Topics of the day:
___________________________________________
Subject: Corporate Media Push Wrong Story on Obama's Relationship With Business
By Rose Aguilar
Truthout
February 7, 2011
http://www.truth-out.org/corporate-media-push-wrong-story-obamas-relationship-with-business67543President Barack Obama is hoping to 'mend ties' with big
business by speaking to the US Chamber of Commerce (COC),
Washington DC's top lobbyist. That's the frame we're hearing
in the corporate media even though the President has extended
the Bush tax cuts, recently named JP Morgan Chase executive
and former COC board member William Daley as his chief of
staff, and chose General Electric CEO Jeffrey Immelt to head
the new 'White House Council on Jobs and Competitiveness.'
Since 2009, GE has closed more than 25 manufacturing plants
in the US and slashed thousands of jobs, according to the
United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America.
While GE has laid off at least 10,000 workers in the US, it
has created more than 30,000 jobs in India over the past
decade. The administration's job czar runs a company that
employs more workers overseas than it does in the US.
During his recent eight-hour floor speech on inequality, tax
cuts for the ultra-wealthy, and corporate greed, Senator
Bernie Sanders (I-VT) cited an investors' meeting on December
6, 2002 at which Immelt said, "When I am talking to GE
managers, I talk China, China, China, China, China. You need
to be there. You need to change the way people talk about it
and how they get there. I am a nut on China. Outsourcing from
China is going to grow to $5 billion. We are building a tech
center in China. Every discussion today has to center on
China. The cost basis is extremely attractive."
Since Immelt became CEO in 2001, he has been paid $90 million
in salary, cash, and pension benefits, and like most multi-
nationals, GE just posted better-than-expected fourth quarter
and 2010 profits.
According to the Wall Street Journal, with about half of the
largest corporations already reporting fourth-quarter
profits, 2010 is expected to deliver the third-best full-year
gain since 1998. Chevron's fourth-quarter profits rose 72
percent. Dow Chemical's profits rose a whopping 188 percent.
The banks that received $13 trillion in bailout money and
subsidies with no strings attached are also posting record
profits and paying their CEOs multi-million dollar salaries.
According to the New York Times, 2010 was JPMorgan Chase's
most profitable year. CEO Jamie Dimon is expected to take
home $17.5 million, while four of his top executives have
been awarded stock worth more than $10 million each.
At the recent state dinner with Chinese President Hu Jintao,
attendees included Boeing CEO James McNerney, Goldman Sachs
CEO Lloyd Blankfein, JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, Coca-
Cola CEO Muhtar Kent, Dow Chemical CEO Andrew Liveris and The
Carlyle Group Co-Founder David Rubenstein. Even Henry
Kissinger, the man who is facing international arrest
warrants for war crimes, was there.
And yet The Washington Post claims that President Obama is
speaking to the COC to 'rebuild ties with corporate America?'
What most media outlets fail to mention is that many of the
corporations that fund the COC are responsible for sending
millions of jobs overseas and yet they present themselves as
the saviors for job creation as long as they continue
receiving tax breaks. 'And that's just wrong,' says Sasha
Abramsky, a freelance journalist who is working on a book
about the COC. 'It's a rewriting of history and the fact that
they haven't been called on it is a major failing among
progressive politicians.'
Abramsky says the COC claims to speak for all American
businesses and by extension, for all Americans, but it's
important to point out that it's 'got a very sectarian, very
narrow agenda.'
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The COC used to claim that it represents 'three million
businesses of all sizes, sectors, and regions,' but a 2009
investigation by Mother Jones' Josh Harkinson found that the
number is closer to 200,000. A day after the story appeared,
the COC quietly revised its membership number from three
million to 300,000.
When most people think of the COC, images of their local
Chamber and mom and pop shops come to mind, but according to
the Mother Jones piece, 'many state and local chambers don't
want the national body to speak for their members. Since
2006, when the Chamber offered to automatically enroll local
members in the national group free of charge, only 354 of the
nation's 7,000 state and local chambers have signed up.'
'The US Chamber is the largest lobbying organization in the
country,' says Kristy Setzer, communications director of the
union-backed watchdog group, US Chamber Watch. 'It is not
lobbying on behalf of small business owners. It is lobbying
to protect the handful of very large CEOs that fund its
budget.'
According to the US Chamber Watch, the COC's more than 100-
member board includes CEOs from Dow Chemical, JP Morgan
Chase, AT&T, and Caterpillar; just 16 corporations, including
WellPoint, Cigna, Charles Schwab, and Hewlett Packard provide
60 percent of the COC's $200 million budget.
The COC is not required to reveal specific contribution
information, so it's difficult to break down individual
donations. In October, Politico reported that the News
Corporation, whose holdings include the Fox News Channel and
the Wall Street Journal, donated $1M to the COC.
'That's probably the most disheartening thing about the
Chamber's business model. It is all so secret. It's done that
way by design,' says Setzer.
She says anonymous contributions allow major corporations to
hide behind policy positions that might be unpopular with
their customers and the public at large, including repealing
the healthcare law, undermining climate legislation, and
extending tax breaks to companies that send jobs overseas.
Since President Bill Clinton signed NAFTA in 1993, American
corporations have shut down 43,000 factories, resulting in
the loss of 5.1 million manufacturing jobs, according to
Public Citizen.
