People Before Profit blog

Defense CEOs getting more bucks for the bang

Fri, 30 May 2003 02:26:00 +0000

Opinion

In 1940, on the eve of America’s entry into World War II, President Roosevelt warned, “I don’t want to see a single war millionaire created in the United States as a result of this world disaster.”

Fast-forward 60 years. It is early April 2003, and American soldiers are fighting their way toward Baghdad. The New York Times asks retired general Jay Garner what he likes about his new job as CEO of defense contractor SyColeman. “Most of the guys are former military,” Garner replies. “And you make a lot of money.”

Well. It seems that times have changed since FDR. Garner’s remark went largely unnoticed, even as the retired general took temporary leave from his corporate job to become the Bush administration’s viceroy in Baghdad. We don’t hear phrases like “war millionaires” much anymore, certainly not from our presidents.

Of course, Jay Garner is hardly the only one who has cashed in on the U.S. government’s increasingly bellicose foreign policy. The defense biz is positively crawling with war millionaires, namely the CEOs who head up the corporations that build the planes, ships and tanks for the Pentagon.

At a time when most American industries are struggling and executive pay overall is actually stagnating, CEOs in the defense industry are flourishing. According to a new report, median pay for defense contractor chiefs shot up 79 percent in 2002 while overall CEO pay inched forward just 6 percent.

The typical boss for a defense contractor made $5.4 million in total compensation in 2002. That’s 45 percent more than his median American counterpart, who earned $3.7 million, according to Business Week.

Granted, weapons of war are in demand nowadays, but a larger defense budget is only a small part of the story. From 2001 to 2002, defense spending rose 14 percent, but median CEO pay in the industry grew more than five times as fast. All told, the top 37 defense contractors have taken home more than $1.35 billion in total compensation since 2000.

Over a billion dollars, a good-sized chunk of them from taxpayers, went to just 37 corporate executives. Some questions come to mind: Was that really the best possible use of a billion dollars? Would we be any less secure as a nation had that money gone elsewhere, perhaps to cash-strapped schools or to preserve the health care services seniors depend on? And how much money does a CEO need in order to get out of bed and go to work, anyway?

An Army private in Iraq earns, including combat pay, about $19,600 a year. That’s a far cry from $25.3 million, which is how much Vance Coffman, CEO of top weapons maker Lockheed Martin, made in 2002. It would take that G.I. in Iraq 1,293 years of combat to earn Coffman’s 2002 haul. Even the Commander-in-Chief, who earns $400,000 a year, would need 63 years to match Coffman. Does Vance Coffman really work 63 times as hard, and have 63 times as much responsibility, as the President of the United States?

There’s no reason the Pentagon needs to tolerate such excess. In the name of shared sacrifice, we ought to build limits on CEO pay into defense contracts. The Pentagon could stipulate that all defense contractors limit top pay to no more than 25 times the salary of the lowest-paid worker in the firm.

Unfair government meddling in the marketplace? Not when taxpayer dollars are at stake. As part of the 2001 airline industry bailout, Congress prohibited pay raises for airline CEOs. That sensible approach ought to apply to all government contractors, especially during times of national emergency.

Back to the history books for a moment: FDR wasn’t the only president to take a dim view of war profiteers or to appreciate the tragic cost of war. In 1953, at the height of the Cold War, President Dwight Eisenhower said, “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.” Can anyone deny that the millions of dollars paid to defense executives represents no less a theft?

Chris Hartman is research director at United for a Fair Economy in Boston and co-author of More Bucks for the Bang: CEO Pay at Top Defense Contractors. He can be reached at chartman@FairEconomy.org

NY budget battle: Much to celebrate and more struggles ahead

Fri, 30 May 2003 02:22:00 +0000

Opinion

Many are calling what has taken place in New York’s budget battle “historic.” Should we declare it a victory? What’s ahead for working people in our state?

A powerful, sustained outpouring of protest from every quarter prevented the worst of Republican Gov. George Pataki’s budget cuts from becoming law. As a result of this movement, and the split in the Republicans over the local tax hikes that the cuts would have caused, the state legislature came up with a better proposal which increases taxes on the rich, and then Republicans joined Democrats in slam-dunking the governor’s veto. The fight by the people of New York City also blocked the “doomsday budget” of Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Pataki’s partner in crimes-against-the-people.

And what a fight it’s been! Because the cuts were so outrageous, and would have hurt millions of people in a multitude of ways, reaction and protest was swift, broad, and militant. The major sections of New York’s labor movement and an amazingly wide range of organizations – community, religious, student, senior, service, women’s, tenants’ – organized and demonstrated. People weren’t deterred by Pataki’s demagogy about “job killing taxes,” or Bloomberg’s attempts to blame the unions.

As always, the cuts would have been disproportionately destructive for the African-American, Latino and other minority and immigrant communities. These communities contributed to the movement of huge numbers of people, great militancy and key leaders, including elected officials and trade unionists to the campaign.

The protest was as varied as it was big, ranging from huge demonstrations to hundreds of smaller actions. Branch libraries put out flyers and the zoos organized an e-mail campaign asking patrons to protest cuts.

A teachers’ union lawsuit, which charges New York City with racial discrimination for its plans to lay off hundreds of predominantly Black and Latin women school aides, can help lay the basis for a stronger and more united fightback.

So there is much to celebrate and build on, because it is precisely this kind of movement – of all who are hurt by pro-Wall Street, pro-landlord, anti-people, anti-union policies – that is necessary to win.

But it’s hard to declare victory when there is still so much bad news ahead for the people of New York. There will be big cuts in services, thousands of layoffs, and tremendous suffering.

School construction projects will be postponed. Tuition will rise out of reach for thousands of young people. Firehouses are slated to close. More layoffs will add to record high unemployment. Tens of thousands will join the millions of New Yorkers with inadequate or no medical coverage.

Working people will pay higher sales taxes, parking tickets and fees. The state rent board is contemplating the biggest hike in years. The streets will be dirtier and more dangerous; people will be sicker, poorer, less secure.

It is outrageous, no, it’s criminal, that such conditions exist in any state of our great and wealthy country.

The budget crisis is at once complicated and simple. Complicated, because there are many reasons for the economic problems faced by our state, including the overall economic slowdown and the effects of Sept. 11. But there are other aspects to it that are pretty simple.

One is the role of the Bush administration. Though obscured by the servile corporate media and by Pataki and Bloomberg, who distinguished themselves in letting Bush off the hook, the dollars New York needs could have easily been provided by the federal government.

But true to its “leave no millionaire behind” politics, the administration has offered what New Yorkers would call “chump change.” Meanwhile it pours billions of dollars down the Pentagon’s yaw and works tirelessly to provide hundreds of billions in additional tax cuts for the richest of the rich.

The other simple fact is that this crisis was created, at least in part, by Pataki’s granting of big tax breaks to his rich buddies. And can we really expect Billionaire Bloomberg to demand anything from Wall Street?

So is it a victory? The answer is “yes” and “no.” The struggle will go on, unity has to be strengthened, and we need bold solutions that reject placing the burden on working people. The cuts and layoffs should be reversed, the tax, fare and fee hikes, that disproportionately hurt working people, rolled back.

We must talk about the real impact of the “guns before butter” policies of the Bush administration; to explain, as Martin Luther King did, that “the bombs we drop [on Vietnam] are exploding in our communities.”

Last but not least: The politicians in City Hall, at the State House and in the White House who so flagrantly serve the biggest corporate interests and the super-rich have to be given notice. November 2004 is looming – and what happens that day will reverberate from Washington to Albany to New York City.

Elena Mora is chairperson of the New York State Communist Party. She can be reached at emora@cpusa.org

Is Cheney the new EPA chief?

Fri, 30 May 2003 02:17:00 +0000

Opinion

Gov. Christine Todd Whitman stepped down as head of the Environmental Protection Agency May 21, praising President Bush for his commitment to “innovative, effective” environmental policies in a farewell note.

But rumor has it that Whitman may have finally had enough of the stranglehold that the White House and its allies in the energy lobby have placed on the EPA. The White House has scheduled a meeting for later this month to decide how much further it will go to weaken Clean Air laws that apply to power plants and refineries. The EPA has proposed rules that would allow these industries to upgrade old units and increase emissions without installing modern pollution controls.

Perhaps Whitman hoped to use her influence to restrain these rollbacks before this proposal became final. But she is a staunch Republican, a team player in an administration that values loyalty above all else, and therefore she’s unlikely to publicly break with the president.

