The JvL Bi-Weekly
James van Luik
Publisher & Editor
“We shall soon be obliged to meet in cellars, or in darkened rooms with closed doors, and speak in whispers lest our next door neighbors would hear that free-born citizens dare not speak in the open.” Emma Goldman talking about ‘Free Speech in Chicago’, 1902.
Sunday, March 30, 2003
Volume 2, No. 6
6 Articles
1. Why Does Bush Push to Silence Free Speech
2. Bush Duping Seniors
3. US War Plans are not Helped by Blix
4. The Case Against US Adventurism in Iraq
5. What’s Wrong with the Proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA)?
6. On Presidential Liars
1. WHY DOES BUSH PUSH TO SILENCE FREE SPEECH
by
RAMSEY CLARK
(Former U.S. Attorney-General Ramsey Clark met with Iraqi President Saddam Hussein recently.)
Should a free person be afraid to meet with a demonized “brutal dictator”?
If not, how do we hope to learn, understand, act to avoid violence and war? If our (U.S.) government says, “You will only be deceived and used, a dupe, if you meet,” doesn’t this reveal an intention to exercise arbitrary control over information on which public opinion is formed that might affect government plans?
Why did the White House object to the interview with President Saddam Hussein by Dan Rather, seek to interject rebuttal and rebuke at different points in the interview, and then complain that a person who lies should not be allowed to speak in the media?
Because I believe in individual freedom and that the truth can set us free, I will never accept the command “thou shalt not” reason together.
At this moment, U.S. anger over meetings with Saddam Hussein reflects Bush administration fears that opposition voices might begin to ask, “Who are the real aggressors, the greater threats to peace, the most dangerous terrorists?” Once a person is able to hear all sides and is informed, the answers cannot be controlled by government propaganda.
During the barely two years of his presidency, George W. Bush has revealed an unprecedented, uncompromising obsession for war that threatens peace and economic stability around the world.
He is the head of government of the sole superpower on earth. Its military is capable of destroying any nation without ever setting foot on it and, incredibly, President Bush has threatened to use nuclear weapons.
The U.S. has less than six per cent of the world’s population, with vast wealth concentrated in corporate control and personal fortunes that have created the greatest-and growing-gap between rich and poor, and economic policies that contribute to the same growing gap worldwide.
Bush proclaimed the right and initiated a war of aggression against Afghanistan, causing thousands of deaths, many civilian, and installing a government of his choice in Kabul.
He has authorized daily military flights over Iraq which have resulted in frequent, and in the last few months, daily aerial assaults that have killed hundreds of people in Iraq without a single U.S. plane being hit or seriously at risk.
He has proclaimed his intention of “regime change” by military force in Iraq with an unavoidable consequence of thousands of civilian deaths. U.S. regime changes in the past brought to power the Shah of Iran, Mobutu in the Congo, Pinochet in Chile and dozens of other repressive governments subservient to U.S. interests and power.
Reverberations from President Bush’s bellicosity threatening war, even nuclear assaults, have been heard from India, Pakistan, North Korea … Colombia, the Philippines and occupied Palestine.
If Bush’s promise to make Iraq a paradise of democracy, “liberty plus groceries,” as the Depression-era Texan congressman Maury Maverick defined it, ask how the people of North Korea, Vietnam, Grenada, Panama, Haiti, Somalia, Sudan and Afghanistan fared after direct U.S. interventions in the last half-century.
President Bush has authorized and approved assassinations, summary executions and murders-and boasted of them, in his State of the Union message in January. “All told, more than 3,000 suspected terrorists have been arrested in many countries, and many others have met a different fate … let’s put it this way, they are no longer a problem for the United States and our friends and allies.”
He has authorized and condoned bribery, coercion and retaliation to obtain war ends.
Fundamental human rights and civil liberties protected by international law and the U.S. Constitution have been violated within the United States against both citizens and aliens and abroad by illegal arrests, secret detentions, false criminal charges, and interference with rights to assemble, protest and speak.
