James van Luik

Arthur Miller wrote, "Few of us can easily surrender our belief that society must somehow make sense. The thought that the state has lost its mind and is punishing so many innocent people is intolerable. And so the evidence has to be internally denied."

Miller's truth was a glimpsed reality on television on June 9 when Israeli warships fired on families picnicking on a Gaza beach, killing seven people, including three children and three generations. What that represents is a final solution, agreed by the United States and Israel, to the problem of the Palestinians. While the Israelis fire missiles at Palestinian picnickers and homes in Gaza and the West Bank, the two governments are to starve them. The victims will be mostly children.

This was approved on May 23 by the U.S. House of Representatives, which voted 361-37 to cut off aid to non-government organizations that run a lifeline to occupied Palestine. Israel is withholding Palestinian revenues and tax receipts amounting to $60 million a month. Such collective punishment, identified as a crime against humanity in the Geneva Conventions, evokes the Nazis' strangulation of the Warsaw ghetto and the American economic siege of Iraq in the 1990s. If the perpetrators have lost their minds, as Miller suggested, they appear to understand their barbarism and display their cynicism. "The idea is to put the Palestinians on a diet," joked Dov Weisglass, an adviser to the Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert.

This is the price Palestinians must pay for their democratic elections in January. The majority voted for the "wrong" party, Hamas, which the U.S. and Israel, with their inimitable penchant for pot-calling-the-kettle-black, describe as terrorist. However, terrorism is not the reason for starving the Palestinians, whose prime minister, Ismail Haniyeh, had reaffirmed Hamas's commitment to recognize the Jewish state, proposing only that Israel obey international law and respect the borders of 1967. Israel has refused because, with its apartheid wall under construction, its intention is clear: to take over more and more of Palestine, encircling whole villages and eventually Jerusalem.

The reason Israel fears Hamas is that Hamas is unlikely to be a trusted collaborator in subjugating its own people on Israel's behalf. Indeed, the vote for Hamas was actually a vote for peace. Palestinians were fed up with the failures and corruption of the Arafat era. According to the former U.S. president Jimmy Carter, whose Carter Center verified the Hamas electoral victory, "public opinion polls show that 80 percent of Palestinians want a peace agreement with Israel."

How ironic this is, considering that the rise of Hamas was due in no small part to the secret support it received from Israel, which, with the U.S. and Britain, wanted Islamists to undermine secular Arabism and its "moderate" dreams of freedom. Hamas refused to play this Machiavellian game and in the face of Israeli assaults maintained a cease-fire for 18 months. The objective of the Israeli attack on the beach at Gaza was clearly to sabotage the cease-fire. This is a time-honored tactic.

Now, state terror in the form of a medieval siege is to be applied to the most vulnerable. For the Palestinians, a war against their children is hardly new. A 2004 field study published in the British Medical Journal reported that, in the previous four years, "Two-thirds of the 621 children … killed [by the Israelis] at checkpoints … on the way to school, in their homes, died from small arms fire, directed in over half the cases to the head, neck, and chest – the sniper's wound." A quarter of Palestinian infants under the age of five are acutely or chronically malnourished. The Israeli wall "will isolate 97 primary health clinics and 11 hospitals from the populations they serve."

The study described "a man in a now fenced-in village near Qalqilya [who] approached the gate with his seriously ill daughter in his arms and begged the soldiers on duty to let him pass so that he could take her to hospital. The soldiers refused."

Gaza, now sealed like an open prison and terrorized by the sonic boom of Israeli fighter aircraft, has a population of which almost half is under 15. Dr. Khalid Dahlan, a psychiatrist who heads a children's community health project, told me, "The statistic I personally find unbearable is that 99.4 percent of the children we studied suffer trauma … 99.2 percent had their homes bombarded; 97.5 percent were exposed to tear gas; 96.6 percent witnessed shooting; a third saw family members or neighbors injured or killed."

These children suffer unrelenting nightmares and "night terrors" and the dichotomy of having to cope with these conditions. On the one hand, they dream about becoming doctors and nurses "so they can help others"; on the other, this is then overtaken by an apocalyptic vision of themselves as the next generation of suicide bombers. They experience this invariably after attacks by the Israelis. For some boys, their heroes are no longer football players, but a confusion of Palestinian "martyrs" and even the enemy, "because Israeli soldiers are the strongest and have Apache gunships."