In truth, Mrs. Whitman bears responsibility for some of the more outrageous decisions made at the EPA. Yes, she can point to some significant accomplishments, such as the decision to preserve the Clinton administration’s proposed restrictions on diesel exhaust. But she must also be remembered for publicly abandoning her support for carbon dioxide controls to curb global warming, relaxing restrictions on pollution from factory farms, and making it easier for some of the biggest, dirtiest air polluters to find loopholes in the Clean Air Act.

More than three years ago, the U.S. EPA and the Justice Department filed lawsuits alleging that powerful utilities like the Tennessee Valley Authority, the Southern Company and American Electric Power were rebuilding old coal-fired power plants and increasing emissions without installing pollution controls. The stakes were high, since coal-fired power plants emit two out of every three tons of sulfur dioxide in the United States and create fine particle pollution, estimated by the EPA to contribute to about 20,000 premature deaths a year.

When the Bush administration took office, the energy lobby wasted little time to expand existing loopholes until they effectively eliminated the law. These rollbacks were pushed by a determined cadre of staff within the White House, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the Energy Department. If Whitman disagreed with these changes, she was apparently powerless to stop them.

In the last two years, important EPA decisions seemed increasingly driven by forces outside the agency, degrading its reputation for integrity and independence. As a result, it currently markets environmental policies that its own staff opposes, stonewalls inquiries from skeptics in Congress and in the media and, at times, functions like an extension of the White House’s public relations machine.

If the White House and OMB are going to call the shots on the most important EPA decisions, why bother installing an EPA director?

Perhaps the administration will take this opportunity to shift course, appoint a new EPA chief with a proven environmental record and let the new appointee do his or her job without constant interference from the energy industry and other special interests.

Regardless of the new nominee, the vacancy offers the opportunity for the public to debate an important question: Do we want a government agency, funded with our dollars and entrusted with the task of protecting our health and the natural environment, to be just another cog in the White House’s political machine?

Sadly, the answer to that question at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue is probably yes. If so, then the president should end the pretense and nominate Dick Cheney to run the Environmental Protection Agency.

Eric V. Schaeffer is director of the Environmental Integrity Project and former chief of EPA civil enforcement. This article originally appeared at www.TomPaine.com.

Timely meeting on an urgent task: Take Back America

Fri, 30 May 2003 02:12:00 +0000

Opinion

The “Take Back America” meeting in D.C., is expected to bring 1,000 people to Washington to work out a strategy to defeat George W. Bush and the ultra-right Republicans in the 2004 elections. Sponsored by the Campaign for America’s Future (CAF), the June 4-6 meeting will feature presidential candidates as well as progressive and liberal lawmakers, many of them members of the House Progressive Caucus.

Others participants will include AFL-CIO President John Sweeney, National Organization for Women President Kim Gandy, Rainbow/PUSH Coalition President Jesse Jackson, Service Employees International Union leader Eliseo Medina, and NAACP Board Chairman Julian Bond.

The call to the meeting declares, “The right-wing politicians who now run Washington are out of control. They are weakening America in the service of a few. They are dividing us by class and race. Now unemployment is higher, wages are lower and stocks have tanked. Pensions are under attack. Health care is in crisis. Hard-won environmental laws are being rolled back. We are seeing a campaign of many cuts against women, against the rights of working people, against civil rights protections. And a foreign policy that isolates America rather than our enemies. It’s time to take back our country.”

CAF blames conservative elements like the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) for pushing Democrats to the right, a path that has led the party to one election disaster after another. By contrast, CAF embraces the legacy of the late Sen. Paul Wellstone (D-Minn.) who defended the vital needs of labor and family farmers, while standing up against corporate America and the ultra-right.

Last November, in its post mortem on the 2002 elections, CAF declared that, while Republicans won control of all three branches of government, there was no basic shift to the right by the electorate. “With the country divided down the middle, a relatively minor shift – almost invisible to most analysts right up to election eve – gave the Republicans their crucial victory,” said CAF. Some estimate that a shift of as few as 50,000 votes in key races could have tipped the elections against the Republicans.

CAF founder Robert Borosage called it a “defeat by default.” He pointed out that the Democrats argued that the debate on Iraq was a diversion from the worsening economic crisis. “Yet when the Iraq vote took place and attention turned … to the economy, Democrats had literally nothing to say other than to remind Americans that the economy was in the pits – which most everyone already knew.”

Borosage assailed arguments that “voters moved to the right” and the Democratic Party should move to the right with them.

In the run-up to 2004, the question remains: Will the Democrats field candidates who present a coherent alternative to the corporate right-wing agenda of George W. Bush? If Democratic candidates make that shift, the grassroots forces aligned with CAF will be the engine that makes it happen. The influence of that movement rests on political independence – determination to push forward the life and death issues for working people without vacillation and compromise. The issues range from jobs to Social Security and Medicare, from defense of affirmative action to opposition to militarism and war.

To win in 2004, that movement must be even broader than it is now. For example, CAF statements imply that the war on Iraq was a “diversion.” In fact, the struggle to prevent that war and against Bush’s preemptive war doctrine galvanized millions of Americans. It became a mainstream movement, led by fighters like former Congressman Bob Edgar, now General Secretary of the National Council of Churches.

The very lawmakers most strongly backed by CAF like Reps. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) and Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) put their political careers on the line by speaking out against that war and voting against the Iraq war resolution, along with nearly half the Senate Democrats.

But this heroic struggle is reflected only tangentially in the CAF call to this conference. Nothing in the published agenda suggests a focus on the struggle for world peace. But Bush and the Republican ultra-right will run in 2004 as war candidates even as the disastrous results of this invasion of Iraq wreak havoc on our nation.

Another issue given short shrift is the struggle for affirmative action, a struggle brought to a head by the Bush administration’s racist position on the University of Michigan admissions program. An estimated 50,000 people, mostly students, turned out to defend affirmative action on the day the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in this case.

We cannot sidestep difficult issues like preemptive war and Bush administration racism. We must widen our outreach as the ultra-right widens its targets. Bush and the ultra-right can be defeated. CAF is providing a valuable forum for shaping a program that can turn out a big majority in 2004 to remove Bush and his ilk from office.

Tim Wheeler is editor of the People’s Weekly World. He can be reached at greenerpastures21212@yahoo.com

Methodists in the White House

Thu, 22 May 2003 10:19:00 +0000

Opinion

Dr. Gary Smith, a history professor at Grove City College, has written an article comparing two Methodist presidents, William McKinley and George Bush, contending that they both fought wars of liberation, the first against the Spanish empire in Cuba, the second against Saddam Hussein. Dr. Smith, whose college describes itself as a private Christian college and “an advocate of the free market economic system,” also contends that “evangelical Christians” supported the Bush administration’s war, in contrast to Catholic, Jewish, and mainline Protestant denominations, including Methodists.

First of all, Dr. Smith might be surprised to know that progressive Methodists were once organized in an activist group called the Methodist Federation for Social Action, whose leader, Dr. Harry E. Ward, was both a founder of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and openly allied in many struggles with the Communist Party USA. In 1940, anti-Communists purged Communist leader Elizabeth Gurley Flynn from the ACLU national leadership, leading Ward to resign his position as ACLU chairman. Ward and other courageous religious progressive activists were written out of U.S. history with the development of the Cold War. As a young man in South Dakota, George McGovern, the only real progressive nominated by the Democratic Party after World War II, was said to have been influenced by the Methodist Federation for Social Action.

Unlike Southern Methodists and Southern Baptists, who trace their origins to pro-slavery elements that broke from the national churches before the Civil War and have become central to modern right-wing Protestant Christianity (evangelicals are not necessarily fundamentalists or right-wingers), progressive Protestant Christians, particularly Unitarians, Unitarian-Universalists, and Quakers, have played a central role in the present peace movement while being strong supporters of the principle of separation of church and state.

For people who hold religious beliefs but are not rightists, all of this should be more important than Dr. Smith’s rather dubious comparisons of McKinley and Bush. Religious faith, like American national identity and American patriotism, doesn’t belong to right-wingers, however they may seek to portray their politics – which serve the interests only of the rich and the corporations – as representing “God and Country.”

In 1898, William McKinley went to war to protect and expand U.S. economic interests in Cuba and to extend U.S. interests in the Pacific by colonizing the Philippines, which was thousands of miles away from Cuba. The Cuban revolutionary army, which had been fighting the Spaniards for years, was not even permitted to participate in the Spanish surrender in Havana. Cuba was compelled to grant a U.S. base at Guantanamo and give the U.S. the right to intervene in Cuban affairs as the U.S. saw fit in exchange for the removal of U.S. occupation troops.

