism in mind when he preached the Sermon on the Mount…..

7. Let’s consider sustainability and consumerism for a moment, shall we? Two more of capitalism’s noxious, life-extinguishing qualities are its demand for infinite growth and its unavoidable “dilemma” of excess production. Problem number one is insoluble, but we can simply let our grandchildren worry about our insane insistence on maintaining a system demanding infinite resources from a finite world. As for excess production, that one is simple. We have the most advanced agitprop industry (Madison Avenue) and the most powerful delivery devices (the mainstream media) in the history of humanity churning out alluring appeals to consumers to buy what they don’t need, can’t really afford, and may never even use. Surplus schmurplus….

8. As an “added bonus” to the wounds it inflicts upon humanity as a collective, capitalism also causes serious character malformations in individuals. As infants and young children, human beings naturally believe themselves to be the center of the universe. In order to “succeed” (and sometimes just survive) in the rat race of capitalism, as we mature we begin viewing our narcissism as an attribute. Rather than shedding it, we nurture it with the tenderness of the most devoted of mothers. Looking out for number one, careerism, an obsession with winning, acquisitiveness, and putting money and appearances ahead of principles and people are considered to be virtues in this violently seething cesspool we euphemistically call a culture.

9. Perhaps most disturbing of all is the way in which capitalism’s relentless advocates have managed to bamboozle billions of people into equating it with democracy. Diabolical to its core, but sheer genius nonetheless. Concluding that capitalism and democracy are somehow synonymous is a bit like saying that Dick Cheney and the milk of human kindness relate to one another in even a very remote fashion. (Have you seen the myriad pictures of his evil grimaces floating around the Internet? Despicable creature that he is, he doesn’t even attempt to mask his malevolence). Capitalism is naturally hierarchal, authoritarian, and brutal. Corporations, the legal vehicles for the plutocracy to maximize their profits while minimizing liability, are structured as tyrannies. What the hell is democratic about dog eat dog, law of the jungle, and every man for himself? Besides, if we uber-capitalists here in the United States are truly “democratic,” and we “elected” a depraved idiot like W to what is ostensibly the most powerful position in the world, what does that say about us?

George Bush, Dick Cheney, et al aren’t anomalies or accidents. They are the naked face of savage capitalism evolved to its ultimate and inevitable state, which is embodied by corporatism, monopolism, cronyism, imperialism, and fuck-everyone-but-the-rich-ism.

Slice it, it dice it and spice it any way you prefer. A pile of shit is a pile of shit by any other name. Capitalism is just that from the standpoint of compassionate, moral, and intelligent human beings. One exceptionally virtuous person, Archbishop Don Helder Pessoa Camara, who was a progenitor of Liberation Theology and an unwavering champion of the poor, once remarked, “To examine capitalism is to indict it.”

Unfortunately, capitalism remains the 800 pound gorilla in the room. There is little doubt that its countless millions of fiercely loyal minions amongst the working class and poor will continue heeding their indoctrination, daring us to pry their copies of Atlas Shrugged “from their cold dead hands.” And we can count on the fact that the likes of the Mars heirs, Richard Mellon Scaife, and their ilk are not destined to experience profound spiritual awakenings anytime soon.

Yet there is hope. Capitalism exists in a state of perpetual crisis. Inequality is on the rise, globally and domestically. Our lords and masters are beginning to fall victim to their own hubris as they practice their predations more and more overtly. Palliatives can only delay the system’s inevitable collapse for so long. Sooner rather than later the deepening undercurrent of social unrest will burst the levees of injustice asunder.

Relative to what’s coming, the Great Depression was a mere warm-up. Yet in adversity there lies opportunity. Our US gulag, often referred to as the prison industrial complex, will serve as excellent quarters for the irredeemable scum stalking the corridors of power in DC, the Walton clan, Larry Ellison, and the rest of the parasites atop the capitalist pyramid.

Or perhaps things will take a more Jacobin turn and we won’t need to waste any more precious resources on these predatory sociopaths….

Appeals Court Shuffle Shields FBI Tactics Post 9/11

It sounded good: Egyptian student helps 9-11 hijackers with airplane radio. Too good, in fact, because Abdallah Higazy is suing an FBI agent because of a coerced a confession in the wake of the 9-11 attack. And the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals has muddied things by withdrawing its original decision allowing Higazy’s suit to move forward. In the substitute opinion, it has redacted Higazy’s testimony about the forced confession.