According to a Bloomberg report, America's Health Insurance
Plans (AHIP), the health insurance lobby whose members
include Humana, Aetna, WellPoint, and Cigna, gave the Chamber
$86.2 million in 2009 to oppose real healthcare reform. The
COC ran TV ads in over 20 states warning that a public option
would lead to 'expanded government control over your health.'
"By funneling the money through the Chamber," says the
report, "insurers were able to remain at the table
negotiating with Democrats while still getting the bill
criticized."
At the March 5, 2009 White House Health Care Summit, where
doctors and single payer advocates were arrested for standing
up to ask why single payer reform was not on the table, AHIP
president Karen Ignagni told President Obmaa he could count
on her and the insurance industry. 'We want to work with the
members of Congress on a bipartisan basis here. You have our
commitment. We hear the American people about what's not
working. We've taken that seriously,' she said. 'You have our
commitment to play, to contribute, and to help pass health
care reform this year.'
President Obama responded by saying, 'Good. Thank you, Karen.
That's good news. That's America's Health Insurance Plans.'
At today's speech to 200 COC members, President Obama said,
'I'm here today because I'm convinced we can and must work
together.'
'It's unclear what is more mortifying: President Barack Obama
choosing the club of America's notorious job-offshorers to
talk about the importance of creating American jobs, or his
rallying of his fiercest political opponents to help him
overcome the majority of Americans who oppose more-of-the-
same job-killing trade agreements and pass a NAFTA-style deal
with Korea that the government's own analysis shows will
increase our trade deficit,' said Lori Wallach, director of
Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch, in response to today's
speech.
'The US Chamber of Commerce audience must have been thrilled
to have Obama push more of the trade agreements that both
help them offshore American jobs and, given that most
Americans oppose more of these job-killing trade pacts, can
help them achieve their political goal of replacing Obama in
2012.'
The Economic Policy Institute estimates that the Korea-US
Free Trade Agreement will cost 159,000 US jobs within the
first seven years after it takes effect. Congress is expected
to vote on the deal in the coming months.
[Rose Aguilar is the host of "Your Call," a daily call-in
radio show on KALW 91.7 FM in San Francisco and on KUSP 88.9
FM in Santa Cruz. She is author of "Red Highways: A Liberal's
Journey Into the Heartland."]
___________________________________________
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Date: Tue, 8 Feb 2011 20:37:33 -0500
From: Portside Moderator <
moderator@PORTSIDE.ORG>
Subject: Discovering Equality (Book Review)
Discovering Equality
Steven Hahn
January 13, 2011
http://www.tnr.com/article/books-and-arts/magazine/81377/lincoln-slavery-fiery-trial-reviewThe Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery.
By Eric Foner. (W.W. Norton, 426 pp., $29.95)
As we begin a raft of sesquicentennials that will carry us
through at least the next half-decade-the secession of
Southern states, the formation of the Confederacy, the Civil
War, the Emancipation Proclamation, Appomattox, and so on-I
confess to feeling a mixture of excitement and trepidation.
These are all signal events in our history, the roadblocks
and thoroughfares in the making of modern America, and at a
time of general crisis they are especially important to
revisit. But the political atmosphere in this country is now
so poisonous, the misinformation so widespread and easily
passed, the temptation to haul out any version of the past
for contemporary purposes so great, that I fear the
sesquicentennials may embitter, rather than salve, already
raw political nerves.
One of the first of the sesquicentennials, now just past, is
that of the presidential election of 1860. It surely was an
election to be remembered. It drew the largest turnout of
eligible voters-more than 80 percent-in our history. It
pitted four serious candidates against each other, one of
whom (Abraham Lincoln) was not even on the ballot in most of
the Southern states, and two of whom (John C. Breckinridge
and John Bell) won only a handful of votes in the Northern
states. It saw the two major parties, the Democrats and the
Republicans, vie to use the powers of the federal government
either to advance or to halt the spread of slavery into the
trans-Mississippi West. It gave the victory to a candidate
who won far less than a majority of the popular vote (about
40 percent) though unquestionably a majority of the electoral
vote. To top it all, within a month and a half the election
initiated a process of rebellion and disunion that resulted
in the formation of a new country, the Confederate States of
America, and quickly thereafter in a bitter and bloody war.
The publication of Eric Foner's splendid book is timed to
coincide with this sesquicentennial, and it certainly takes a
brave and determined soul to enter the fray in this way. We
have just come through the bicentennial of Lincoln's birth in
1809, and a veritable avalanche of popular and scholarly
biographies has been added to a base of Lincolniana so deep
that it could probably bury the nation's capital. Haven't we
had enough? Shouldn't we start to dig out? What could there
possibly be left to add?
Remarkably, The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American
Slavery serves as an excellent introduction to the new set of
commemorations, because Foner not only illuminates Lincoln's
developing views on the question of slavery, but also places
him in the broad context of America's most divisive and
consequential political conflict. Although Foner clearly
admires Lincoln, he does not obscure Lincoln's many
complicities with the status quo or his zest for the main
chance. He shows us a man who, for most of his life, embodied
the limited political visions and social prejudices of many
Americans who lived north of the Ohio River. Rather than
appearing as "destined" for greatness, the Lincoln of this
book comes to us as an ambitious-though for the most part
small-time-politician and lawyer, devoted to the Whig Party
and struggling to reconcile his moral objections to slavery
with his commitment to constitutionalism and social peace.
