John Perkins’ book “Confessions of an Economic Hit Man” explains American foreign policy better than any of the academic tomes you might read on the subject.

In a nutshell, the game is played this way: People like Perkins work for consulting firms, and their job is to entice a foreign head of state to go deeply in debt. They do this by greatly exaggerating the economic returns on big projects such as dams and electrification systems.

The payoff comes in two ways. The foreign country hires American contractors to build the systems, and they make big profits. Then, mired in debt, the head of state will do what the United States government tells him to do. If he proves too independent or too honest to accept bribes, then he will be removed from power, either in a coup or in an accident.

Yes, I know that sounds more like the Mafia than the great and good government of the United States, which wants only to spread peace, prosperity and democracy around the world. Read the book and decide for yourself. The publisher is Berrett-Koehler Publishers Inc.

I believe Perkins is telling the truth, because I have observed through the years that the United States hates any honest nationalist leader. Let some guy try to benefit his own people instead of catering to multinational corporations, and the U.S. government and the propaganda machine will crank up and paint him as a villain. After the American people have been sufficiently indoctrinated, the poor guy won’t be around much longer.

We did that to Mohammed Mossadegh, a democratically elected nationalist who thought Iran’s oil should benefit Iranians. We painted him as a communist, and the CIA engineered a coup that replaced him with the Shah. In case you’re curious, that’s why so many Iranians hate us. We did it to a Guatemalan patriot, Jacobo Arbenz, when he tried to implement land reform and thus ran afoul of the United Fruit Co., which orchestrated the campaign that led to his overthrow by the U.S. Omar Torrijos, a Panamanian reformer, and Jaime Roldos, president of Ecuador who locked horns with big oil companies, both died in planes that exploded.
informationclearinghouse.info

The Independent on Sunday, 25 September 2005, asks: So what were two undercover British soldiers up to in Basra?

The paper reports:

1. an Iraqi judge has issued arrest warrants for the two ‘British’ soldiers recently snatched from a police station in Basra.

2. “Judge Mudhafar says he is not convinced the two men are British – possibly because one of them was said to have been carrying a Canadian-made weapon – and they may not be entitled to immunity. This has added yet another layer of mystery to what is already an extremely murky affair…

3. “The picture the British public has been allowed to gain of our occupation of southern Iraq – one of relative tranquillity and co-operation compared to the bloody mayhem further north – is at best misleading, at worst deliberately distorted…

4. “It is not impossible that one or both of the men are not British. Special forces from Australia and New Zealand, for example, often work closely with the SAS. They could even be “civilian contractors” of the kind hired by the CIA, usually ex-special forces.

‘The so-called “insurgent” bombings are really being carried out by UK and US operatives’; the role of the Special Reconnaissance Regiment.

5. “Subversion from nearby Iran has been blamed for a recent increase in attacks on British forces in southern Iraq… Initial assumptions that the undercover pair were working to combat such influence have been contradicted by military and other sources…

6. “Initial attempts by British military spokesmen to minimise what happened merely heightened confusion and suspicion. Claims that the crowd was small and the violence minor were quickly belied by photographs of a soldier leaping from the turret of his Warrior armoured vehicle, his uniform burning from a petrol bomb. British troops were said to have emerged largely unscathed, only for it to emerge later that one was flown home in a serious condition.
Not only did it appear that lethal force had to be used to suppress the riot, causing an unknown number of Iraqi deaths, it was also claimed that the two undercover men had opened fire when they were stopped at a police roadblock, killing at least one policeman. There were also sharply conflicting accounts of why troops crashed into the station: to determine where the pair were, according to one version, or to rescue a negotiating team, according to another. The surveillance team had been handed over to militants and were found at a house in the district, the military said, but Iraqis denied this, saying the building was within the compound.”

7. “Conspiracy theories, always rife in Iraq, have been fuelled dramatically by last week’s events, according to Mazin Younis of the Iraqi League, an alliance of Iraqi exiles based in Britain. He has close contacts with Basra. ‘Everyone you talk to [thinks the two undercover men] were up to something very bad… to kill somebody or destroy a building, and let us battle against each other,’ he said.”
prisonplanet.com

Remarks at the Anti-war Rally, Washington, DC, September 24, 2005

If we didn’t know it before, we certainly know it now.

A cruel wind blows across America. Starting in Texas and Montana, and sweeping across America’s heartland, it’s settled here in Washington, DC. And despite our presence today, it continues to buffet and batter the American people.