That these children are now to be punished further may be beyond human comprehension, but there is a logic. Over the years, the Palestinians have avoided falling into the abyss of an all-out civil war, knowing this is what the Israelis want. Destroying their elected government while attempting to build a parallel administration around the collusive Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, may well produce, as the Oxford academic Karma Nabulsi wrote, "a Hobbesian vision of an anarchic society … ruled by disparate militias, gangs, religious ideologues and broken into ethnic and religious tribalism, and co-opted collaborationists. Look to the Iraq of today: that is what [Ariel Sharon] had in store for us."

The struggle in Palestine is an American war, waged from America's most heavily armed foreign military base, Israel. In the West, we are conditioned not to think of the Israeli-Palestinian "conflict" in those terms, just as we are conditioned to think of the Israelis as victims, not illegal and brutal occupiers. This is not to underestimate the ruthless initiatives of the Israeli state, but without F-16s and Apaches and billions of American taxpayers' dollars, Israel would have made peace with the Palestinians long ago. Since the Second World War, the U.S. has given Israel some $140 billion, much of it as armaments. According to the Congressional Research Service, the same "aid" budget was to include $28 million "to help [Palestinian] children deal with the current conflict situation" and to provide "basic first aid." That has now been vetoed.

Karma Nabulsi's comparison with Iraq is apposite, for the same "policy" applies there. The capture of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was a wonderful media event: what the philosopher Hannah Arendt called "action as propaganda," and having little bearing on reality. The Americans and those who act as their bullhorn have their demon – even a video game of his house being blown up. The truth is that Zarqawi was largely their creation. His apparent killing serves an important propaganda purpose, distracting us in the west from the American goal of converting Iraq, like Palestine, into a powerless society of ethnic and religious tribalism. Death squads, formed and trained by veterans of the CIA's "counterinsurgency" in central America, are critical to this. The Special Police Commandos, a CIA creation led by former senior intelligence officers in Saddam Hussein's Ba'ath Party, are perhaps the most brutal. The Zarqawi killing and the myths about his importance also deflect from routine massacres by U.S. soldiers, such as the one at Haditha. Even the puppet Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki complains that murderous behavior of U.S. troops is "a daily occurrence." As I learned in Vietnam, a form of serial killing, then known officially as "body count," is the way the Americans fight their colonial wars.

This is known as "pacification." The asymmetry of a pacified Iraq and a pacified Palestine is clear. As in Palestine, the war in Iraq is against civilians, mostly children. According to UNICEF, Iraq once had one of the highest indicators for the well-being of children. Today, a quarter of children between the ages of six months and five years suffer acute or chronic malnutrition, worse than during the years of sanctions. Poverty and disease have risen with each day of the occupation.

In April, in British-occupied Basra, the European aid agency Saving Children from War reported: "The mortality of young children had increased by 30 percent compared with the Saddam Hussein era." They die because the hospitals have no ventilators and the water supply, which the British were meant to have fixed, is more polluted than ever. Children fall victim to unexploded U.S. and British cluster bombs. They play in areas contaminated by depleted uranium; by contrast, British army survey teams venture there only in full-body radiation suits, face masks, and gloves. Unlike the children they came to "liberate," British troops are given what the Ministry of Defense calls "full biological testing."

Was Arthur Miller right? Do we "internally deny" all this, or do we listen to distant voices? On my last trip to Palestine, I was rewarded, on leaving Gaza, with a spectacle of Palestinian flags fluttering from inside the walled compounds. Children are responsible for this. No one tells them to do it. They make flagpoles out of sticks tied together, and one or two climb on to a wall and hold the flag between them, silently. They do it, believing they will tell the world.

2. BUSH'S "YOYO" BUDGET AND NONPROFITS' ANGST

KATHERINE STAPP

NEW YORK - According to economist Jared Bernstein, the United States has entered the brave new era of the "YOYO" economy -- i.e., "You're On Your Own".