But there is also a much larger canvas. We come to
understand, in Foner's telling, the extent of slavery's
dominion in the first half of the nineteenth century, and the
enormous obstacles that slavery's enemies would face. Slavery
was not in decline, nor were slaveholders becoming a
disempowered minority. Slavery was deeply embedded in all
corners of the United States (fortified by the racism that
accompanied it), and slaveholders controlled most branches of
the federal government. The "anti-slavery enterprise," as
Charles Sumner called it, battled against great odds, often
in tense relation to men of the Lower North such as Lincoln,
who were regarded as unreliable and too eager for compromise.
And so we come to see how Lincoln grew into a role and a
stature that could not have been predicted: into a voice for
the "nation," a determined commander-in- chief, a leader who
would sign off on one of the most radical emancipations in
the history of the modern world and glimpse, however
haltingly, a multi-racial future for the United States.
Lincoln would be as much transformed by history's
opportunities as he would help to transform history itself.
It is an inspiring story, but a sobering one, too.
___________________________________________
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Date: Tue, 8 Feb 2011 20:38:19 -0500
From: Portside Moderator <
moderator@PORTSIDE.ORG>
Subject: Mubarak Family Fortune Could Reach $70Bn, Say Experts
Mubarak Family Fortune Could Reach $70Bn, Say Experts
Egyptian President has cash in British and Swiss
Banks plus UK And US Property
By Phillip Inmanuk
The Guardian/UK
February 4, 2011
Http://Www.Guardian.Co.Uk/World/2011/Feb/04/Hosni-Mubarak-Family-FortuneGamal and Hosni Mubarak are reported to have built up huge
fortunes, including properties in London.
President Hosni Mubarak's family fortune could be as much as
$70bn (£43.5bn) according to analysis by Middle East experts,
with much of his wealth in British and Swiss banks or tied up
in real estate in London, New York, Los Angeles and along
expensive tracts of the Red Sea coast.
After 30 years as president and many more as a senior
military official, Mubarak has had access to investment deals
that have generated hundreds of millions of pounds in
profits. Most of those gains have been taken offshore and
deposited in secret bank accounts or invested in upmarket
homes and hotels.
According to a report last year in the arabic newspaper Al
Khabar, Mubarak has properties in Manhattan and exclusive
Beverly Hills addresses on Rodeo Drive.
His sons, Gamal and Alaa, are also billionaires. A protest
outside Gamal's ostentatious home at 28 Wilton Place in
Belgravia, Central London, highlighted the family's appetite
for western trophy assets.
Amaney Jamal, a political science professor at Princeton
University, said the estimate of $40bn-70bn was comparable
with the vast wealth of leaders in other Gulf countries.
"The business ventures from his military and government
service accumulated to his personal wealth," she told ABC
News. "There was a lot of corruption in this regime and
stifling of public resources for personal gain.
"This is the pattern of other middle eastern dictators so
their wealth will not be taken during a transition. These
leaders plan on this."
Al Khabar said it understood the Mubaraks kept much of their
wealth offshore in the Swiss bank UBS and the Bank of
Scotland, part of Lloyds Banking Group, although this
information could be at least 10 years old.
There are only sketchy details of exactly where the Mubaraks
have generated their wealth and its final destination.
Christopher Davidson, professor of Middle East politics at
Durham University, said Mubarak, his wife, Suzanne, and two
sons were able to accumulate wealth through a number of
business partnerships with foreign investors and companies,
dating back to when he was in the military and in a position
to benefit from corporate corruption.
He said most Gulf states required foreigners give a local
business partner a 51% stake in start-up ventures. In Egypt,
the figure is commonly nearer 20%, but still gives
politicians and close allies in the military a source of huge
profits with no initial outlay and little risk.
"Almost every project needs a sponsor and Mubarak was well-
placed to take advantage of any deals on offer," he said.
"Much of his money is in Swiss bank accounts and London
property. These are the favourites of middle eastern leaders
and there is no reason to think Mubarak is any different.
Gamal's Wilton Place home is likely to be the tip of the
iceberg."
Al Khabar named a series of major western companies that,
partnered with the Mubarak family, generated an estimated
$15m a year in profits.
Aladdin Elaasar, author of The Last Pharaoh: Mubarak and the
Uncertain Future of Egypt in the Obama Age, said the Mubaraks
own several residences in Egypt, some inherited from previous
presidents and the monarchy, and others the president has
commissioned.
Hotels and land around the Sharm el-Sheikh tourist resort are
also a source of Mubarak family wealth.
___________________________________________
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Date: Tue, 8 Feb 2011 20:38:50 -0500
From: Portside Moderator <
moderator@PORTSIDE.ORG>
Subject: Ronald Reagan, Enabler of Atrocities
Ronald Reagan, Enabler of Atrocities
By Robert Parry
consortiumnews.com via rsn
February 6, 2011
http://readersupportednews.org/off-site-opinion-section/102-102/4859-ronald-reagan-enabler-of-atrocitiesWhen you're listening to the many tributes to President
Ronald Reagan, often for his talent making Americans feel
better about themselves, you might want to spend a minute
thinking about the many atrocities in Latin America and
elsewhere that Reagan aided, covered up or shrugged off in
his inimitable "aw shucks" manner.