This cruel wind blew disenfranchisement into Florida and Ohio.

It blew hardheartedness into the Capitol.

Division across our land. And wretchedness in high places.

The American people have been forced to endure fraud in the elections of 2000 and 2004, criminal neglect on September 11th, a war started on deliberately-faked evidence, the outing of a CIA agent to cover up the truth, and now criminal incompetence in providing our security.

When hurricane survivors had lost everything, and it was there for all America to see, sybaritic men, wrapped in self-righteousness, worked to save their jobs instead of the people.

As dead bodies lay strewn about the New Orleans Superdome, military recruiters blew into Houston’s Astrodome to reap the harvest.

This ill wind that engulfs our country is also global in its impact. It dipped into the Caribbean hitting Haiti and Cuba; it reached into Latin America to slap Venezuela; it swept death, greed, and destruction across Africa into Eastern Congo; and it breathes occupation onto the peoples of Iraq and Palestine.

But just as sure as an ill wind now blows, it doesn’t always have to be so.

The people, united, can stop wars.

We can stop injustice; and we can stop indifference. The people, united, can tear down the mightiest walls of oppression.

These ill winds have brought us high crimes and more than misdemeanors. But they’ve also brought us together: one answer, united for peace and for justice.

Let’s stay together. Because we have to get rid of these ill winds and breathe fresh breath into a new jet stream of life.

We can do it, ya’ll, because they can’t fool us anymore.

Cynthia McKinney is the US representative from Georgia’s fourth congressional district.
counterpunch.org

Democrats Flee Peace Protests
I have been thinking for a while now that the Democrats really should sit down and consider changing their mascot from a donkey to a marmot. A rodent really is more emblematic or their provincial habits than a donkey could ever be. Think about it. Just this past weekend antiwar rallies were held across the country and the Democratic leadership was nowhere in sight. They had high-tailed it out there. They hid in their holes and were afraid to be seen.

In all fairness, a few elected Democrats did show face, mainly two: Reps. John Conyers and Cynthia McKinney. But I wouldn’t constitute either as party leaders. The better-known Democrats, like Senators John Kerry and Hillary Clinton, two likely candidates for 2008, were nowhere to be seen. Even more striking were the absences of DNC Chairman Howard Dean, Russell Feingold and Ted Kennedy — all occasional critics of the Iraq war.

Of course the Democrat’s collective criticism only goes so far. They certainly don’t want to be photographed with any militant protestors. By God, that would taint their reputations! They’ve got campaign contributions to worry about here. No, the Democrats aren’t about to take to the streets. They’d rather sit back and project the illusion that they care.

On her way out to Washington, the anti-war movement’s leading lady Cindy Sheehan offered a tepid excuse for Senator Clinton’s refusal to attend the protest, “She knows that the war is a lie, but she is waiting for the right time to say it. You say it and you risk losing your job.”

Well, sorry, but I think the time to speak out against the war is right now and if it means Clinton could lose her job (even though that’s highly unlikely, given that almost half of all Americans, according to a recent Pew research poll, think we should end the occupation and come home), so-be-it.

This isn’t to say that the Democratic grassroots don’t oppose the war. The majority does–but then so do nearly half of all Republicans. So this begs the question: why are anti-war activists so loyal to a Democratic Party that supported Bush’s war and still refuses to oppose it?

Much of the Democrat’s cognitive dissonance has to do with the success of Howard Dean at the DNC. He’s been able to corral anti-war Democrats into the fold, making sure they don’t flee en masse over the war issue even though they should. Many still see Dean as a sign of future hope, where party leadership stays in touch with the grassroots. Plus, Dean’s early criticisms of the Iraq war earned him significant street-cred with party advocates.

It was un-deserved. Dean, like the rest of the Democratic leadership, is pro-war and pro-occupation, and it couldn’t be more damaging for the peace movement to continue putting faith into this futile party. If Democratic activists really want to make some change — the best thing they could do would be to get up and leave their party. Only then will Democratic leaders start to think twice about the monstrous policies they endorse.

When Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said on the weekend that he was going to open the taps on subsidized heating oil for poor folks in the United States, many assumed it was a drive-by comment aimed at raising the ire of his frequent critics in Washington.

But, as it turns out, Mr. Chavez is a man of his word.