In the Philippines, McKinley made what is still regarded as the most hypocritical or stupid religious statement in U.S. political history when he said that he had annexed the islands in order to “Christianize” the people – Spain had brought Christianity to the islands centuries before. The Filipino rebel army, which at first welcomed the Americans as liberators, fought ferociously against American colonizers who killed hundreds of thousands of Filipinos and suffered greater casualties themselves then in the Spanish-American war.

Like McKinley, George Bush is a right-wing Republican openly representing the interests of the corporations and the rich after a controversial election. McKinley’s Secretary of State, John Hay, called the 1898 war with Spain “a splendid little war,” because it helped the administration and the ruling class push back populist and labor movements and progressive reformers, including Social Gospel Christian ministers and Christian Socialists, using flag-waving to make people forget the ravages of monopoly capitalism.

George Bush invaded Iraq to establish direct U.S. hegemony in the region, control the oil, and assert U.S. dominance globally. Domestically, Bush wants Iraq to be a “splendid little war” that will make Americans forget about the increasing concentration of wealth in the hands of the rich and the deepening economic crisis, just as McKinley wanted Americans to forget about the growing power of the trusts that had elected him president in 1896 – in the first presidential election in which vast sums of money were used – and about the poverty and other social problems which he responded to by calling for greater benefits for business.

Dr. Smith might remember that the influence of progressive Protestants and other religious advocates of social and political reform grew sharply in the aftermath of the Spanish American war in the early 20th century. We can expect that progressive religious people will join secular progressives to oust the Bush administration, which is more reactionary than even McKinley’s was. One hundred years ago Social Gospel Christians used to identify with the Jesus who drove the moneychangers from the temple. Today the Bush administration’s highest domestic principle is to give the modern moneychangers a tax cut!

(Dr. Gary Smith’s article can be found at www.gcc.edu/news/faculty/editorials/smith_methodists)

Norman Markowitz is a history professor at Rutgers University. He can be reached at pww@pww.org

Fear, war and loathing a message from Karl Rove

Thu, 22 May 2003 10:15:00 +0000

Opinion

To: Republican leaders From: Karl Re: Continuing to rule the world through fear, war and loathing

The 2004 elections are upon us and the following is the strategy that everyone must follow, or else.

We have done poll after poll and found that the more fear we create, the better W and the GOP look. So we will use NYC and Sept. 11 to launch our quickstep march to the White House and Congress.

The only roadblock to this march we foresee is if there are any more demonstrations. It seems that fear and loathing fade away when all those people get together and demand those socialistic programs like peace or civil rights or health care or workers’ rights.

Some of these people are just naïve. So we have to make them see the evil of their ways and show how they are serving terrorists when they make such demands. All actions that can foment division and fear should be encouraged. We have some sponsors who can help. Contact Clear Channel for details.

Even though the war in Iraq created a lot of fear and loathing, skyrocketing W in the polls, it still isn’t enough. Therefore, we will, once again, use domestic crimes to push our agenda. If there is a particularly heinous crime, get out there and demand a crackdown. Don’t worry about the Constitution or that damn Bill of Rights.

We are forming a new kind of government anyway. One with a co-presidency, of course. Do you think George could have gone to war without me? Could he have been elected without me? Could he have been governor of Texas without me? No. No. And no. “Of the people, by the people, for the people” is a lot of drivel from that Lincoln guy – god, I can’t believe he was a Republican.

I digress. Particularly good hooks to foment division and fear are race and gender.

I will call your attention to the Laci Peterson murder. This is a perfect example of making a crime into a rallying call for something on our agenda. In this case: fetal protection rights, which will undermine the legal underpinnings of that evil decision, Roe v. Wade. I’ll call your attention to the following AP story. Note the skill Ari uses to not comment on the case, yet get to the essence of our agenda with the crime as the backdrop:

“The White House urged Congress today to make it a federal crime to harm a fetus during an assault on its mother.

“Ari Fleischer, the White House spokesman, would not comment on the Peterson case. But asked if it was appropriate for Mr. Peterson to be charged with two murders, Mr. Fleischer said the president believed that ‘when an unborn child is injured or killed during the commission of a crime of violence, the law should recognize what most people immediately recognize, and that is that such a crime has two victims.’”

If there isn’t a heinous crime to foment division and fear, in order to push our agenda, don’t worry. We are beginning our terror-alert drills.

DeLay is working on a masterful redistricting plan. But those damn Texas Chicken “D’s” – who do they think they are? I know what they did is terroristic. I was scared to death. I don’t need to be scared by defiant Democrats – we need to strike the fear of God into them and anyone who dares to go against us. Revenge is mine, sayeth the … oh sorry, I digress again.

I will only remind you that in order for us, I mean, US to be globally dominant we need to recapture the White House and Congress, allowing us to keep hold of that judiciary for years to come. So remember (or else), the way to win in 2004 is with more: More war, more fear and more loathing.

Terrie Albano is the associate editor of the People’s Weekly World and can be reached at talbano@pww.org

Oil and water

Thu, 22 May 2003 10:07:00 +0000

Opinion

Sometimes oil and water do mix. In Iraq, they’ve formed an intoxicating, volatile brew that, combined with imperialism (straight up, no chaser), has led White House Resident Bush and his right-wing band of bellicose brigands on a drunken orgy of pillage and murder as they toss us lies over their shoulders to justify their rampage.

Many understand that the U.S. assault on Iraq is about spreading the power of U.S. monopolies and seizing oil for U.S. corporations, in one of imperialism’s most criminally ruthless moments. After all, Iraq has what may be the largest oil reserves in the world. There’s one other thing Iraq has in abundance: water.

Iraq has an extraordinary river system, the most extensive in the Middle East. The Tigris and Euphrates rivers, combined with the Greater Zab and Lesser Zab rivers in northern Iraq, make Iraq a most valuable piece of property in the plans of the imperialist looters. The Greater Zab, 265 miles long, rises in southeast Turkey and flows south through Iraq to the Tigris. The Lesser Zab, 250 miles long, rises in northwest Iran and flows southwest through Iraq to the Tigris. Both rivers are used extensively for irrigation, flood control on the Tigris, and hydroelectricity.

Added to the oil, the water may be the additional attraction that forced the bandits to take the gloves off, flout all international law, and go for broke (mass murder). Dating from around the sixth century A.D., when the area now known as Iraq was threaded with irrigation works, Iraq’s water system has been of tremendous value to the people in the region.

In the Middle East, as in all the world, water is a liquid far more valuable and necessary to human life than oil. In a Jan. 31, 2003, New York Times article Stephen Pelletiere, a senior CIA analyst on Iraq during the Iran/Iraq war and a retired Army War College professor, noted plans for a so-called “Peace Pipeline.” The Peace Pipeline that was being planned for Iraq by the U.S. in the 1990s “would bring the waters of the Tigris and Euphrates south to the parched Gulf states and, by extension, Israel.” Plans for the Peace Pipeline were stalled because of what Pelletiere referred to as “Iraqi intransigence.” With the Iraqi people now “freed” by the imperialists, they will be freed of the burden of controlling their own water resources so those resources may profit their invaders.

Keeping in mind recent reports of water privatization schemes put forward by the capitalists, and the fightback of the world’s people against that privatization, the value of Iraq’s water system and rivers is monumental. Getting an Iraqi government in place that will agree to water privatization schemes will be a major boon to U.S. imperialist aims. It must seem like a river of untold riches to the capitalists, even as the people whose water it is will be forced to pay barbaric rates for it. At the same time, the waters of the Tigris, Euphrates, Greater Zab and Lesser Zab rivers will be diverted to help support the right-wing Israeli government and its oppression of the Palestinian people.

Coincidentally, the 1988 battle between Iraq and Iran in Halabja (in which more than 5,000 Kurdish people were killed after the use of chemical weapons by both Iran and Iraq) was fought in great part over the Darbandikhan dam in Iraq’s Kurdish area. The Darbandikhan dam was built by Iraq before the Persian Gulf war and is the largest of an impressive system of dams and river control projects. Pelletiere states, “It was this dam the Iranians were aiming to take control of when they seized Halabja.”

A clear point that most of the rational people in the world would agree on at this moment is that the oil and the water belong to the Iraqi people. They alone must govern how those national assets will be used.

Or, to paraphrase, render unto the Iraqi people that which belongs to the Iraqi people.