Higazy, who had arrived in the States on 27 August 2001 to study computer science at Polytechnic University in Brooklyn, escaped from his room at the Millennium Hotel on 9-11-2001 with only his student ID and cash. He was arrested in December 2001 after an ex-cop-turned-security-guard (falsely) claimed to have found an aviation radio and Egyptian passport in Higazy’s hotel room.

The FBI believed the security guard, not Higazy, and put him in the same maximum security jail as Zacarias Moussaoui. In January 2002, the FBI charged Higazy with “making false statements” after his interrogation with Agent Templeton, even though he did not sign a confession; the court denied bail. Higazy was released two days after “a private pilot who was staying one floor below Higazy at the Millennium on Sept. 11, returned to the hotel looking for his aviation radio.”

But the story does not end here. The original Court decision provided online (pdf) included this language: Read the rest of this entry »

UK firm sued over US soldier’s death

· Erinys guards accused of causing death in Iraq
· Authorities close down UK contractors in Afghanistan

A British private security firm hired to protect the oil installations of post-invasion Iraq is being sued for causing the death of an American soldier.The case against the Erinys security firm, which reportedly has close ties to the former Iraqi exile Ahmed Chalabi, is believed to be the first brought against a private security contractor operating in Iraq by a member of the US military.

It comes at a time of rising unease about the actions of private security firms in Iraq after 17 Iraqi civilians were shot dead in Baghdad by Blackwater guards travelling with a convoy of US diplomats.

The suit against Erinys, filed last week in Houston, was brought by the father of Specialist Christopher Monroe, who was struck by an Erinys convoy on October 25 2005. He was on guard duty in southern Iraq when he was struck and killed by a speeding Erinys vehicle, the suit alleges.

“The family just didn’t have the answers that they were seeking,” said Tobias Cole, a lawyer for the family. “For example, why did their son die on a non-combat mission? There was no reason to have extreme driving, no reason to drive without headlights, no reason to drive at speed through a parked convoy.”

Monroe, 19, was the third generation of his family to serve in the US military and was an eager recruit. He enlisted before finishing secondary school at the age of 17. The lawsuit alleges the four vehicles in the Erinys convoy were driving at an estimated speed of up to 80mph on a dark road using only their parking lights. The Erinys vehicles were not under fire, and they were not carrying high-profile passengers.

Monroe’s right leg was sheared off by the force of the collision, and he was thrown 40ft into the air.

Erinys employees, who were driving in a four-vehicle convoy, had passed through two US checkpoints moments before Monroe was hit, and they had been warned that more US troops were ahead, the suit said.

But it accuses the Erinys team of ignoring the warnings, and driving so fast that they failed to see Monroe or the five-tonne truck he was guarding. “Although extreme driving manoeuvres may be appropriate for private security contractors at certain times, driving recklessly at a high rate of speed with no headlights through a parked US convoy after being specifically warned is not,” the law suit said.

At the time of Monroe’s death, Erinys had been providing security to the US Army Corps of Engineers.

The company denies any wrongdoing and says it was cleared by a US military investigation. “It was a very tragic accident for which Erinys and its employees have been thoroughly exonerated,” a spokesman for the firm told the Guardian yesterday.

The Monroe family’s law suit comes at a time when the Bush administration is under growing pressure at home to rein in private security firms and the lucrative business of guarding US diplomats and troops. The Iraqi government last week revoked the legal immunity under which Blackwater and the other firms had operated.

In Afghanistan, meanwhile, the authorities stepped up their crackdown on private security contractors yesterday, raiding the premises of a British-based firm, Olympus, in Kabul. It was the eighth private security firm to be raided and closed in a month, but the first foreign firm.

Erinys was the subject of a great deal of attention in the summer of 2003 when the firm was awarded an $80m (£39m), 18-month contract to provide security for Iraq’s oil refineries and pipelines. The firm created a new entity called Erinys Iraq.

Erinys has also been caught up in controversy closer to home. Shortly before his murder, the former Russian security services agent, Alexander Litvinenko, visited the London offices of Erinys where traces of polonium 210 were found.

The first recruits of the 14,000-strong oil protection force raised by Erinys Iraq were members of the Iraqi Free Forces, the US-trained militia that was headed by Ahmed Chalabi, an Iraqi exile who was America’s protege in the run-up to the invasion. Members of Mr Chalabi’s inner circle were among the founding partners of Erinys Iraq. Erinys now has about 1,000 employees in Iraq, the spokesman said. Most are UK nationals.