After all, the true measure of a president shouldn't be his
style or how he made us feel but rather what he did with his
extraordinary power, what were the consequences for real
people, either for good or ill.
Yet, even as the United States celebrates Reagan's centennial
birthday and lavishes praise on his supposed accomplishments,
very little time has been spent reflecting on the unnecessary
bloodbaths that Reagan enabled in many parts of the world.
Those grisly deaths and ugly tortures get whisked away as if
they were just small necessities in Reagan's larger success
'winning the Cold War' - even though the competition between
the United States and the Soviet Union was already winding
down before Reagan arrived on the national scene. [See
Consortiumnews.com's 'Reagan's ‘Tear Down This Wall' Myth.']
Yet, Reagan's Cold War obsessions helped unleash right-wing
'death squads' and murderous militaries on the common people
in many parts of the Third World, but nowhere worse than in
Latin America.
In the 1970s and 1980s, as Latin American security forces
were sharpening themselves into finely honed killing
machines, Reagan was there as an ardent defender, making
excuses for the atrocities, and sending money and equipment
to make the forces even more lethal.
For instance, in the late 1970s, when Argentina's dictators
were inventing a new state-terror program called
'disappearances' - the unacknowledged murders of dissidents -
Reagan was making himself useful as a columnist deflecting
the human rights complaints coming from the Carter
administration.
At the time, Argentina's security forces were rounding up
tens of thousands of political opponents who became subjects
of ingenious torture techniques often followed by mass
killings, including a favorite method that involved shackling
naked prisoners together, loading them onto a plane, piloting
the plane out to sea and shoving them through the plane's
door, like sausage links.
However, since Argentina's rightists were devout Catholics,
they had a special twist when the prisoners were pregnant
women. The expectant mothers would be kept alive until they
reached full term and then were subjected to either induced
labor or Caesarian sections.
The babies were handed out to military families and the new
mothers were loaded aboard the death planes to be dumped out
over the sea to drown. The children were sometimes raised by
their mothers' murderers. [See Consortiumnews.com's
'Argentina's Dapper State Terrorist' or 'Baby-Snatching:
Argentina's Dirty War Secret.']
As ghastly as Argentina's 'dirty war' was, it had an ardent
defender in Ronald Reagan, who used his newspaper column to
chide President Jimmy Carter's human rights coordinator,
Patricia Derian, for berating the Argentine junta.
Reagan joshed that Derian should 'walk a mile in the
moccasins' of the Argentine generals before criticizing them.
[For details, see Martin Edwin Andersen's Dossier Secreto.]
Sympathizing with Torturers
So, there was good reason for the right-wing oligarchs and
their security services to celebrate when Reagan was elected
president in November 1980. They knew they would enjoy a new
era of impunity as they tortured, raped and murdered their
political opponents.
Even before Reagan took office, four American churchwomen in
El Salvador were kidnapped by elements of the right-wing
Salvadoran military. Because the women were suspected of
harboring leftist sympathies, they were raped and executed
with high-powered bullets to their brains, before their
bodies were stuffed into shallow graves.
The incoming Reagan administration was soon making excuses
for the Salvadoran killers, including comments from Reagan's
U.N. Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick and Secretary of State
Alexander Haig.
The brutal Argentine generals also got a royal welcome when
they visited Washington. Kirkpatrick feted them at an elegant
state dinner.
More substantively, Reagan authorized CIA collaboration with
the Argentine intelligence service for training and arming
the Nicaraguan Contras, a rebel force created to overthrow
Nicaragua's leftist Sandinista government. The Contras were
soon implicated in human rights atrocities of their own.
Torture was also on the Reagan's administration's menu for
political enemies. A 2004 CIA Inspector General's report,
examining the CIA's abusive 'war on terror' interrogations
under President George W. Bush, noted the spy agency's past
'intermittent involvement in the interrogation of individuals
whose interests are opposed to those of the United States.'
The report noted 'a resurgence in interest' in teaching these
techniques in the early 1980s 'to foster foreign liaison
relationships.' The report said, 'because of political
sensitivities,' the CIA's top brass in the 1980s 'forbade
Agency officers from using the word ‘interrogation' and
substituted the phrase 'human resources exploitation' in
training programs for allied intelligence agencies.
Euphemisms aside, the CIA Inspector General cited a 1984
investigation of alleged 'misconduct on the part of two
Agency officers who were involved in interrogations and the
death of one individual.' In 1984, the CIA also was faced
with a scandal over an 'assassination manual' prepared by
agency personnel for the Nicaraguan Contras.
While the IG report's references to this earlier era were
brief - and the abuses are little-remembered features of
Ronald Reagan's glorified presidency - there have been other
glimpses into how Reagan unleashed this earlier 'dark side'
on the peasants, workers and students of Central America.
Arguably, the worst of these 'dirty wars' was inflicted on
the people of Guatemala.
Genocide in Guatemala
After taking office in 1981, Reagan pushed to overturn an
arms embargo that Carter had imposed on Guatemala for its
wretched human rights record. Yet even as Reagan moved to
loosen up the military aid ban, U.S. intelligence agencies
were confirming new Guatemalan government massacres.