He has drastically undermined U.N. authority, threatening it with irrelevancy, coercing it to follow his command and acting independently and in defiance of the U.N. Charter.
For Iraq, Bush has authorized a plan of attack called “Shock and Awe,” a massive aerial and missile assault in the first hours and days against a defenseless people. Any one of the 300 to 400 cruise missiles, which will strike Iraq the first day, is far deadlier than all the alleged excessive-range missiles-(with ranges) less than 200 kilometers-that Saddam has been ordered to destroy.
The world has been told “There will not be a safe place in Baghdad … The Sheer size of this has never been seen before, never been contemplated before.”
How are the people of the world to accept these threats? Are they terrorism as prelude to genocide?
President Saddam Hussein told Dan Rather, “We will die in Iraq.”
If death is by U.S. violence, what will come after?
2. BUSH DUPING SENIORS
THE TOP THREE LIES TO OLDER AMERICANS
by
HANS RIEMER
In Mel Brooks’ classic comedy “Blazing Saddles” there’s a scene where a band of murderers and thieves are terrorizing the town, trying to scare the residents away so that the corrupt governor can sell the land-rights to a railroad company. Amidst a torrent of heinous deeds, they descend on a little old lady and begin punching her. She moans and groans and then looks at the camera and asks, “Have you ever seen such cruelty?”
I’m reminded of that gag by the Bush administration’s pitch to seniors about Medicare, taxes and Social Security. I’d only change one word; Have you ever seen such dupery? Whenever the administration gets into a fix with its economic policies, it wraps them in lies – lately, seniors are the chosen camouflage. However, if they decide to call the president’s con, it could cost him his “re-election?”
BIG LIE#1: SENIORS WILL GET MORE CHOICES IN HMOs THAN IN MEDICARE
THE TRUTH: SENIORS WILL LOSE CONTROL OF THEIR OWN HEALTH CARE.
The president and his allies in congress want to replace Medicare’s guaranteed benefit plan with private insurance. “Seniors happy with the current Medicare system should be able to keep their coverage just the way it is,” Bush say, “all seniors should have the choice of a health-care plan that provides prescription drugs.”
Of course, seniors are not happy with Medicare “just the way it is.” That’s the point. They need prescription drug coverage in Medicare, and Bush has promised it to them. But now seniors who don’t want to leave Medicare because they think private plans are too risky will get paltry assistance – a drug benefit with a $7,000 deductible. And those who “opt” for a private insurance plan will surrender control over their own health care. After all, there is no guarantee that an HMO will cover their existing doctors – or the medical services they want. So seniors will have to give up their choice to stay in Medicare and their choice of a personal doctor in order to get adequate drug coverage. It is a lose-lose situation either way you cut it.
BIG LIE #2 SENIORS WILL GET A WINDFALL IF THE DIVIDEND TAX IS AXED
THE TRUTH: IT’S JUST ANOTHER TAX CUT FOR THE RICH
“President” Bush now argues that the reason for exempting dividend income from taxes is to help seniors. The administration claims “The average tax saving for the 9.8 million seniors receiving dividends would be $936.”
In fact, it’s a tax cut for the rich, pure and simple. After all you have to earn a lot of income from dividends in order for a tax exemption to be meaningful. That’s why more than 40 percent of the benefits would go to seniors with dividend income exceeding $200,000. Those who earn less than $50,000 per year would get only four percent of the total benefits.
BIG LIE #3: SENIORS WILL BE PROTECTED WHILE SOCIAL SECURITY IS PRIVATIZED.
THE TRUTH: SENIORS WILL BE CALLED TO SACRIFICE
Bush has a sucker-punch waiting for seniors who trust his promise that benefits for retirees and near-retirees will be protected while the Social Security system is replaced with private investments. Here’s where it’ll come from: The money that workers pay into Social Security today is immediately used for the benefits that today’s retired seniors receive. So if non-retired people take some of their money out of Social Security and put it into a retirement account, there won’t be enough money to cover existing Social Security benefits. Something will have to give.