“Fool me once…” Ian R. Crane - Just released on DVD

“Fool me once …” is the latest offering from one of the UK’s most active Truth Campaigner’s. Recorded live at the Glastonbury Symposium in July 2007 Ian R. Crane, the immediate past Chair of the UK 9/11 Truth Campaign, reflects upon Gordon Brown’s overt commitment to the agenda of the New World Order and offers a startling prediction of what is being planned to accelerate implementation of the One World Government … with particular focus on the 2012 London Olympics.

This DVD also contains another informative presentation. In ‘The Hidden Agenda’, Ian R. Crane explores the occult belief systems of those who believe that they are the rightful rulers of a global fiefdom … and presents the evidence which might explain why they are running scared from a forthcoming event, as foretold in ancient texts. An event which they fear might relieve them of their planetary command … in 2012!

An ex-oilfield executive, Ian now lectures and writes on the geo-political webs that are being spun; with particular focus on US Hegemony and the NWO agenda for control of global resources. Prior to his retirement from the corporate arena, Ian enjoyed a career of 25 years in telecommunications and international oilfield services, a career that provided the opportunity to live & work in the U.K., Continental Europe, the Middle East & Houston, Texas.

An Alternative to IMF and World Bank Dominance

By Stephen Lendman
RINF Alternative News

In July, 2004, the IMF and World Bank commemorated the 60th anniversary of their founding at Bretton Woods, NH to provide a financial framework of assistance for the postwar world after the expected defeat of Germany and Japan. With breathtaking hypocrisy, an October, 2004 Development Committee Communique stated: “As we celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Bretton Woods Institutions….we recommit ourselves to supporting efforts by developing countries to pursue sustainable growth, sound macroeconomic policies, debt sustainability, open trade, job creation, poverty reduction and good governance.” Phew.

In fact, for 63 hellish years, both these institutions achieved mirror opposite results on everything the above comment states. From inception, their mission was to integrate developing nations into the Global North-dominated world economy and use debt repayment as the way to transfer wealth from poor countries to powerful bankers in rich ones.

The scheme is called debt slavery because new loans are needed to service old ones, indebtedness rises, and borrowing terms stipulate harsh one-way “structural adjustment” provisions that include:

– savage repression for non-believers under a system incompatible with social democracy.

Everywhere the scheme is the same: huge public wealth transfers to elitist private hands, exploding public debt, an ever-widening disparity between the super-rich and desperate poor, and an aggressive nationalism to justify huge spending on security for aggressive surveillance, mass incarceration plus repression and torture for social control.

Last December, Hugo Chavez announced his idea for a Banco del Sur, or Bank of the South, as part of his crusade against the institutions of international capital he calls “tools of Washington.” The bank will be officially launched at a presidential November 3 summit in Caracas, where it’s to be headquartered, with seven founding member-states - Venezuela, Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, Paraguay, Bolivia and Ecuador.

On October 12, Colombia’s President Alvaro Uribe announced his nation agreed to become the eighth member but said “The decision is not a rejection to the World Bank or Inter-American Development Bank, but a sign of solidarity and fraternity towards the South American community.” At this time, only four South American states aren’t included - Chile, Peru, Guyana and Surinam, but Chile seems likely to come aboard following Colombia’s lead, and the others may decide to join them.

Finance ministers from the founding countries met in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil October 8 to finalize the Bank’s Founding Document. Many key operating issues have yet to be resolved, but unofficial information was that each nation will commit 10% of its international reserves and have equal oversight over the new institution. In a concluding news conference, Brazilian finance minister Guido Mantega stated: the participating countries “have been able to overcome all obstacles that were in the way of an understanding around the formation of the Bank of the South. We can now say that the (bank) is close to becoming a reality” even though Brazil (Latin America’s largest economy) hasn’t yet formalized its entry.

Venezuelan finance minister Rodrigo Cabeza explained the bank will help develop the region by offering South Americans more credits. It’s being “created to build a new architecture that assumes an improved relationship of the bank and its capacity to offer credits for its people.” It also aims to increase liquidity and revive socioeconomic development and infrastructure investments in participating countries and keep them outside the restrictive control of the IMF and World Bank that are fast losing influence and being phased out of the region.