In April 1981, a secret CIA cable described a massacre at
Cocob, near Nebaj in the Ixil Indian territory. On April 17,
1981, government troops attacked the area believed to support
leftist guerrillas, the cable said.
According to a CIA source, "the social population appeared to
fully support the guerrillas" and "the soldiers were forced
to fire at anything that moved." The CIA cable added that
"the Guatemalan authorities admitted that 'many civilians'
were killed in Cocob, many of whom undoubtedly were non-
combatants."
Despite the CIA account and other similar reports, Reagan
permitted Guatemala's army to buy $3.2 million in military
trucks and jeeps in June 1981. To permit the sale, Reagan
removed the vehicles from a list of military equipment that
was covered by the human rights embargo.
Confident of Reagan's sympathies, the Guatemalan government
continued its political repression without apology.
According to a State Department cable on Oct. 5, 1981,
Guatemalan leaders met with Reagan's roving ambassador,
retired Gen. Vernon Walters, and left no doubt about their
plans. Guatemala's military leader, Gen. Fernando Romeo Lucas
Garcia, "made clear that his government will continue as
before - that the repression will continue."
Human rights groups saw the same grisly picture. The Inter-
American Human Rights Commission released a report on Oct.
15, 1981, blaming the Guatemalan government for "thousands of
illegal executions." [Washington Post, Oct. 16, 1981]
But the Reagan administration was set on whitewashing the
ugly scene. A State Department "white paper," released in
December 1981, blamed the violence on leftist "extremist
groups" and their "terrorist methods," inspired and supported
by Cuba's Fidel Castro.
More Massacres
Yet, even as these rationalizations were pitched to the
American people, U.S. intelligence agencies in Guatemala
continued to learn of government-sponsored massacres.
One CIA report in February 1982 described an army sweep
through the so-called Ixil Triangle in central El Quiche
province.
'The commanding officers of the units involved have been
instructed to destroy all towns and villages which are
cooperating with the Guerrilla Army of the Poor [known as the
EGP] and eliminate all sources of resistance," the report
stated. "Since the operation began, several villages have
been burned to the ground, and a large number of guerrillas
and collaborators have been killed."
The CIA report explained the army's modus operandi: "When an
army patrol meets resistance and takes fire from a town or
village, it is assumed that the entire town is hostile and it
is subsequently destroyed."
When the army encountered an empty village, it was "assumed
to have been supporting the EGP, and it is destroyed. There
are hundreds, possibly thousands of refugees in the hills
with no homes to return to. …
'The well-documented belief by the army that the entire Ixil
Indian population is pro-EGP has created a situation in which
the army can be expected to give no quarter to combatants and
non-combatants alike."
In March 1982, Gen. Efrain Rios Montt seized power in a coup
d'etat. An avowed fundamentalist Christian, he immediately
impressed Official Washington with his piety. Reagan hailed
Rios Montt as "a man of great personal integrity."
By July 1982, however, Rios Montt had begun a new scorched-
earth campaign called "rifles and beans." The slogan meant
that pacified Indians would get "beans," while all others
could expect to be the target of army "rifles."
In October 1982, Rios Montt secretly gave carte blanche to
the feared 'Archivos' intelligence unit to expand 'death
squad' operations, internal U.S. government cables revealed.
Defending Rios Montt
Despite the widespread evidence of Guatemalan government
atrocities cited in the internal U.S. government cables,
political operatives for the Reagan administration sought to
conceal the crimes. On Oct. 22, 1982, for instance, the U.S.
Embassy claimed the Guatemalan government was the victim of a
communist-inspired "disinformation campaign."
Reagan personally took that position in December 1982 when he
met with Rios Montt and claimed that his regime was getting a
"bum rap" on human rights.
On Jan. 7, 1983, Reagan lifted the ban on military aid to
Guatemala, authorizing the sale of $6 million in military
hardware, including spare parts for UH-1H helicopters and
A-37 aircraft used in counterinsurgency operations.
State Department spokesman John Hughes said the sales were
justified because political violence in the cities had
"declined dramatically" and that rural conditions had
improved, too.
In February 1983, however, a secret CIA cable noted a rise in
"suspect right-wing violence" with kidnappings of students
and teachers. Bodies of victims were appearing in ditches and
gullies.
CIA sources traced these political murders to Rios Montt's
order to the "Archivos" the previous October to "apprehend,
hold, interrogate and dispose of suspected guerrillas as they
saw fit."
Despite these ugly facts on the ground, the annual State
Department human rights survey sugarcoated the facts for the
American public and praised the supposedly improved human
rights situation in Guatemala.
"The overall conduct of the armed forces had improved by late
in the year" 1982, the report stated.
A different picture - far closer to the secret information
held by the U.S. government - was coming from independent
human rights investigators. On March 17, 1983, Americas Watch
representatives condemned the Guatemalan army for human
rights atrocities against the Indian population.
New York attorney Stephen L. Kass cited proof that the
government carried out "virtually indiscriminate murder of
men, women and children of any farm regarded by the army as
possibly supportive of guerrilla insurgents."
Rural women suspected of guerrilla sympathies were raped
before execution, Kass said. Children were "thrown into
burning homes. They are thrown in the air and speared with
bayonets. We heard many, many stories of children being
picked up by the ankles and swung against poles so their
heads are destroyed." [AP, March 17, 1983]
‘Positive Changes'
Publicly, however, senior Reagan officials continued to put
on a happy face.