Barbara Jean Hope is a reader in Philadelphia. She can be reached at Bjhope2000@cs.com

New exposs on Halliburton and war for oil

Thu, 22 May 2003 10:03:00 +0000

Opinion

It’s a safe bet that Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) ranks high as a pain-in-the-backside of George W. Bush, Richard Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and the rest of the oily crew at the White House.

Waxman, ranking minority member of the Committee on Government Reform, has transformed the cramped minority office in the basement of the House Rayburn Building into a virtual factory churning out reports exposing Bush and his crony ties to corporate America. All these reports are available on Waxman’s internet website (www.house.gov/waxman/).

Actually, Waxman and his staff honed their muckraking skills with exposés of the links between Bush-Cheney and Enron in fleecing energy ratepayers and their own workers as the Houston energy trader came crashing down. These criminal escapades cost Enron workers their jobs and pensions, and stockholders billions in investments.

But in recent weeks, the tempo of exposés has accelerated. Waxman wrote to the General Accounting Office, May 6, asking them to determine how much it cost for George W. Bush to dress up in a U.S. Navy flight suit and be jetted out to the carrier Abraham Lincoln that was circling offshore as a backdrop for his election-season “fly-boy” stunt.

Waxman released a study on May 9 revealing that Bush, Cheney and the Cabinet will rake in a cumulative $3.2 million each year, thanks to the tax bill rammed through the House by the House Republican leaders. Cheney’s annual refund would be $119,000, Rumsfeld would get as much as $604,000, and Treasury Secretary John Snow, $330,000.

But this corruption pales beside Waxman’s release of a May 2 letter from Lt. Gen. Robert B. Flowers of the Army Corps of Engineers. Flowers heads up the Pentagon office assigned to dole out no-bid contracts for the “reconstruction” of Iraq to well-connected corporations like Halliburton, of which Cheney was former CEO, Bechtel, and Fluor. All three contributed many millions of dollars to Bush-Cheney campaign coffers.

In his letter, Gen. Flowers let slip that Halliburton’s contract is not limited to putting out Iraqi oil well fires but also includes “operation” of Iraqi oilfields and “distribution” of the oil produced. Waxman estimated this juicy plum is worth a whopping $7 to $9 billion. In his reply dated May 6, Waxman pointed out that this Halliburton contract raises “significant questions about the Administration’s intentions regarding Iraqi oil.”

He reminded Gen. Flowers of White House spokesman Ari Fleischer’s declaration that “the oil fields belong to the people of Iraq, the government of Iraq, all of Iraq,” Waxman also noted that Secretary of State Colin Powell said repeatedly, “The oil of Iraq belongs to the Iraqi people.”

Said Waxman, “In light of these statements, I am puzzled as to why the Corps is actively preparing a solicitation for a long-term contract to produce and distribute Iraqi oil. That contract would clearly contradict Mr. Fleischer’s statement. … In fact, such a contract would apparently mean that Halliburton or another similar company – and not the Iraqi people – would be making the fundamental decisions on how much oil should be produced and who should produce it.”

Waxman reminded Gen. Flowers that while the administration has named an Iraqi, Thamer Abbas Ghadban, to run Iraq’s oil industry, “your May 2 letter … appears to conflict with these intentions. Your letter says that it will be the Corps – not Mr. Ghadban – that will issue a contract to operate these facilities and distribute oil.”

Waxman pointed out that Bush has appointed Phillip Carroll, a former CEO of Shell Oil, to serve as czar of Iraqi oil. The California lawmaker also cited growing “tension between Iraqi oil managers and Americans, as well as frustration among Iraqi oil workers unable to resume their jobs. Some Iraqi oil workers are apparently dissatisfied with the pace of work done by Brown & Root [a Halliburton subsidiary] and with the lack of consultation about how to rebuild and operate the country’s oil infrastructure.”

Waxman concluded, “The administration’s decision to appoint a former American oil executive [former Shell CEO Carroll] to chair an advisory board overseeing the Iraqi oil ministry may well increase the perception among some Iraqis that they are not being given full control over the resources the administration previously indicated belonged to them.”

In the buildup to the preemptive war on Iraq, Bush and other administration officials openly ridiculed those who said it would be a “war for oil.” Even though Iraq has the world’s second largest oil reserves and this is an administration infested with oil men, the corporate media dutifully pushed these “war for oil” stories to their back pages. Now the truth is coming out that the soldiers and innocent civilians died in Iraq for oil corporation profits.

Tim Wheeler is editor of the People’s Weekly World and can be reached at greenerpastures21212@yahoo.com.

Reason for hope

Fri, 16 May 2003 06:34:00 +0000

Opinion

With the hearts and minds of most Americans focused on the war in Iraq and its aftermath, the international landscape appears bleak and troubled. But this month also brings great promise for international cooperation in the best sense.

In late May, the world’s first public health treaty – the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) – will be adopted by the World Health Assembly in Geneva. This historic document will change the way tobacco giants like Philip Morris (now Altria) can operate globally. One of the FCTC’s groundbreaking provisions is a ban on tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship, allowing exceptions only for constitutional reasons. The treaty also establishes important precedents for international regulation of other industries that profit at the expense of human health and the environment.

The story of how this treaty came about is one of hope. The developing world, led by a block of all 46 African nations and supported by dozens of advocacy groups, united around protecting the health of their people from the deadly expansion of Big Tobacco. Throughout the process, the U.S. practiced its now-predictable but increasingly unacceptable “cowboy diplomacy” approach to international treaties on the environment and human rights.

Despite staunch United States opposition and aggressive attempts by Philip Morris/Altria and its allies to derail the treaty, when implemented the FCTC will go a long way toward curbing the global spread of tobacco addiction. While the United States and the tobacco industry may attempt to block adoption of the final text, the momentum appears too strong for even the United States to stand in its way.

Last month in Richmond, Va., Philip Morris/Altria held its first annual shareholders’ meeting with its new name. Just recently off the hook for a $12 billion bond payment in Illinois (reduced to $6 billion), and looking ahead to a $289 billion Department of Justice lawsuit, the tobacco giant continues to be confronted with the enormous costs it imposes on society. Its name change to Altria is perhaps the clearest signal to date that the corporation cannot continue business as usual in a public climate that adamantly rejects its deadly practices.

A study released in the April issue of the American Journal of Public Health – “Altria Means Tobacco: Philip Morris’s Identity Crisis” – provides extensive evidence that the name change is the height of a long-term effort to manipulate consumers and policymakers. According to internal corporate documents, the tobacco giant decided to take the major risk of changing its name in order to mask the negatives associated with the tobacco business. However, in an example of the financial community’s deteriorating confidence, Moody’s Investor Services recently cut Philip Morris/Altria’s bond rating to just above junk status.

The tide has clearly turned against Big Tobacco. As the FCTC becomes international law and is implemented in countries across the globe, public health advocates around the world will continue to ensure that it stays that way.

Patricia Lynn is campaign director of Infact. For more information, visit www.infact.org

Cold War revelations

Fri, 16 May 2003 06:28:00 +0000

Opinion

The late Richard Helms headed up the CIA for six crucial years, 1966-73, in the course of a 30-year career at The Agency. During the six years when he was director, the CIA, following the orders of the U.S. presidents in office, carried out the overthrow of the democratically elected governments of Guatemala, Congo, Iran, and Chile, and tried but failed to do the same with Cuba and Vietnam.

Helms died last year, but his autobiography, A Look Over My Shoulder, which he co-wrote with a ranking CIA official, William Hood, has just been published, and it makes for interesting reading.

The book was reviewed in the Book Section of the May 4 New York Times by Joseph Persico, who lists some of the many crimes of the CIA in a very casual, offhanded way as though he was reading off a grocery shopping list.

Yet the fact is that millions of people around the world have died or suffered horribly from the machinations of the CIA.

Among the items on the “shopping list,” Persico refers to the CIA’s prominent role in the Cold War against the Soviet Union launched by the administration of Harry Truman and promoted by every U.S. president thereafter.

Persico writes, “During the Cold War debate over the Soviet Union’s capacity to deliver a first strike knock out punch to the United States, the CIA found that the Kremlin had neither the intention nor the weaponry to do so. The Nixon administration told Helms, in effect, to get on the team or shut up.”

Helms, a firm believer in the policy of asserting U.S supremacy in the post World War II world, chose to “get with the team,” and never went public with the CIA’s finding until he put it into his autobiography a year before his death.

But the pursuit of the Cold War, based on the false premise that the Soviet Union was a threat to world peace, meant not only the deaths of millions of people, but also a colossal waste of resources.