Some suggest that Congress could deficit spend to plug these massive transition costs. But, according to the Government Accounting Office, the president’s own plans would require as much as $2.2 trillion in new money over the next 30 years – even with benefit cuts. Thanks to Bush’s intentionally reckless fiscal policies, the government is already experiencing record deficits, and those don’t even include the cost of the war in Iraq. The sorry truth is that if Bush succeeds in moving forward with his plan, he’ll inevitably call on seniors to sacrifice some of their crucial benefits.
This is a high-stakes con game. Bush lost the senior vote in 2000. In order to re-attract it in 2002, the Republicans had to tell a whole mess of lies about their plans for Social Security and Medicare. And now they’re telling more. If seniors find out what the White House is really up to, it could break Bush in 2004. And unlike the little old lady in “Blazing Saddles,” real seniors can punch right back.
3. US WAR PLANS ARE NOT HELPED BY BLIX
by
ROBERT FISK
Oh, for the ice-cold Swedish eye on the Middle East. Ah, for the freezing Scandinavian vision of truth. Hans Blix, everybody’s headmaster, delivered his school report yesterday with enough fairness to outrage both pupil – Iraq – and parent, ultimately the US.
Yes, Iraq had provided the names of relevant scientists, but “only a few documents had come to light – a disappointment”. And on Iraq’s destruction of al-Samoud 2 missiles – a “substantial measure of disarmament” – a Swedish ‘bon mot’. “We are not watching the destruction of toothpicks,” Mr Blix said. Toothpicks, indeed.
Words of truly Nordic neutrality followed: “reluctant co-operation”, “soberly judged”, “immediate co-operation” (which was not obtained), “a considerable volume of documents” The famous aluminum tubes turned out – if one believes Mr Blix, and why not – to have nothing to do with nuclear weapons (goodbye, the British intelligence file). And – if you believe Mohamed al-Baradei, and again why not – quite a number of other US documents are lies. But the words from this most intransigent of Swedes to most enrage the warmongers were: “We intend to continue our inspection activities.”
You could almost hear the roar of fury from the Americans. Saddam has lied; the UN hasn’t found the weapons. The UN doesn’t know how to find them. Alas for President Bush, the UN was urged to go to Iraq last year by … President Bush.
He thought Saddam would not allow inspectors to land in Iraq. Saddam let the inspectors in – so the inspectors must now be trashed by Washington. Not an easy task when Mr Blix – the archetypal, friendly Swedish bear – is in charge.
The words were no help to US war plans. “Plausible … verifiable … progress,” he said of his mission. All words the US would welcome if they wanted the inspectors to succeed. Hence the statement from Joschka Fischer, the German Foreign Minister: “We see no need for a second resolution.” Which, of course, was the view of the French and the Russians – and Mr. Blix. So, Mr. Blix, watch out.
Colin Powell didn’t seem quite ready for the report, though there was plenty of talk of “criminal evidence”, of “lying and deceit”, along with some new phrases: “cluster of questions” and “tens of thousands [sic] of delivery systems”.
Yes, Mr. Powell, who picked up the “toothpicks” metaphor, liked Iraq’s co-operation – he could scarcely say otherwise – but added he was “sorry to learn that this is coming in a grudging manner”.
The two words not mentioned were those of the countries whose people are really killing each other: Israel and Palestine. Alas, that would have muddied the waters – and introduced an element of reality to this frozen debate at the UN.
4. THE CASE AGAINST US ADVENTURISM IN IRAQ
BY
NOAM CHOMSKY
The most powerful state in history has proclaimed that it intends to control the world by force, the dimension in which it reigns supreme.
President Bush and his cohorts evidently believe that the means of violence in their hands are so extraordinary that they can dismiss anyone who stands in their way.