In 2005, 80% of IMF’s $81 billion loan portfolio was to Latin America. Today, it’s 1% with nearly all its $17 billion in outstanding loans to Turkey and Pakistan. The World Bank is also being rejected. Venezuela had already paid off its IMF and World Bank debt ahead of schedule when Hugo Chavez symbolically announced on April 30: “We will no longer have to go to Washington nor to the IMF nor to the World Bank, not to anyone.” Ecuador’s Raphael Correa is following suit. He cleared his country’s IMF debt, suspended World Bank loans, accused the WB of trying to extort money from him when he was economy and finance minister in 2005, and last April declared the Bank’s country representative persona non grata in an extraordinary diplomatic slap in the face.

The Banco del Sur will replace these repressive institutions with $7 billion in startup capital when it begins operating in 2008. It will be under “a new financial architecture” for regional investment with the finance ministers of each member nation sitting on the bank’s administrative council with equal authority over its operations as things now stand. Venezuelan Finance Minister Rodrigo Cabeza stressed the banks Latin roots saying: “The idea is to rely on a development agency for us, led by us” to finance public and private development and regional integration projects. He added: “There will not be credit subjected to economic policies. There will not be credit that produces a calamity for our people and as a result, it will not be a tool of domination” like the international lending agencies.

Hugo Chavez’s vision is to liberate the region’s countries from IMF, World Bank and Inter-American Development Bank (IBD) control that condemn millions to poverty through their lending practices. Helped by windfall oil profits, his government is already doing it with an unprecendented commitment to provide financial aid and below-market priced oil to regional and other countries. So far this year, it’s on the order of around $9 billion, and, unlike the Washington-controlled kind, it comes at low cost and with good will, a cooperative spirit and few if any strings.

Nobel laureate economist Joseph Stiglitz recognizes Chavez’s efforts and stated his support for the Banco del Sur on an October 10 visit to Caracas. He said “One of the advantages of having a Bank of the South is that it would reflect the perspectives of those in the South (while in contrast IMF and World Bank conditions) hinder (regional) development effectiveness.”

Stiglitz met with Hugo Chavez on his visit and praised his redistributive social policies. He also criticized Washington Consensus neoliberal practices that exploit the regions’ people, “undermin(e)….Andean cooperation, and it is part of the American strategy of divide and conquer, a strategy trying to get as much of the benefits for American companies” at the expense of the region and its people.

Venezuela’s acting ambassador to the Permanent Mission to the UN, Aura Mahuampi Rodriguez de Ortiz, warned the world body about Latin American debt during her participation in the General Debate on Macroeconomic Policies in October. She stressed: “The persistence of the foreign debt of the developing countries affects negatively on its process of development. It is not worthy to direct resources for the development of poor countries if such resources end up directed to the payment of the foreign debt” instead of going to economic development internally. She also spoke of the new Bank of the South, how it will help strengthen regional integration and also fairly distribute investments and finance projects to reduce poverty and social exclusion.

A less publicized Bank of ALBA (Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas) will also begin operating by year end under “a new regional financial architecture under principles that create a new form of channeling financial resources” to its four country alliance - Venezuela, Cuba, Bolivia and Nicaragua.

Chavez first proposed ALBA as an alternative to the Free Trade of the Americas (FTAA) in 2001 with Venezuela, Cuba and Bolivia its original members in December, 2004. Nicaragua then joined the alliance in January, 2007 under its newly elected president, Daniel Ortega, who signed on as his first act in office. ALBA’s goal is ambitious. It’s the comprehensive integration of the region and development of its “the social state” for all its people. It’s boldly based on member states complementarity, not competition; solidarity, not domination; cooperation, not exploitation; and respect for each participating nation’s sovereign right to be free from the grip of other countries and corporate giants.

In April, the 5th ALBA summit was held in Caracas to discuss ways to improve the alliance. Initiatives covered included a Permanent (coordinating) Secretariat and a plan to create 12 public companies to be co-managed by ALBA member states. Its goal is to strengthen key economic sectors in areas of energy, agriculture, telecommunications, infrastructure, industrial supplies and cement production. ALBA country foreign ministers then agreed in June to create a development Bank of ALBA to help finance these ventures with low-cost credit. It will complement the Banco del Sur and also be headquartered in Caracas.