Had the funds, research and energy that went into building hydrogen bombs and numerous other weapons of mass destruction been devoted to finding cures for cancer and other diseases that afflict mankind, into building livable cities with free education up to the college level, with universal health care, into wiping out pollution, and thousands of other uses, that would have created a world without hunger, disease or poverty.

Today’s Bush administration is hell-bent on continuing the Cold War policies of its predecessors despite the fact that there is no Soviet Union. It targets nations like Cuba and Vietnam where it can apply powerful pressures to try to undermine and even overthrow the governments of these small countries. But its drive for world supremacy extends also to established capitalist governments like France, Germany and any country that attempts to assert policies that are not in line with those of the U.S.

The details of how the CIA, acting as the agent of U.S. imperialism, carried out its illegal and deadly operations are not often revealed for public scrutiny. This makes Helms’ book of interest. The book refutes the defenders of the status quo who accuse the Left of paranoia and exaggeration for questioning the role of the CIA.

Herb Kaye is a contributor from Oakland, Calif. He can be reached at pww@pww.org

Another Supreme Court ruling against immigrants

Fri, 16 May 2003 06:20:00 +0000

Opinion

In 1996, Congress passed, and President Clinton signed, the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act which, among other dubious provisions, requires the government to deport all non-citizens who are found guilty of committing certain crimes.

Since then, the Immigration and Naturalization Service (now part of the Department of Homeland Security) has hunted down thousands of law-abiding immigrants and kicked them out of the country. In some cases, they were expelled because of youthful indiscretions that landed them in court, where an overworked public defender advised them that their best bet was to “cop a plea,” i.e., plead guilty in exchange for supervision or probation rather than jail time. Now this is coming back to haunt them, no matter how trouble-free their lives have been since.

Immigrant rights advocates and civil liberties attorneys have been trying to get federal judges to rule on the constitutionality of various aspects of the law. For long-term immigrants, they have asked that bail be allowed until the case is decided. This argument appears to rest on firm constitutional grounds, covered by the Bill of Rights.

But recently, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that the federal government is within its rights to deny bail to non-citizens who are awaiting deportation because of having been convicted of a crime.

The Court ruled in the case of Kim Hyung Joon, a Korean immigrant. He was brought to the U.S as a six-year-old in 1984 and became a legal permanent resident two years later. In 1996, when he was 18, he was convicted of trespassing, and a year later was convicted of petty theft and sentenced to jail. He was arrested by the feds the day after finishing his sentence and was denied bail. In 1990 Kim’s attorneys successfully presented a habeas corpus petition arguing that, since Kim had been a U.S. resident since childhood, he was not a flight risk and, therefore, denial of bail was unconstitutional.

The case was appealed all the way to the Supreme Court, which has now ruled against Kim and against the Bill of Rights.

The usual gang of five (Rehnquist, O’Connor, Thomas, Kennedy and Scalia) ruled against Kim, arguing that non-citizens do not necessarily have the same constitutional rights on this question that citizens do. This is another example of amending the Constitution by Supreme Court decree.

Even a fleeting glance at the Bill of Rights will show that the issue of citizenship versus non-citizenship is not mentioned anywhere. In each amendment, the Bill of Rights states what the government may not do (for example ask for “excessive bail”) or what people – not citizens – possess in the way of rights. The gang of five apparently have ESP and can see things in the Constitution that nobody else can see, as the four liberal justices (Breyer, Ginsburg, Souter and Stevens) pointed out in their dissent.

This decision may cause untold suffering for thousands of immigrants. If the government really goes to town with this, it will have to build new prison camps to hold all the people awaiting a deportation decision who will be denied bail. And all these people will lose their jobs immediately, leaving their families, including children born in the U.S., destitute. It is a problem for all of us, because there is no other court to which you can appeal a Supreme Court decision, and the right-wing majority now has the idea that it can legislate as well as judge, to the detriment of civil liberties and ordinary working people.

We have to find a way of explaining what is wrong with this picture to the American people.

Emile Schepers is an activist in Chicago. He can be reached at pww@pww.org

A patchwork quilt of lies

Fri, 16 May 2003 05:04:00 +0000

Opinion

“How blatantly can an administration lie to promote a war and get away with it?” was a very good question asked by Robert Jensen (in an April 27 Philadelphia Inquirer article). Jensen is a journalism professor at the University of Texas at Austin. To whip up fear and pro-war fervor in the American people, Jensen wrote, “U.S. officials lied and distorted the truth for months.” A few examples:

•After U.S. officials claimed that Iraq had purchased uranium from Niger, Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, later explained that the documents on which the U.S. claim was based were “faked.”

•In Colin Powell’s Feb. 5, 2003, UN exhortation to war, he claimed that a “poison and explosive training center camp” existed in northeastern Iraq. A few days later, when journalists visited the site, they found a “dilapidated collection of concrete outbuildings” and no evidence to support Powell’s claims.

•The 19-page British intelligence report praised in Powell’s Feb. 5 performance was revealed a few days later (by England’s Channel Four News) to have been plagiarized from three different previously published articles. Powell lauded the 19-page report for its “exquisite detail” about “Iraqi deception activities.”

One irony, of course, is that plagiarism itself is a deceptive activity. Plagiarism is but one piece of an entire quilt of U.S. fabrications, desperately stitched together by the imperialists to shield their naked greed and amorality from the eyes of U.S. residents. After all, if they stood boldly before us with the declaration that they were going to use working-class sons and daughters to massacre innocent humans and steal those people’s resources and right to self-determination, most working-class people in the U.S. would demur.

The U.S. corporate media, in spite of a few articles here and there, is also a great danger to the American people’s ability to think logically. For instance, CNN, mistakenly trusted by some, is no guardian of the public’s right to know the facts. The 2002 book Into the Buzzsaw: Leading Journalists Expose the Myth of a Free Press, edited by Kristina Borjesson, revealed the “propagandistic nature” of CNN’s war coverage in Afghanistan, in a chapter by journalist Robert McChesney. Fearing the “outrage” of the U.S. ruling class if CNN presented critical coverage to the U.S. population, CNN president Walter Isaacson ordered CNN to, as McChesney says, “provide two different versions of the war: a more critical one for the global audience and a sugarcoated one for Americans.” One element of the American version, per Isaacson’s order, is that U.S. viewers must always see a clear relationship between Sept. 11, the “war on terrorism” and news coverage of U.S. aggression in the Middle East, even when there is no “clear relationship.” Is it any wonder that some Americans think Saddam Hussein was personally involved in Sept. 11?

It should anger us that the capitalists have such raw contempt for the American working class whom they urge on to war with appeals to “patriotism.” Then again, that’s the same contempt with which we are viewed and fought against when we need to organize unions, when we need healthcare, or our children need well-funded public education. It is that same basic contempt for humanity that allows corporate CEOs to cheat workers out of their pensions. It is that same contempt that allows imperialist aims to be more important to the ruling class than the very lives they end for profit.

The blatant lies are also evidence of ruling-class fear of resistance. They fear us even as they have contempt for our lives and intelligence, much as the owners of chattel slaves in America denied the right to read to most enslaved Africans. The price of being caught learning to read was death. Now we are allowed to read, but the ruling class fights ruthlessly to control what we read and see. For that reason, Communist Party USA members were imprisoned during the vicious McCarthy witch-hunt in the 1950s. Those who would be our masters understand the importance of keeping exploited workers ignorant of the root cause of their misery, capitalism. So they lie. But their patchwork quilt of lies (“evidence” of weapons of mass destruction, using “democracy” to cover other motives, manufacturing intelligence reports, tying Hussein to 9/11, and on and on) is insufficient to cover the tremendous crime they have committed against the innocent people of Iraq.

Barbara Jean Hope is a reader in Philadelphia. She can be reached at Bjhope2000@cs.com

My country: the world

Fri, 16 May 2003 04:55:00 +0000

Opinion

Our government has declared a military victory in Iraq. As a patriot, I will not celebrate. I will mourn the dead – the American GIs, and also the Iraqi dead, of which there have been many, many more.

I will mourn the Iraqi children, not just those who are dead, but those who have been blinded, crippled, disfigured, or traumatized, like the bombed children of Afghanistan who, as reported by American visitors, lost their power of speech. The American media has not given us a full picture of the human suffering caused by our bombing; for that, we need to read the foreign press.

We will get precise figures for the American dead, but not for the Iraqis. Recall Colin Powell after the first Gulf War, when he reported the “small” number of U.S. dead, and when asked about the Iraqi dead, Powell replied: “That is really not a matter I am terribly interested in.”