The consequences could be catastrophic in Iraq and around the world. The United States may reap a whirlwind of terrorist retaliation – and step up the possibility of nuclear Armageddon.
Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and company are committed to an “imperial ambition,” as G. John Ikenberry wrote in the September/October issue of Foreign Affairs – “unipolar world in which the United States has no peer competitor” and in which “no state or coalition could ever challenge it as global leader, protector and enforcer.”
That ambition surely includes much expanded control over Persian Gulf resources and military bases to impose a preferred form of order in the region.
Even before the administration began beating the war drums against Iraq, there were plenty of warnings that U.S. adventurism would lead to proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, as well as terror, for deterrence or revenge.
Right now, Washington is teaching the world a dangerous lesson: If you want to defend yourself from us, you had better mimic North Korea and pose a credible threat. Otherwise we will demolish you.
There is good reason to believe that the war with Iraq is intended, in part, to demonstrate what lies ahead when the empire decides to strike a blow – through “war” is hardly the proper term, given the gross mismatch of forces.
A flood of propaganda warns that if we do not stop Saddam Hussein today he will destroy us tomorrow.
Last October, when Congress granted the president the authority to go to war, it was “to defend the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq.”
But no country in Iraq’s neighborhood seems overly concerned about Saddam, much as they may hate the murderous tyrant.
Perhaps that is because the neighbors know that Iraq’s people are at the edge of survival. Iraq has become one of the weakest states in the region. As a report from the American Academy of Arts and Sciences points out, Iraq’s economy and military expenditures are a fraction of some of its neighbors’.
Indeed, in recent years, countries nearby have sought to reintegrate Iraq into the region, including Iran and Kuwait, both invaded by Iraq.
Saddam benefited from U.S. support through the war with Iran and beyond, up to the day of the invasion of Kuwait. Those responsible are largely back at the helm in Washington today.
President Ronald Reagan and the previous Bush administration provided aid to Saddam, along with the means to develop weapons of mass destruction, back when he was far more dangerous than he is now, and had already committed his worst crimes, like murdering thousands of Kurds with poison gas.
An end to Saddam’s rule would life a horrible burden from the people of Iraq. There is good reason to believe that he would suffer the fate of Nicolae Ceausescu and other vicious tyrants if Iraqi society were not devastated by harsh sanctions that force the population to rely on Saddam for survival while strengthening him and his clique.
Saddam remains a terrible threat to those within his reach. Today, his reach does not extend beyond his own domains, though it is likely that U.S. aggression could inspire a new generation of terrorists bent on revenge, and might induce Iraq to carry out terrorist actions suspected to be already in place.
Right now Saddam has every reason to keep under tight control any chemical and biological weapons that Iraq may have. He wouldn’t provide such weapons to the Osama bin Ladens of the world, who represent a terrible threat to Saddam himself.
And administration hawks understand that, except as a last resort if attacked, Iraq is highly unlikely to use any weapons of mass destruction that it has – and risk instant incineration.
Under attack, however, Iraqi society would collapse, including the controls over the weapons of mass destruction. These could be “privatized,” as international security specialist Daniel Benjamin warns, and offered to the huge “market for unconventional weapons, where they will have no trouble finding buyers.” That really is “a nightmare scenario,” he says.
As for the fate of the people of Iraq in war, no one can predict with any confidence: not the CIA, not Rumsfeld, not those who claim to be experts on Iraq, no one.
But international relief agencies are preparing for the worst.
Studies by respected medical organizations estimate that the death toll could rise to the hundreds of thousands. Confidential U.N. documents warn that a war could trigger a “humanitarian emergency of exceptional scale” – including the possibility that 30 percent of Iraqi children could die from malnutrition.
Today the administration doesn’t seem to be heeding the international relief agency warnings about an attack’s horrendous aftermath.