Socially responsible regional banks, like those discussed above, will challenge the dominant institutions of finance capital if they fulfill their promise. But therein lies the problem. These new institutions aren’t panaceas, and they may end up letting capital interests exploit them for their own advantage. In addition, financial autonomy alone won’t free the region from Washington’s grip without greater change. What’s needed are sweeping nationalizations of basic industries, an end to one-way WTO-style trade deals, socially redistributing national resources, developing local economies, achieving land and housing reform plus a sweeping commitment to social equity and a resolve to end a 25 year neoliberal nightmare. From 1960 to 1980, the region’s per capita income growth was 82%. From 1980 to 2000, however, it was 9%, and from 2000 to 2005 only 4%. For the region, it meant sweeping poverty, inequality and the most extreme disparity between the super-rich and desperate poor in the world.

Change is needed, and Venezuela under Hugo Chavez has done most in the region to achieve it. Finance Minister Rodrigo Cabezas just presented his government’s 2008 budget to the National Assembly that allocates 46% of it to social spending. It devotes special attention to health and education but also to subsidized and free food, land reform, housing, micro credit, job training, cooperatives and more as Chavez continues to use his nation’s resources to address the needs of his people. Since he took office, social spending per person is up more than threefold and in 2006 was 20.9% of GDP.

Chavez now has an ally in Ecuador under Raphael Correa who’s early efforts are promising. Hopefully, they’ll continue under a new constitution to be drafted in the next six months and then put to a national referendum next year. Other Bank of the South founding countries like Brazil, Argentina and Bolivia, however, claim to be center-left but, in fact, embrace 1990s neoliberalism, and financial autonomy won’t change that. The Bank of the South will only work if it fulfills a mandate to prioritize local needs and development, not corporate ones. That’s a tall order, and achieving it won’t be easy with its dominant member, Brazil under Lula, closely tied to Washington and in its grip.

Nonetheless, small signs of change are emerging, the Bank of the South may be one of them, and a new generation of leftist leaders may in the end break Washington’s weakening (but still strong) hold on the region. That’s the hope, and every step forward means more power to the people and another possible world.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to The Steve Lendman News and Information Hour on TheMicroEffect.com Mondays at noon US central time.

Blair was warned of looming disaster in Iraq

John Ware discloses how the former prime minister was told repeatedly about America’s lack of planning for peace – and did nothing

Five days after the fall of Saddam, Tony Blair declared: “Iraq will be better. Better for the region, better for the world, better, above all, for the Iraqi people.”

Yet, as we know, four and a half years later, Iraq is far from a better place. It is still in pieces and the reality is that by invading Iraq not only did Britain help to break the country but we are no longer seriously trying to fix it. As No Plan, No Peace on BBC1 tonight and tomorrow will show, despite his promises, Mr Blair was aware before the invasion that America’s planning for post-war recovery was woefully inadequate — and so was Britain’s.

It has become clear that Mr Blair had severe doubts about US plans to stabilise Iraq after the invasion. There was no properly worked out strategy for the key longer-term objective of transforming it into a stable, prosperous nation that the Blair-Bush vision held out.

We know Mr Blair was aware that post-war Iraq might be heading for trouble because Lady [Sally] Morgan, his former political secretary, says he was “tearing his hair out”; Sir David Manning, his foreign affairs adviser at the time of the invasion, has said he was “very exercised about it”; Peter Mandelson has also said he knew the preparations were inadequate.

The fact that Mr Blair knew all this is potentially far more damaging to his reputation than his decision to put the full weight of his office behind the flawed intelligence that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction. For that, he had cover from the Secret Intelligence Service.

What, then, is his defence to the charge that he recklessly continued with the invasion, thereby sharing responsibility for the deaths of 100,000 civilians and 4,141 coalition soldiers — 171 of them British — the displacement of four million refugees inside and outside Iraq, and the cost of more than £5 billion

The defence that is emerging from Mr Blair’s friends and advisers is that No 10 was let down by the Bush administration.

All say his frustration stemmed from Britain’s inability to influence the Pentagon, under Donald Rumsfeld, on post-war planning. The hawkish Defence Secretary wanted a “lite” US footprint – a small invasion force that could be rapidly withdrawn afterwards.

This defence looks thin: it suggests that Mr Blair’s “hair-tearing” could not have begun until dangerously late in the day: not until January 20, 2003, in fact — eight weeks before the invasion. Only then was Rumsfeld put in charge of post-war planning,

by a Presidential directive establishing a reconstruction unit in the Department of Defence.

That is precious little time: the US General George C. Marshall was given three and a half years to plan the reconstruction of Germany after the Second World War. So why wasn’t Blair “tearing his hair out” long before January 20? Sir David Manning, his foreign policy adviser, who went to Washington as ambassador after the invasion, said when he retired recently that neither he nor Blair “had any sense that the Department of Defence was going to take over the running of the country”.