As a patriot, contemplating the dead GIs, should I comfort myself (as, understandably, their families do) with the thought: “They died for their country.” If so, I would be lying to myself. Those who die in this war will not die for their country. They will die for their government. They will die for Bush and Cheney and Rumsfeld. And yes, they will die for the greed of the oil cartels, for the expansion of the American empire, for the political ambitions of the President. They will die to cover up the theft of the nation’s wealth to pay for the machines of death.

The distinction between dying for our country and dying for your government is crucial in understanding what I believe to be the definition of patriotism in a democracy.

According to the Declaration of Independence – the fundamental document of democracy – governments are artificial creations, established by the people, “deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed”, and charged by the people to ensure the equal right of all to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Furthermore, as the Declaration says, “whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it.”

When a government recklessly expends the lives of its young for crass motives of profit and power, always claiming that its motives are pure and moral (“Operation Just Cause” was the invasion of Panama and “Operation Iraqi Freedom” in the present instance), it is violating its promise to the country. It is the country that is primary – the people, the ideals of the sanctity of human life and the promotion of liberty. War is almost always a breaking of those promises (although one might find rare instances of true self defense). It does not enable the pursuit of happiness, but brings despair and grief.

With the war in Iraq won, shall we revel in American military power and, against the history of modern empires, insist that the American empire will be beneficent?

The American record does not justify confidence in its boast that it will bring democracy to Iraq. Should Americans welcome the expansion of the nation’s power, with the anger this has generated among so many people in the world? Should we welcome the huge growth of the military budget at the expense of health, education, the needs of children, one-fifth of whom grow up in poverty?

I suggest that a patriotic American who cares for his country might act on behalf of a different vision. Instead of being feared for our military prowess, we should want to be respected for our dedication to human rights.

Should we not begin to redefine patriotism? We need to expand it beyond that narrow nationalism which has caused so much death and suffering. If national boundaries should not be obstacles to trade – we call it globalization – should they also not be obstacles to compassion and generosity?

Should we not begin to consider all children, everywhere, as our own? In that case, war, which in our time is always an assault on children, would be unacceptable as a solution to the problems of the world. Human ingenuity would have to search for other ways.

Tom Paine used the word “patriot” to describe the rebels resisting imperial rule. He also enlarged the idea of patriotism when he said: “My country is the world. My countrymen are mankind.”

Howard Zinn is a historian and author of A People’s History of the United States. This article originally appeared on TomPaine.com

British official resigns over Iraq

Fri, 16 May 2003 02:23:00 +0000

News Analysis

The resignation of a top British cabinet member this week spotlighted the sharp struggle over who will control post-Saddam-Hussein Iraq. In a letter to British Prime Minister Tony Blair and subsequent interviews, International Development Secretary Claire Short said the United States and Britain had no authority to install an Iraqi government and called the two countries’ effort to prevent the United Nations from leading that process shameful and indefensible.

Short told BBC News, “The position the UK’s adopting in the Security Council is totally dishonorable and breaches the promises that the UN would have the proper role in bringing into being a legitimate interim Iraqi authority.

“I cannot defend it. It is wrong in international law and for the rebuilding of Iraq and it breaches the promises that the prime minister gave to me.”

She warned that the UK was colluding in a resolution that could perpetuate international divisions, marginalize the UN and make it more difficult to rebuild Iraq.

In her resignation statement to the House of Commons, Short said the British government was supporting the U.S. “in trying to bully” the Security Council into adopting the resolution.

Iraq is engulfed in a humanitarian and civil crisis, four weeks after U.S. forces seized control, with garbage rotting in the streets, sewage polluting the drinking water, daily power blackouts, schools not functioning, and almost total disorder. With electricity outages, a shortage of medical supplies, and personnel afraid to come to work due to the lack of security, hospitals are unable to care for the continuing stream of people wounded or ill as a consequence of the war, including many children severely injured from picking up or stepping on unexploded cluster bombs and landmines. Suspected cases of cholera are appearing.

The U.S. government is widely seen, within Iraq and internationally, as primarily responsible for this crisis. U.S. bombing during the 1991 Gulf War, in addition to killing thousands of civilians, destroyed key parts of Iraq’s infrastructure, including irrigation and water purification systems. For the next 12 years, the U.S. insisted on maintaining economic sanctions against Iraq. The sanctions destabilized Iraq’s civil society, prevented repair of the water and agriculture infrastructure, and denied medicines and other life necessities to the Iraqi people. Hundreds of thousands of deaths from malnutrition and disease resulted. Then came the U.S. invasion, wreaking further destruction and thousands more civilian deaths.

Now, the Bush/Cheney corporate crowd sees the rebuilding of Iraq as a fertile source of profits. The resolution that the Bush administration, supported by Tony Blair, is trying to steamroller at the UN would place the U.S. in the driver’s seat in Iraq and lift the sanctions, opening the way for U.S.-based transnational corporations to move in. Numerous U.S. companies are already in line to make big money in Iraq.

Showing no concern for the suffering of the Iraqi people, the resolution would end the UN Oil for Food Program on which 60 percent of Iraqis depended before the war and which even more need now as a result of the war. It would give the U.S. essentially total control over Iraq’s oil industry, which Bush/Cheney are rushing to privatize for the benefit of their oil company backers.

The Iraqi and international progressive movement argues that the lifting of sanctions must be accompanied by establishing UN authority over the formation of a legitimate, democratic, broadly representative Iraqi government that will determine how Iraq is rebuilt and how its wealth is used.

That’s just what the Bush administration is trying to prevent. But it is encountering increasing resistance from the Iraqi people as it tries to install a client regime. The latest protests center around the placing of former Baath Party officials in key positions. In an effort to shore up U.S. control, Gen. Jay Garner – apparently seen by some in the Bush administration as ineffective in dealing with the mounting opposition to U.S. occupation – is being replaced as boss of Iraq by L. Paul Bremer, a former State Department “counterterrorism” chief and Kissinger protegé with close ties to the Pentagon.

Although the supposed Iraqi possession of weapons of mass destruction was the Bush administration’s chief rationale for its invasion, no such weapons have been found despite months of UN weapons inspections and weeks of U.S.-British occupation. “The White House Lied” was the headline on the ABC News website April 25. According to ABC, “some officials now privately acknowledge the White House had another reason for war – a global show of American power and democracy [sic].” A White House official told ABC, “We’re not lying. But it was just a matter of emphasis.”

Now the administration is opposing having UN weapons inspectors return to Iraq. The Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld crowd wants to be the only ones doing inspections. Given their now-exposed use of fabricated evidence before the war, it would not be entirely surprising if they “find” some new “evidence” one of these days.

The author can be reached at suewebb@pww.org

Independent journalists in Cuba hold ties to U.S.

Thu, 15 May 2003 09:09:00 +0000

News Analysis

On World Press Freedom Day, May 3, journalists who have died in performance of their duties are honored. The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), a U.S.-based organization founded in 1981, observed the day by naming the “World’s Worst Places to be a Journalist.” The CPJ placed Iraq as number one because of the number of journalists who were killed during the war. Other countries on the list include Colombia, where 15 journalists were killed over the last year. The West Bank and Gaza, where five journalists were killed, also made the top ten.

However, according to the CPJ, neither Colombia nor the occupied territories ranked number two. They placed Cuba as second on the list, yet not one journalist has been killed there.

Recently, the Cuban government was forced to arrest and try 24 “independent journalists,” who were found guilty by the Cuban courts on charges of treason. The trials and sentences have raised some questions, including among some on the left, about whether the Cuban Revolution is silencing the “independent press” of that country. But who are these “independent journalists,” what do they report on, and where do they get their funding from?

The website of Nueva Prensa Cubana, which features the writings of these journalists, is owned by Nancy Pérez-Crespo, and is located in Miami, Florida, the center of extreme right wing political and terrorist attacks against Cuba.

Pérez-Crespo has a radio show on Radio Martí, a set up owned by the U.S. government to broadcast anti-Cuban propaganda to the socialist island with the express purpose of overthrowing socialism. She also has a show on Radio Mambí, an extreme right local Cuban radio station. Armando Pérez Roura, Radio Mambí news director, is the chairman of Cuban Unity, a coalition of ultra right-wing groups, including terrorist groups Alpha 66 and Comando F4. His editorials are rebroadcast to Cuba on Radio Martí.

In the world of the Cuban “independent press” it’s as though the U.S. embargo against Cuba does not exist. For them all problems that Cuba faces are directly the fault of Fidel Castro or of the socialist system. There is not one laudatory word about a social system where everyone is guaranteed free healthcare and education, where the literacy rate is 96 percent (compared to its neighbors Pueto Rico with 89 percent, and the Dominican Republic with 82 percent).