On June 12, 1983, special envoy Richard B. Stone praised
"positive changes" in Rios Montt's government. But Rios
Montt's vengeful Christian fundamentalism was hurtling out of
control, even by Guatemalan standards. In August 1983, Gen.
Oscar Mejia Victores seized power in another coup.
Despite the power shift, Guatemalan security forces continued
to kill anyone deemed a subversive or a terrorist.
When three Guatemalans working for the U.S. Agency for
International Development were slain in November 1983, U.S.
Ambassador Frederic Chapin suspected that 'Archivos' hit
squads were sending a message to the United States to back
off even the mild pressure for human rights.
In late November 1983, in a brief show of displeasure, the
administration postponed the sale of $2 million in helicopter
spare parts. The next month, however, Reagan sent the spare
parts anyway. In 1984, Reagan succeeded, too, in pressuring
Congress to approve $300,000 in military training for the
Guatemalan army.
By mid-1984, Chapin, who had grown bitter about the army's
stubborn brutality, was gone, replaced by a far-right
political appointee named Alberto Piedra, who was all for
increased military assistance to Guatemala.
In January 1985, Americas Watch issued a report observing
that Reagan's State Department "is apparently more concerned
with improving Guatemala's image than in improving its human
rights."
Other examples of Guatemala's 'death squad' strategy came to
light later. For example, a U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency
cable in 1994 reported that the Guatemalan military had used
an air base in Retalhuleu during the mid-1980s as a center
for coordinating the counterinsurgency campaign in southwest
Guatemala - and for torturing and burying prisoners.
At the base, pits were filled with water to hold captured
suspects. "Reportedly there were cages over the pits and the
water level was such that the individuals held within them
were forced to hold on to the bars in order to keep their
heads above water and avoid drowning," the DIA report stated.
The Guatemalan military used the Pacific Ocean as another
dumping spot for political victims, according to the DIA
report.
Bodies of insurgents tortured to death and live prisoners
marked for 'disappearance' were loaded onto planes that flew
out over the ocean where the soldiers would shove the victims
into the water to drown, a tactic that had been a favorite
disposal technique of the Argentine military in the 1970s.
The history of the Retalhuleu death camp was uncovered by
accident in the early 1990s when a Guatemalan officer wanted
to let soldiers cultivate their own vegetables on a corner of
the base. But the officer was taken aside and told to drop
the request "because the locations he had wanted to cultivate
were burial sites that had been used by the D-2 [military
intelligence] during the mid-eighties," the DIA report said.
‘Perception Management'
Guatemala, of course, was not the only Central American
country where Reagan and his administration supported brutal
counterinsurgency and paramilitary operations -- and then
sought to cover up the bloody facts.
Deception of the American public - a strategy that the
administration called 'perception management' - was as much a
part of Reagan's Central American activities as the Bush
administration's lies and distortions about weapons of mass
destruction were to the lead-up to the war in Iraq in 2003.
Reagan's falsification of the historical record became a
hallmark of the conflicts in El Salvador and Nicaragua as
well as Guatemala. In one case, Reagan personally lashed out
at a human rights investigator named Reed Brody, a New York
lawyer who had collected affidavits from more than 100
witnesses to atrocities carried out by the U.S.-supported
Contras in Nicaragua.
Angered by the revelations about his beloved Contras, Reagan
denounced Brody in a speech on April 15, 1985, calling him
"one of dictator [Daniel] Ortega's supporters, a sympathizer
who has openly embraced Sandinismo."
Privately, Reagan had a far more accurate understanding of
the true nature of the Contras. At one point in the Contra
war, Reagan turned to CIA official Duane Clarridge and
demanded that the Contras be used to destroy some Soviet-
supplied helicopters that had arrived in Nicaragua.
Clarridge recalled that "President Reagan pulled me aside and
asked, 'Dewey, can't you get those vandals of yours to do
this job.'" [See Clarridge's A Spy for All Seasons.]
On Feb. 25, 1999, a Guatemalan truth commission issued a
report on the staggering human rights crimes that Reagan and
his administration had aided, abetted and concealed.
The Historical Clarification Commission, an independent human
rights body, estimated that the Guatemalan conflict claimed
the lives of some 200,000 people with the most savage
bloodletting occurring in the 1980s.
Based on a review of about 20 percent of the dead, the panel
blamed the army for 93 percent of the killings and leftist
guerrillas for three percent. Four percent were listed as
unresolved.
The report documented that in the 1980s, the army committed
626 massacres against Mayan villages. "The massacres that
eliminated entire Mayan villages - are neither perfidious
allegations nor figments of the imagination, but an authentic
chapter in Guatemala's history," the commission concluded.
Mayan Exterminations
The army "completely exterminated Mayan communities,
destroyed their livestock and crops," the report said. In the
northern highlands, the report termed the slaughter
"genocide."
Besides carrying out murder and "disappearances," the army
routinely engaged in torture and rape. "The rape of women,
during torture or before being murdered, was a common
practice" by the military and paramilitary forces, the report
found.
The report added that the "government of the United States,
through various agencies including the CIA, provided direct
and indirect support for some [of these] state operations."