Until then, he says, Mr Bush had assured them that the State Department, under the moderate Colin Powell, would be in charge. There had been “plans made and deployed by the State Department… It’s hard to know what happened.”

Yet this runs counter to what the Washington embassy was telling London in the run-up to the invasion. First, it was well known that very little of the State Department’s work could be seen as a blueprint for stabilisation and reconstruction. Rather, a series of study groups had been set up to engage Iraqi Americans in thinking about their country’s future after Saddam.

“It was never intended as a post-war plan,” says Ryan Crocker, the American ambassador to Iraq.

Secondly, it seems unlikely that Mr Powell ever wanted responsibility for post-war planning. He raised no protest when the President assigned the task to Rumsfeld.

“I think Colin Powell probably thought, and rightfully so, ‘Disaster Looming’,” his chief of staff, Colonel Larry Wilkerson, told me.

Far from being sure that State would run reconstruction, throughout 2002 the British struggled to find out who would get the job.

A series of telegrams from Sir Christopher Meyer, Manning’s predecessor as British ambassador, to No 10 vividly make the point.

A year before the invasion – on the eve of the first Blair-Bush Iraq summit in April 2002 – Sir Christopher says he urged Blair to “above all start getting them to focus on what next if and when we drive Saddam from office.”

If Mr Blair did raise this, it can’t have made much impact, because in July Mr Blair was warned by the Cabinet Office: “In particular, little thought has been given to… the aftermath and how to shape it.”

Again, in early September, Sir Christopher warned Mr Blair that “planning for the aftermath is a blind spot”. As Sir Christopher says: “I remember thinking to myself: ‘We’re nowhere on this.’?” A few weeks later he “upped the volume” to a warning that “there was a black hole in American planning for the aftermath”.

All this was because the embassy knew that Mr Rumsfeld was actively manoeuvring for control of post-war planning to ensure that the US did not get tied down in Iraq as it had in Bosnia.

No doubt Mr Blair did try to impress on the Americans how seriously they needed to take post-war planning.

But if he was tearing his hair out it doesn’t seem to have happened when it mattered – throughout 2002 – when there was still time to put together a practical plan.

Three months before the invasion, I’m told that the Chief of the Defence Staff, Admiral Sir Michael Boyce, warned the Pentagon that they would be “lucky to get six hours’ worth of flowers and roses”, as liberation would soon turn to occupation.

There were no plans to fill the vacuum after regime change with a development programme delivering quick wins to show Iraqis that things would be better.

So criminals and insurgents poured into the vacuum and have been there ever since. The charge against Mr Blair at any future inquiry is that he never investigated the risks diligently.

It’s not even clear that Mr Blair’s hair-tearing began the moment No 10 heard that Mr Rumsfeld would be in charge.

His next summit with Mr Bush was 11 days later. A leaked memo records that Mr Blair was told “a great deal of work was now in hand”.

It does not, however, record the Prime Minister being surprised that Mr Rumsfeld had got the job and suggests the discussion was brief.

Nor is there evidence that Whitehall did any better than the US in planning reconstruction in its part of Iraq: the four southern provinces, including Basra. A planning unit was not set up in London until eight weeks before the invasion. Specialists – such as engineers to help with water, power and other basic services – were very late in being lined up.

Three weeks after the fall of Saddam, Whitehall had mustered exactly four civilians to staff what became the office of the Coalition Provisional Authority.

Sir Hilary Synnott, who later took charge of the CPA office, says: “I simply wasn’t aware of any planning in relation to the civilian aspects of Basra… my first challenge was to find a computer.” And that was in July – three months after the invasion.

It may suit the Government, past and present, to blame the chaos in Iraq on US lack of foresight, but the evidence suggests that post-war planning was no more a priority in London than in Washington.

Indeed, I am told that it was not until war started that Mr Blair pushed hard on post-war reconstruction, and even then it was more about getting US support for a UN resolution to give legitimacy to the occupation rather than the practicalities of rebuilding a nation with no history of democracy.

In the rush to war, and in the blur of ideology, both capitals abandoned a principle that’s been an iron law of warfare since Napoleon: never take the first step without planning for what comes afterwards.

•John Ware presents Part One of No Plan, No Peace on BBC1 this Sunday at 10.15pm and Part Two tomorrow at 10.45pm