The potential disasters are among the many reasons why decent human beings do not contemplate the threat or use of violence, whether in personal life or international affairs, unless reasons have been offered that have overwhelming force. And surely nothing remotely like that justification has come forward.
5. WHAT’S WRONG WITH THE PROPOSED FREE TRADE AREA OF THE AMERICAS (FTAA)?
(This is an issue broadside from Witness for Peace)
Throughout the hemisphere, citizens are registering their votes on the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) through ballot initiatives, referendums, town council resolutions, and petitions. Many citizens are concerned that the current proposal for the FTAA is modeled directly on the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). The impacts of NAFTA in Mexico, the US and Canada have raised some serious concerns.
LABOR & ENVIRONMENT: Standards will be lowered to attract foreign investment, as communities compete against each other. NAFTA’s labor and environmental “side agreements” have proven completely ineffective, and we expect even less from the FTAA. In all three NAFTA countries, more jobs have been lost then gained by NAFTA, and the living standard of the working class is declining in Mexico, the US, Canada, and around the world. Free trade pits poor nations in a “race to the bottom,” competing to see which can offer the lowest wages (and worst conditions) to attract investment. In fact, the FTAA would prohibit living wage laws, certain labor agreements, and government contract preferences for women and minorities.
DEMOCRACY: As the FTAA is being negotiated civil society representatives are barred from the negotiations, and their concerns are not addressed. If “fast track” authority is finalized, not even Congress will have input in the negotiations. Yet, the FTAA allows corporations to sue governments before secret transnational arbitration panels. The panels do not permit testimony from communities, environmentalists, or labor experts. Governments can be punished for passing environmental or labor protections if those protections threaten corporate profits, even if the laws are in the best interest of the community.
AGRICULTURE/MIGRATION: Legitimate measures to protect national food security are not allowed. Nations are forced to abandon policies that protect food self-sufficiency so that corporations can increase their profits. Subsidies for subsistence crops and domestic consumption foodstuffs are phased out. With increased “free trade,” countries will be forced to pay whatever prices the market sets for essential food goods. Small and medium farms can’t compete with large agro-business, or protect themselves from Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs). In fact, agricultural giants who developed seeds are suing small farmers whose crops were inadvertently contaminated with GMA strains for “benefiting” from the GMO properties. As small farmers go out of business, migration will increase into urban areas and into the United States and Canada.
PRIVATIZATION: Privatization requirements of the FTAA could allow corporations to control judicial systems, water supplies, schools, or even police departments! Corporations may then choose only to provide service to areas that are profitable, jeopardizing, for example, rural mail delivery and inner city schools. The US federal government has recently had to take control of airport security because of repeated security lapses; what does that tell us about privatization?
LEVEL PLAYING FIELD: FTAA will not include any debt relief for poor countries, preventing a “level playing field.” The FTAA proposal offers no adjustment assistance to help developing countries’ industries become competitive. Since the economics of “free trade” on which the FTAA is based assume a level playing field, the projected outcomes of prosperity-for-all are not credible. NAFTA has certainly shown that this model of free trade helps the rich get richer and makes the poor get poorer.
SMALL BUSINESS: FTAA favors large businesses, hurting small/medium ones. Under this model of free trade, large businesses and corporations enjoy all the advantages. Small enterprises cannot take advantage of the benefits, while having to compete with those that can. As a result, small businesses will be driven out of business. We see this across the US as WalMart replaces local hardware stores, and Mexican farmers have seen how “free trade” puts them out of business.
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY: Poor communities or nations that are fighting the scourge of AIDS or easily curable diseases can’t use affordable generic drugs because of stringent patent protections under “free” trade agreements. Are corporate profits more important than human lives?”
GENDER: Women will face declining wages and increased workloads, worsening gender inequalities. As more families compete for jobs in the corporate workforce, wages are declining and women are suffering the most severe declines.