The report concluded that the U.S. government also gave money
and training to a Guatemalan military that committed "acts of
genocide" against the Mayans.
"Believing that the ends justified everything, the military
and the state security forces blindly pursued the
anticommunist struggle, without respect for any legal
principles or the most elemental ethical and religious
values, and in this way, completely lost any semblance of
human morals," said the commission chairman, Christian
Tomuschat, a German jurist.
"Within the framework of the counterinsurgency operations
carried out between 1981 and 1983, in certain regions of the
country agents of the Guatemalan state committed acts of
genocide against groups of the Mayan people,' Tomuschat said.
During a visit to Central America, on March 10, 1999,
President Bill Clinton apologized for the past U.S. support
of right-wing regimes in Guatemala.
"For the United States, it is important that I state clearly
that support for military forces and intelligence units which
engaged in violence and widespread repression was wrong, and
the United States must not repeat that mistake," Clinton
said.
Though Clinton admitted that U.S. policy in Guatemala was
'wrong' -- and the evidence of a U.S.-backed 'genocide' might
have been considered startling -- the news was treated mostly
as a one-day story in the U.S. press. It prompted no panel
discussions on the cable news shows that were then obsessed
with Clinton's personal life.
But there was another factor in the disinterest. By the late
1990s, Ronald Reagan had been transformed into a national
icon, with the Republican-controlled Congress attaching his
name to public buildings around the country and to National
Airport in Washington.
Democrats mostly approached this deification of Reagan as
harmless, an easy concession to the Republicans in the name
of bipartisanship. Some Democrats would even try to cite
Reagan as supportive of some of their positions as a way to
protect themselves from attacks launched by the increasingly
powerful right-wing news media.
The Democratic goal of looking to the future, not the past,
had negative consequences, however. With Reagan and his
brutal policies put beyond serious criticism, the path was
left open for President George W. Bush and Vice President
Dick Cheney to return to the 'dark side' after the 9/11
attacks, authorizing torture and extrajudicial killings.
Now, Reagan's 'greatness' is being sealed by the elaborate
celebrations in honor of his 100th birthday, including a
special homage paid during the Super Bowl. In recent days,
commentators, like MSNBC's Chris Matthews, have scrambled to
position themselves as Reagan's admirers, all the better to
protect their careers.
But amid all the extravagant hoopla and teary tributes to the
late president, perhaps some Americans will stop and think of
all the decent people in Latin America and elsewhere who died
horrible and unnecessary deaths as Ronald Reagan cheerily
defended their murderers.
[Many of the declassified Guatemalan documents have been
posted on the Internet by the National Security Archive.]
[For more on these topics, see Robert Parry's Lost History
and Secrecy & Privilege, which are now available with Neck
Deep, in a three-book set for the discount price of only $29.
[Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories in the
1980s for the Associated Press and Newsweek. His latest book,
Neck Deep: The Disastrous Presidency of George W. Bush, was
written with two of his sons, Sam and Nat, and can be ordered
at neckdeepbook.com. His two previous books, Secrecy &
Privilege: The Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to
Iraq and Lost History: Contras, Cocaine, the Press & 'Project
Truth' are also available there.]
___________________________________________
Portside aims to provide material of interest to people
on the left that will help them to interpret the world
and to change it.
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Date: Tue, 8 Feb 2011 20:45:43 -0500
From: Portside Moderator <
moderator@PORTSIDE.ORG>
Subject: Herhold: Taking Life Beyond the Google Motto
Herhold: Taking life beyond the Google motto
By Scott Herhold
Mercury News
Posted: 02/08/2011
http://www.siliconvalley.com/scott-herhold/ci_17319575We are fond of proclaiming the protests in Tunisia and Egypt
as the Facebook or Twitter revolutions, as if technology
alone shaped the uprising.
Unquestionably, technology offered a means of revolt,
magnifying the way that a megaphone gathered crowds during
student uprisings of the 1960s.
What we forget, however, is that every uprising also demands
leaders willing to defy authority, to risk life and limb for
what they believe is right.
In that sense, the story of Wael Ghonim, the young Google
marketing executive who was released by Egyptian authorities
Monday, should inspire us all.
Ghonim was one of the first to use social networking tools to
fight the regime of Hosni Mubarak. Friends say he created a
Facebook page to protest the death of 28-year-old Khaled
Said, who was beaten to death in June by Egyptian police.
He also helped set up the Facebook page for Mohamed
ElBaradei, the Egyptian leader who has returned to lead the
opposition to Mubarak.
And on Jan. 25, as the revolt in Tahrir Square was gathering
steam, Ghonim sent out a Twitter message to his followers,
vowing that he would be there. He became a symbol of protest.
Three days later, he disappeared. And if you needed
verification for his importance to the current protests, it
was his detention by the police.
On Monday, the U.S. State Department announced that it had
gotten notice that Ghonim had been released. It ought to be a
moment for us Advertisement to reflect on what heroism is.
In my early 20s, my twin heroes were the singer Mick Jagger
and investigative reporter Seymour Hersh -- Jagger for his
finger-wagging insouciance, Hersh for his doggedness.
My icon worship said something about where I was in life --
defying law school or a staid career for journalism. (I've
learned that my heroes both have feet of clay, as do I.)
As I think about it now, it seems to me a real hero ought to
do three things: He or she should act at risk to themselves.