In an Associated Press interview, Aleida de las Mercedes Gondínez who worked undercover as a secretary for Marta Beatriz Roque, a leader of the Assembly for the Promotion of Civil Society, a so-called dissident group, said that up to $5,000 came through the U.S. for that organization. Gondínez herself reported receiving $700 monthly from the Interest Section. Oscar Espinosa Chepe, a so-called independent journalist, had $13,600 when he was arrested and evidence gathered by Cuban investigators showed that in a one year period he had received at least $7,154.

Those funds came through the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). USAID sees itself as “furthering America’s foreign policy interests.” USAID’s Cuba Program, authorized by the Helms-Burton Act, has donated over $20 million to groups that help the counter-revolutionaries in Cuba. Among the organizations getting these monies is the International Republican Institute, which seeks to promote “President [Ronald] Reagan’s vision” to rid the world of socialism; and the U.S.-Cuba Business Council, which aims to develop a capitalist “free market future” for Cuba.

Jorge Insunza, a leader of the Communist Party of Chile, remembering some of the activities leading up to the U.S.-sponsored fascist coup that overthrew the government of the socialist Salvador Allende, said, “To carry out an act of aggression, there needs to be a softening up of world public opinion.”

While these “journalists” call themselves independent, it is obvious that they are dependent and work in the interest of the U.S. government. They have nothing in common with democratic traditions of real independent media, such as the independent media centers (IMCs) organized throughout the world. IMCs were set up to provide “a forum for independent reporting about important social and political issues” in opposition to the mainstream media and their corporate viewpoint.

At a press conference where the Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Pérez spoke about the trials there were 82 foreign journalists representing 59 news agencies from 22 countries. This includes CNN, Associated Press, Reuters, Agence France Presse, BBC, the Mexican news agency Notimex, and Financial Times of London, and The Tribune Co., which has eleven newspapers throughout the U.S. The opportunity exists in Cuba for news to be published that is not “controlled” by any Cuban institution.

The CPJ’s placement of Cuba on their list seems to be short-sighted and politically naïve.

Jose Cruz is the editor of Nuestro Mundo and can be reached at jacruz@attbi.com

Yes, we have no bananas

Fri, 09 May 2003 04:07:00 +0000

Opinion

Remember back in the dim, distant past of two months ago, when the Bush administration was posturing all over the place that UN weapons inspectors were taking too long, that Saddam was hiding many weapons of mass destruction to use against the U.S. in a supposedly imminent manner?

Remember?

Well, now the administration is claiming that searching for weapons of mass destruction takes time. Imagine that!

They quickly searched 80 of their top 100 suspected sites of weapons caches, and to date have found nothing worth mentioning other than some empty shells that could have been designed for pesticides! Therefore, Rumsfeld is busy trying to depress expectations that any “smoking gun” will be found at any time in the foreseeable future. This from the man who insisted we couldn’t wait, that the U.S. had incontrovertible proof of illegal weapons, and that the UN inspectors were taking too much time!

Rumsfeld’s performance echoes good old Joe McCarthy – “I have a list, a list of 1,000 sites where weapons of mass destruction are hidden.”

Powell at the UN also claimed to have such “proof.” He used ten-year-old right-wing think-tank papers, long out of date, documents that in a matter of days were exposed as quite obvious forgeries, and in general tried to use his personality to sell a worthless piece of junk that won’t run.

Now the Bushites are in the unenviable position of opposing any UN role in post-war Iraq following a war that was supposedly waged to enforce UN resolutions! Now, the Bushites refuse to let UN weapons inspectors return to finish the job.

By the way, who is it that used weapons of mass destruction? The same U.S. military directed by those who made the accusations. “We had to use weapons of mass destruction to destroy weapons of mass destruction. We had to go to war for peace. We have to ignore the UN in order to defend the UN. We have to defy the international community to protect the international community. We have to break international laws to enforce international laws.”

It’s turning into even more of a looking-glass world. “The Great and Powerful Oz says ignore that little man behind the curtain.”

The Bushites are also in the awkward position of arguing that U.S. intelligence agencies provided great intelligence, even though their lists of possible weapons caches are turning out all wrong, even though their claims that millions of Iraqis would welcome as liberators the U.S. troops that had just invaded their country are proving wrong.

Instead, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis are protesting the U. S. military presence. The U.S. is reduced to blaming this on “outside agitators” from Iran.

They go from boasting about the capabilities of U. S. spy satellites to photograph down to the tiniest detail, to speculating that “they must have snuck them across the border when we weren’t looking.” The U.S. obviously wasn’t looking when a criminal operation was mounted to steal thousands of cuneiform tablets and other ancient artifacts, the heritage not only of Iraq but of the development of the earliest large-scale organized societies in Mesopotamia. But what does it matter if U.S. military operations destroy 3,000-year-old priceless, irreplaceable versions of the earliest writing anywhere in the world? We got in there quick and prevented the use of weapons of mass destruction that we can’t find, can’t prove the existence of, and don’t have a clue about.

Actually, perhaps this is a positive sign that the Bush administration is changing its mind about recycling, starting with recycling excuses, phony claims, anachronistic accusations, and spurious evidence. It’s the return of the Know-Nothings!

It’s not only a world of fun-house mirrors, of exponentially expanding surrealism and absurdity. The Bush pre-emptive strike doctrine is pushing the world closer to more war.

Marc Brodine is chair of the Washington State Communist Party. He can be reached at marcbrodine@attbi.com

Cuba and dissidents

Fri, 09 May 2003 04:01:00 +0000

Opinion

The recent arrest, trial and sentencing of dissidents in Cuba has been much criticized in the West from the standpoint of human rights and legalities. But I look beyond that to what it tells us about the Cuban leadership’s sobering assessment of the current world situation. It is in that wider historical context that we can best understand what has been called Cuba’s crackdown on dissent.

First, we must understand that the charge against them was not that they dissented, but that they conspired with the head of the U.S. Interest Section in Havana to subvert the Cuban state. Under Bush’s recently appointed diplomatic representative, James Cason, the Interests Section has become “the headquarters of internal subversion in Cuba,” according to Cuba’s Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque. In violation of diplomatic norms, Cason has been organizing dissidents, even hosting meetings with them in his home, supplying them with equipment and funds as part of the $8 million allocated this year to “support the development of civil society in Cuba.” One could well imagine the outrage in this country if the tables were turned and Cuban diplomats were organizing and financing an opposition here to the U.S. government. But such interference in another country’s internal political affairs is the accepted norm when it is the U.S. doing it, and particularly when it is done against Cuba.

In the Cuban case, the expressed aim of such intervention is regime change, to use the currently fashionable term. That has been the aim of U.S.-Cuba policy for over 40 years, through ten administrations. So if this is an old story, why does Cuba crack down now, particularly after allowing more political space recently? Isn’t this an overreaction?

I think the Cuban leadership is acting on its assessment of a changed world situation characterized by a blatant, more aggressive U.S. imperialism that is tending toward fascism. The Bush cabal has just conducted a successful war of aggression in defiance of most of its traditional allies, most of the nations of the UN, and an unprecedented massive expression of world public opinion. It has proclaimed its intention to maintain its military predominance for the 21st century through unilateral, preemptive wars against any possible future challenger, not just globally, but even regionally. And Cuba is clearly on its hit list!

In the face of this grave danger, we have to ask: how can Cuba hope to defend itself? Since the mid 1980s, Cuba’s defense has rested not on a professional army, but on an armed, trained and organized civilian population that would make any U.S. invasion of the island prohibitively costly. Under the Casper Weinberger Doctrine, which still prevails among Pentagon planners, the U.S. will fight only those wars in which it can achieve decisive results in a relatively short time with little or no casualties. After Vietnam, this was the only kind of war that would be politically viable in the U.S. For this reason, the preferred target is a weak state (Grenada, Panama, Afghanistan, Iraq). Indeed, U.S. sanctions against Iraq can be viewed as having been designed to weaken the ability of Iraq to withstand the eventual U.S. invasion. In view of this, Cuba’s best deterrent is to show political unity.

The U.S. countermove is to try to promote political division within Cuba. Ideally the Bush crowd would like to see social turmoil that could serve as a pretext for military intervention under the guise of a humanitarian mission. The first step in that direction is to promote a civil society that is in opposition to the state – never mind that Cuba already has a socialist civil society based on a participatory political culture. It is that ploy that the Cuban leadership has sought to nip in the bud by cracking down on U.S.-organized subversion. They know they are dealing with a very dangerous enemy.