Officials at Citgo Petroleum Corp. — the Houston-based company that is wholly owned by Venezuela’s state-owned energy company — say they are scrambling to put the fine points on Mr. Chavez’s promise to supply some of the poorest neighbourhoods in the United States with cheap heating oil this winter.

“The idea is to work with communities in need, with schools, and we’ll have to work through not-for-profit organizations that will serve as intermediaries,” public affairs manager Fernando Garay said.

“The very specific details, we don’t have yet.”

The Venezuelan leader’s program is scheduled to begin next month in the Mexican-American community in Chicago, followed by the South Bronx, and then Boston.

Analysts say that Mr. Chavez’s bold use of a state-owned company in a foreign country to so openly pursue his ideological aims is highly unusual.

“It’s the first time I’ve heard that a foreign leader is basically giving away his country’s natural resources,” said Nikolas Kozloff, a senior research fellow at the Washington-based Council on Hemispheric Affairs.
zmag.org

It may be the oddest tale to emerge from the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Armed dolphins, trained by the US military to shoot terrorists and pinpoint spies underwater, may be missing in the Gulf of Mexico.
Experts who have studied the US navy’s cetacean training exercises claim the 36 mammals could be carrying ‘toxic dart’ guns. Divers and surfers risk attack, they claim, from a species considered to be among the planet’s smartest. The US navy admits it has been training dolphins for military purposes, but has refused to confirm that any are missing.

Dolphins have been trained in attack-and-kill missions since the Cold War. The US Atlantic bottlenose dolphins have apparently been taught to shoot terrorists attacking military vessels. Their coastal compound was breached during the storm, sweeping them out to sea. But those who have studied the controversial use of dolphins in the US defence programme claim it is vital they are caught quickly.

Leo Sheridan, 72, a respected accident investigator who has worked for government and industry, said he had received intelligence from sources close to the US government’s marine fisheries service confirming dolphins had escaped.
observor.guardian.co.uk

· Judge’s arrest warrant for soldiers still in force
· Local authorities suspend cooperation with British

British officials in Iraq have ruled out an apology for the mission to rescue two undercover soldiers from a Basra police station last week, saying police in Iraq’s second city had disobeyed orders from their bosses in Baghdad.

“An apology to the police or the government would not be appropriate because there were orders to the Basra police from the interior ministry to release the two soldiers and they didn’t obey,” Karen McLuskie, a British diplomat in Basra, told the Guardian. “Our people were considered to be in danger and our actions were justified.”

She said there were no special plans for compensating the relatives of the four Iraqis killed and the 44 injured in violence surrounding the raid last Monday.
“Any citizen who was hurt can apply for compensation in the same way as if they had been hit by an army Humvee or truck,” said Ms McLuskie. There were no plans to help rebuild the police station.

Her remarks come after a weekend of tension during which the British base in Basra was hit by mortars and the city’s chief anti-terrorist judge issued a warrant for the arrest of two soldiers on suspicion of committing “terrorist acts”.

A British soldier who was seriously injured when his Warrior armoured vehicle was attacked with petrol bombs has been evacuated to Britain, where he is receiving treatment for burns, the Ministry of Defence said yesterday.

Many Basra residents are angry at what they said were “suspicious” and heavy-handed tactics by the British military. The soldiers, who were disguised in Arab dress, were arrested by Iraqi police then freed by British troops as tanks smashed down the wall of the police station. The raid infuriated locals, who set two British armoured vehicles ablaze and pelted soldiers with rocks. “We explained clearly to the authorities that they were British forces on a run-of-the mill observation mission,” said Ms McLuskie.
guardian.co.uk

You’d think that if the Brits were remotely interested in what they say their mission is in Iraq, they’d apologize and rebuild the jail.

by Greg Moses
The movement for peace and justice in the USA has been transformed during the past two months. But what is the nature of the change, and how will it help to move us forward? The short answer, I think, is that we have been enriched by sorrow; we gather upon a sorrow plateau. Because of this place we have come to, we have new opportunities to broaden the scope of our power to sustain lasting change for freedom.

Sorrow is the new power that Cindy Sheehan brought into the movement last month. And the power of our sorrow has grown in response to the sufferings caused by hurricane Katrina. This sorrow has not overcome us, but it has infused our motivations. Out of this sorrow comes a renewed sense of our struggle’s significance.