(Witness for Peace: 202-588 1471 ~ www.witnessforpeace.org)
(Also: Treasury Department Tightens Travel Restrictions to Cuba for American Educational Groups and others. http://www.lawg.org/cuba.htm)
6. ON PRESIDENTIAL LIARS
BY
HOWARD ZINN
The year of 1998 was dominated in the news media by the sexual shenanigans of President Bill Clinton and a formerly obscure White House Intern, Monica Lewinsky. This preoccupation illustrated perfectly the proclivity of the American media to fasten on the trivial at the expense of life-and death matters.
In all the excitement about Bill Clinton’s sex life, and its repercussions on his presidency, have we as a nation lost—or did we never have—a sense of proportion?
Clinton has lied to us, deceived us, and then covered up his deceptions, about his sexual shenanigans—which, however odious, caused no one to lose a life. Many other presidents have lied to us, and deceived us, especially since World War II, about activities that we had every right to know about, in which thousands, even millions of people, lost their lives. Let’s recall some of that history.
Let’s start with Harry Truman, who lied to us and the world when he said the bomb dropped on Hiroshima was dropped on “a military target.” Several hundred thousand civilians—men, women, children died. Truman also lied to the nation about our war in Korea, presenting this as necessary to top the spread of Communism in the world (it did not, and indeed could not), to show that “aggression does not pay” (the world did not listen; aggressions continued), saying we were fighting for democracy (hardly, since South Korea was a military dictatorship). Over 50,000 Americans died. And perhaps two million Koreans.
Eisenhower lied about our spy flights over the Soviet Union, even after one flier on such a mission was shot down. He deceived the nation and the world about the United States involvement in the coup that overthrew a democratic government in Guatemala and put in place a military junta that then took thousands of lives. He deceived the nation about the U.S. rôle in subverting a government in Iran which offended the oil corporations. The Shah of Iran was put back on the throne, meaning death and torture for his opponents. (In many of these events, the actual deceptions were carried on by his underlings, but the fact is that Eisenhower knew of them, and approved of them.)
Kennedy lied to the nation about the U.S. involvement in the 1961 failed invasion of Cuba, telling a press conference: “I can assure you that the United States has no intention of using force to overthrow the Castro regime.”
Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon all lied to the nation about what was happening in Vietnam. Kennedy, while denying repeatedly that American fliers were involved in bombing of Vietnam, sent two helicopter companies there as early as 1962, and napalm began to be used. Johnson and Nixon both lied when they claimed only military targets were bombed (reporters knew the greatest number of deaths was among civilians). And Nixon deceived the nation about the secret bombing of Cambodia.
Regan lied to the nation about his secret and illegal support of the contras in Nicaragua. He lied about the importance of Grenada in order to justify the American invasion of that little island. George Bush (senior) lied about the reasons for invading Panama, saying it was to stop the drug trade, but in fact the drug trade has flourished. And he deceived the nation about his real interest in the Persian Gulf, pretending to deep anguish about the fate of Kuwait, but actually more concerned about enhancing American power in Saudi Arabia and controlling the oil deposits of the region.
Against this history of lies that brought death to so many people, Clinton’s deceptions are ludicrous. Politicians and journalists who are indignant that he lied about sex with “that woman,” were silent when he deceived the nation about the need to bomb a “nerve gas plant” in the Sudan. His administration could produce no evidence that the plant was anything but what the Sudanese government said it was—a plant that produced medicines for the Sudanese people.
The president has lost his “moral authority,” it is said, because of his lies about his sexual behavior. Did he—and indeed both Republicans and Democrats in Congress—not lose their moral authority when they took away basic benefits from single mothers and food stamps from immigrants, when they failed to provide universal medical care, while spending hundreds of billions on an unnecessary military machine?
We are seeing a shocking loss of perspective on the part of political leaders, the press, and the public. If politicians and journalists have lost their sense of moral proportion, must we, as citizens lose ours? Should we not pull back from our obsession with lies about sex, and concentrate on finding out the truth about policies that mean life or death for people in this country and all over the world?