Their actions should benefit the common good. And they should
inspire the rest of us.
On all three counts, Ghonim fits. He knew Egypt was
dangerous: He had relocated to Dubai in early 2010 with wife
and children but continued to return often to his homeland.
It goes without saying that he did something for the common
good: For those who know history, there are parallels here
with the great Irish hero Wolfe Tone, who returned to his
native land and lost his life during Ireland's failed
uprising in 1798.
And inspiration, if you ever needed it, came from one of
Ghonim's last tweets: "Despite all the warnings I got from my
relatives and friends, I'll be there on #Jan 25," he wrote.
The Wall Street Journal asked Google whether Ghonim violated
the Mountain View-based company's policies. The Google
spokesman declined to comment, saying they'd have to talk to
Ghonim.
It was the wrong answer. Here's what the Google person should
have said: "If Ghonim violated our policies, we'll deal with
it internally. We have an obligation to make money."
"But if you ask me whether he did something great, the answer
has to be yes. At Google, we stand in awe of his dedication
and courage in the cause of human dignity."
You see, the first rule in life isn't the famous Google
motto, "Don't be evil." It is to do something good. Ghonim,
who could have picked a safer way, understood that
profoundly.
Contact Scott Herhold at
sherhold@mercurynews.com or
408-275-0917.
.
|
In 2003, Rene Enriquez defected from the Mexican Mafia. As a senior leader in the organization, he had much to offer the authorities. His debriefings with officials were videotaped. Here are excerpts from one tape. This was part of a documentary by American RadioWorks. More, including the entire radio documentary, is available at http://americanradioworks.org/features/gangster. |
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Is It Possible To Switch To 100 Percent Renewables By 2030?
Is it possible for the fossil-fueled world we live in to switch to 100...
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Education Headed For the Funding Cliff
Sometime between now and the end of the current school year, most states will...
by: Ann Bibby
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WHAT IS REALLY GOING ON HERE? Decide for yourself.
2008: The Year In Review – NORML’s Top Events That Shaped Marijuana Policy
#1 Landslide At The Ballot Box: Election Day Voters Reject Bush War Doctrine
Millions of Americans nationwide voted on Election Day for marijuana law reform, approving nine out of ten ballot measures to liberalize penalties on cannabis use and possession. In Massachusetts, where 65 percent of voters decided to reduce marijuana possession penalties to a $100 fine, and Michigan, where 63 percent of voters approved legalizing the medical use of cannabis, supporters for pot law reform outnumbered supporters for President-Elect Barack Obama. Read the full story at: http://www.norml.org/index.cfm?Group_ID=7742.
Members of Congress convened a Capitol Hill press conference in July to demand lawmakers enact legislation to eliminate the government’s authority to arrest and prosecute adults who possess marijuana. Lawmakers called on colleagues to endorse HR 5843, which sought to remove federal penalties for the possession and non-profit transfer of marijuana by adults. The legislation was the first proposal introduced in Congress in 30 years to eliminate criminal marijuana penalties. Read the full story at: http://www.norml.org/index.cfm?Group_ID=7670.
#4: Marijuana “Exceptional” At Reducing MRSA
The administration of natural plant cannabinoids significantly reduces the spread of drug-resistant bacteria, including methicillin-resistant Staphyloccus aureus (aka MRSA), according to a study published this fall in the Journal of Natural Products. MRSA is responsible for over 18,000 hospital-stay deaths each year. Read the full story at: http://norml.org/index.cfm?Group_ID=7687.
#5 Marijuana Arrests For 2007 Reach All-Time High
Police arrested a record 872,721 Americans for marijuana violations in 2007, the highest annual total ever reported by the FBI. Since 1965, over 20 million Americans have been arrested for violating state or federal marijuana laws. Read the full story at: http://www.norml.org/index.cfm?Group_ID=7698.
#6 Cannabis Determined To Be Less Harmful Than Alcohol
The potential health risks associated with cannabis are less than those associated with alcohol and do not justify the continued criminalization of the plant or its users, according to a report published in October by The Beckley Foundation – an independent British think-tank that analyzes drug use and drug policy. Read the full story at: http://www.norml.org/index.cfm?Group_ID=7723.
#7 Teen Pot Use Declines In States With Medical Cannabis Laws
States that have enacted legislation authorizing the use of medical cannabis by qualified patients have not experienced an increase in the drug's use by the general population, according to a comprehensive report issued in June by the Marijuana Policy Project. Read the full story at: http://www.norml.org/index.cfm?Group_ID=7638.
#8 Medical Marijuana Use Not Associated With Adverse Side Effects
The medical use of cannabis is not associated with serious negative side effects, according to a meta-analysis published this summer in the journal of the Canadian Medical Association (CMAJ). Read the full story at: http://www.norml.org/index.cfm?Group_ID=7639.
#9 California Attorney General Issues Guidelines Recognizing Patients’ Medical Cannabis Use
State and local law enforcement should not arrest state qualified patients who possess, cultivate, or travel with medical marijuana, according to guidelines issued in August by the California Attorney General's office. The guidelines also permit for the distribution and non-profit sales of medical cannabis is permitted by qualified “collectives and cooperatives.” Read the full story at: http://www.norml.org/index.cfm?Group_ID=7689. |
RayBeckerman
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