Sorrow grounded Cindy’s moral footing in the bar ditches of Crawford, Texas. Her sorrow was the reality that could not be conjured away by the alchemists of spin. It drew like a magnet so many who were grieving the loss (or the risk of loss) of a dearly loved life. The beauty of this sorrow was how it wept in consideration of one precious life at a time. For Cindy, the loss of her son Casey was enough. With each new arrival to Camp Casey came testament that one wasted life brings sorrow enough. To save just one life more is now motivation enough to stop the Iraq war.

Then came hurricane Katrina and the sorrowful reports of last moments: the one man who held with one hand the one woman he had to release. And that also was sorrow enough.

Refusal to share our plateau of sorrow was what exposed the President to the most devastating public rejection of his political life–a rejection from which he may not recover. When, during the early days of Katrina, we tuned to televised images of his trademark smirk and watched him attempt his cheerleading formulas as answer to the devastation, we saw naked as never before one man’s incapacity to be moved by sorrow.

From the bar ditches of Texas and from the broken canals of New Orleans, the nation had been lifted to a sorrow place, and the President on vacation had transparently refused to follow. On that basis, his approval ratings sunk to the bottom of Lake Pontchartrain, faster than a sack of sand.
counterpunch.org

BUSH’S BOOZE CRISIS”>
Faced with the biggest crisis of his political life, President Bush has hit the bottle again, The National Enquirer can reveal.

Washington – At Axis of Logic, we have been involved in all of the anti-war protests in Washington, New York and Boston since the U.S./U.K. invasions of Afghan and Iraq began. Yesterday’s mobilization in Washington D.C. was undeniably the largest, most high-spirited anti-war protest in the U.S. since the first attack on the people of Afghanistan in 2002. About 5-6 hours were required for the river of people to flow past the White House on a packed Pennsylvania Avenue. There was no sign of George W. Bush or anyone in his regime – all bunkered down – afraid to face the people who came to their doorstep to confront them. But present or not, they know and that is what is important.

One by one – we watched massive contingents from many states, organizations and tens of thousands of individuals, families and children file past the White House. Smiling faces spoke of self-empowerment and the very real possibility of the end of empire. Street theater, music, chants and spontaneous-uproarious swelling of audible protest moved the long procession past the temporary home of the neoconservative regime. U.S. soldiers – 1900+ killed and the 15,000+ wounded were well-represented before the gates of the enemy.

Throughout the day, the ghosts of a hundred thousand Iraqis haunted Pennsylvania avenue under a gray, overcast sky. The speeches from the stage powerfully articulated the voice of the people. The moving messages from musicians like Joan Baez, Steve Earle and The Coup stirred and united the spirit and purpose of the massive and diverse crowd.

But it was the people … allow me to say the words more slowly and with reverence … the people … who brought the anti-war movement to the level of a threat to the entrenched, corrupt government that leads the global corporate empire with their magnificent, united voice.
axisoflogic.com

Israel killed two Hamas militants and wounded more than 20 civilians yesterday in a sustained series of air strikes on the Gaza Strip, the first since it pulled troops out earlier this month.
A series of huge explosions were heard across Gaza signalling the worst violence since Israel’s pullout after 38 years of occupation.

Yesterday afternoon Israel fired rockets at two vehicles in Gaza City which it said had been carrying munitions and Hamas militants. A further series of air strikes came later in the day after Israeli ministers held an emergency session and agreed to resume targeted assassinations of Palestinian militants, according to a source who took part in the meeting.

Security officials said ‘Operation First Rain’ would include artillery fire and air strikes in response to a wave of mortar attacks on Israeli towns by Hamas. Israel promised the operation would grow in intensity, leading up to a ground operation – unless the Palestinian security forces takes action to halt the rocket attacks or Hamas decides to end the attacks itself.
guardian.co.uk

British troops will start a major withdrawal from Iraq next May under detailed plans on military disengagement to be published next month, The Observer can reveal.

The document being drawn up by the British government and the US will be presented to the Iraqi parliament in October and will spark fresh controversy over how long British troops will stay in the country. Tony Blair hopes that, despite continuing and widespread violence in Iraq, the move will show that there is progress following the conflict of 2003.

Britain has already privately informed Japan – which also has troops in Iraq – of its plans to begin withdrawing from southern Iraq in May, a move that officials in Tokyo say would make it impossible for their own 550 soldiers to remain.
guardian.co.uk

Iraqi judge issues arrest warrant for British troops