That is what I believe is the Cuban leadership’s assessment of the current situation. It is not unlike that of many progressives here in the belly of the beast. What conclusions should we draw? If U.S. progressives wish to see more political space for differing views in Cuba, then we must struggle to curb the reactionary cabal in Washington. It is our government’s hostility toward the Cuban Revolution that limits political space in Cuba. The Cuban government would like breathing room to perfect its own democratic institutions. Considering that it has been under siege for four decades now, it is amazing how much progress Cuba has made. It needs our solidarity, our help in relaxing the pressure on it from the Yankee colossus. At this moment, that behemoth is in the hands of a fanatical cabal. It is the enemy of the Cuban people, as it is of most of the peoples of the world, and it is also the enemy of the American people. It is our responsibility to begin regime change here at home.

Cliff DuRand is professor emeritus of philosophy at Morgan State University, and coordinator of the annual Conference of North American and Cuban Philosophers and Social Scientists, www.cubaconference.org.

Budget sideshow jeopardizes families

Wed, 07 May 2003 07:26:00 +0000

Opinion

Have they no decency? The United States Senate on April 11 resembled a circus sideshow, practicing the old shell game of now you see it, now you don’t. While on paper they passed a cut resembling the House’s $550 billion giveaway to millionaires, Senators promised that they didn’t mean it and would hold the line at the already-indecent $350 billion cut. A close inspection of their postures may well show their fingers crossed behind their backs.

Women are tired of those sorry promises. We’ve heard them before and all we’ve seen from them are empty cupboards, fewer jobs and reduced circumstances. Where is the voice for our concerns, our future, our health, our children’s safety and well-being?

With a one-vote margin provided by Vice President Cheney, the Senate bowed to the will of the President and the run-amok leaders of the House. Reminiscent of the one-vote margin that propelled George W. Bush into the White House, the country’s budget and tax policy is being determined by a similar one-vote margin, cast by a man whose primary interest appears to be gaining non-competitive federal contracts for his former company, Halliburton, to rebuild the country that has been razed under his direction.

States and cities are closing down after-school programs, taking families off Medicaid, and cutting vital human needs programs. There are no jobs to pull impoverished families into economic security, and we are losing more jobs daily. Welfare mothers are being required to work more hours – whether or not additional shifts are available for them to work, and whether or not they have adequate child care for the additional hours.

Our nation is at war, for better or worse. The cost is at least $80 billion dollars and could be as much as $200 billion. This is NOT the time for any tax cut, not $350 billion, not $550 billion. Where is the sanity and compassion? Where is the common sense?

We call on the House and the Senate to shed the false promises and make real commitments to their constituents – not just to their large donors or their own post-Congressional pocketbooks. Scratch your junkets this spring and go home to your states and districts and talk to the real people you represent. Come back and work on a tax bill that puts real money into real people’s pockets. Work to improve programs that give everyone in this country – not just the wealthy ones – a real step up.

The 211 House members and 50 Senators who heeded our real needs and attempted to provide a saner budget with some semblance of fairness deserve our thanks. We will work to readjust the thinking of the others or replace them at the polls in November 2004.

Kim Gandy is president of the National Organization for Women, www.now.org

An unbalanced budget plan

Wed, 07 May 2003 07:20:00 +0000

Opinion

Farmers and ranchers have not enjoyed the same economic growth and prosperity that many other sectors of American society have experienced in the last decade. Nevertheless, the U.S. House of Representatives has approved a plan to provide tax benefits for the rich and balance the federal budget and on the backs of farmers and ranchers. Doesn’t this balanced budget plan sound a bit … unbalanced?

The fiscal year 2004 budget resolution, which the House passed 215 to 212, funds President Bush’s new tax cut proposals by reducing government spending in other programs such as agriculture. This budget plan would cut $18.6 billion, or more than 25 percent of the additional resources Congress provided in the farm bill to improve the farm economic safety net and enhance nutrition, conservation and rural development programs. This is a slap in the face to farmers and ranchers who are already struggling as a result of natural disasters, poor commodity prices and increased market concentration.

Most recently, the House Budget Committee chair has said he would consider allowing the agriculture committee to postpone any cuts for five years. But, a cut is a cut. While it may seem better now to put off the pain for another time, it only means the cuts will be deeper in 2008. How will we write a farm bill at that time without sufficient funding? No one can predict commodity prices that far into the future; but until we fix the fundamental failures in the marketplace so farmers and ranchers receive a fair return on their investments, U.S. producers must rely on a farm program safety net.

It is a question of priorities. The proposed reductions in agricultural spending clearly suggest that some in Congress are willing to renege on the long-term commitment to agriculture, as provided in the 2001 budget act and the farm bill enacted less than one year ago. It is equally clear this action is being proposed to achieve the president’s tax cut for the nation’s wealthiest individuals.

A balanced budget should include tax reform and an economic stimulus for the poor and middle-class Americans, not just the privileged. A balanced budget should help improve the quality of life and create economic opportunities for all citizens, including those in rural America.

Dave Frederickson is president of the National Farmers Union, representing 300,000 farm and ranch families. The group’s email is: nfunews@nfu.org.

A look at Russias Yeltsin years

Wed, 07 May 2003 06:55:00 +0000

Post Soviet Russia: A Journey Through the Yeltsin Era, by Roy Medvedev, Columbia University Press, 394 pp.

Like the early 20th century under Vladimir Lenin, the 1990s under Boris Yeltsin was a time of revolutionary change for Russia, the difference being that while Lenin strove to introduce socialism, Yeltsin attempted to reintroduce capitalism.

In his fascinating Post Soviet Russia: A Journey Through the Yeltsin Era, Roy Medvedev recounts the turbulent years of the Yeltsin presidency. And if there was anyone suited to write a history of post-Soviet Russia under Yeltsin, it is Medvedev, a prominent Soviet era dissident who authored many critical works on Soviet history such as Let History Judge.

According to Medvedev, Yeltsin had been a political chameleon his entire career, changing his skin when the moment suited it. During the Gorbachev period, he was a Communist fighting against economic privilege and for socialist renewal. After 1991, he became a free market liberal.

But while he was a shrewd politician, he did not show the same astuteness as president. When Yeltsin chose his first cabinet, drawn from the ranks of the dissolved CPSU and Soviet government, he chose those with little experience, rejecting more qualified candidates. He selected young economists, such as Yegor Gaidar, who had no experience working in the economy, to advise him along with western economic advisors from the International Monetary Fund.

The Yeltsin government’s first imprudent action was the abolition of price controls, leading to skyrocketing inflation and declining production and consumption. New investment came to a halt, as inflation deprived industries of investment funds and capital flight began. It was safer for companies and individuals to put their money into foreign bank accounts rather than invest it in Russia.

Medvedev writes that the attitude of the Gaidar team was “that if Russian agriculture and industry were unable to compete with the west, so much the better. They would rather let such inefficient production be ruined than try to reorganize it or provide government aid. Russia could be supplied with food and consumer goods, in exchange for natural resources it was exporting.”

The process of privatization began when the Yeltsin government sold state-owned industries for a song to Russian businessmen or foreign companies hiding behind Russian investors or dummy firms they created. Western companies sought stated-owned companies in order to obtain Russian high technology or eliminate competitors. To illustrate the scale of theft, by the end of 1993 western firms had purchased 500 major enterprises in metallurgy, oil, gas, chemical and machinery with a market value of $200 billion for only $7.2 billion.

In many cases, the new private Russian owners were not able to make their firms more competitive because they lacked capital to upgrade them, as well as business skills to operate them. However, as Medvedev points out, this did not concern the Yeltsin government, as the “main aim of privatization was to form a class or stratum of property owners who could become a reliable base of support for the new social system being created.”

Medvedev says that efforts to impose capitalist relations on a non-capitalist society, were, “absurd, utopian, and bound to fail.”

Yeltsin’s efforts to reshape Russia did not go unopposed. The Russian parliament, which elected Yeltsin president in 1991, turned against him when the deputies saw that the government’s policies were destroying the country. Medvedev provides a gripping account of the events surrounding Yeltsin’s suppression of the Russian parliament in 1993. He also sheds light on how Yeltsin was reelected in 1996.

Medvedev also provides an interesting picture of the new Russian business elite. While providing a vivid picture of the period, the book could have been better organized. Despite this defect, Post Soviet Russia is a compelling and disturbing account of the Yeltsin period.

–Tim Pelzer (tpelzer@sprint.ca)