And if President George W. Bush gets his way in the five-year budget proposal now before Congress, those at the bottom of the economic ladder may be more on their own than ever before.

From senior centres to soup kitchens and housing for the homeless, millions of people have come to rely on the services provided by the nation's more than 837,000 nonprofit organisations.

But a recent analysis by Alan Abramson, director of the nonprofit sector and philanthropy programme at the Aspen Institute, a Washington-based think-tank, finds that Bush's 2007-2012 budget would cut federal spending on programmes of interest to nonprofits, outside of the massive Medicare and Medicaid programmes, by 78.6 billion dollars after inflation.

Spending on social welfare programmes, such as job training and community development, would be slashed by 13.6 billion dollars, and a total of 27.2 billion dollars would be cut from a wide array of housing, cash, and food assistance initiatives.

Direct federal funding of nonprofits, excluding support of health services providers, would fall by 14.3 billion dollars.

"Nonprofits are not important in and of themselves, but because of the people they serve," Abramson said in an interview. "And government support is very important in the balance sheet. If nonprofits are forced to stretch themselves thinner, and perhaps raise their fees, they may price themselves beyond the reach of many people."

The 1990s were a boom period for nonprofits in the United States. From 1992 to 2002, the number of charitable organisations registered with the Internal Revenue Service soared from 516,554 to 909,574 -- a 76-percent increase. Much of this expansion was directly due to increased levels of state and government funding.

"But starting last year, we saw a changing budget scenario at the federal level," Abramson said. "There was more concern about the deficit, as well as pressure to spend on the (Iraq) war and homeland security."

Abramson estimates that about 20 percent of nonprofits' resources come from private giving, including individuals, foundations and businesses, 30 percent comes from the state and federal government, while 40 to 50 percent is earned from service fees.

"Federal budget cuts do have a major impact," agreed Erica Greeley, deputy director of the National Council of Nonprofit Associations, which has over 22,000 members in 45 states and Washington, DC.

"There is no way that private giving can make up the difference," she told IPS. "While some nonprofits are trying earned revenues strategies that may be very innovative and entrepreneurial, their historical role is to provide services for those who can't pay for them."

"If the government outsources its safety net services and looks to nonprofits, while at the same time it is cutting their budgets, there will inevitably be a segment of society that is left out," Greeley said.

This is especially bad news in light of the country's widening income gap. According to the latest Federal Reserve report issued last month, the richest one percent of U.S. citizens now own a bigger piece of the pie (33.4 percent) than the poorest 90 percent together (30.4 percent).

Greeley argues that rather than judging social programmes according to easily measured outcomes, policy-makers should take a more cost-benefit, preventive approach.

"In California, for example, it was discovered that the majority of people in juvenile detention went through the foster care system," she said. "One of the biggest draws on California's budget is prisons. If you do the math, investing in the foster care system would clean up the juvenile justice system -- but they're having a hard time grappling with that."

Since the 1980s, there has been a policy shift from funding nonprofits directly to giving money to individuals in the form of vouchers. While this offers greater choice, it also means that charities are forced to spend money wooing potential clients, and in some cases, people actually end up with fewer services.

"The bottom line is that communities have needs and they should be met," Greeley said. "The best way to do this is a partnership between business, government and nonprofits. Each is best positioned to do certain things, so they need to come together and support what needs to happen."

Deborah Weinstein of the Coalition on Human Needs, an alliance of civil rights, religious, labour and professional groups, said that even some of the biggest nonprofits, like Catholic Charities USA, have been "completely up front in saying that they provide vital services, in partnership with all levels of government, and you can't take that money away and expect them to do their work."

New roadblocks are being set up that "make it harder for people to climb out of poverty and to reach stability," she told IPS. "Besides the fact that funds are diminishing, some programmes are now seeking proof of citizenship as a back door to deny services to truly eligible but low-income people -- such as poor, older African Americans born in the south, not in hospitals, without birth certificates and no money to get them."

"We are headed for very difficult times," Weinstein said. "The good news is that the states don't have as big budget gaps and revenues have started to pick up. But at the federal level, the reckless passage of tax cut after tax cut on borrowed money means tremendous pressure to make budget cuts that will in turn affect nonprofits."

Indeed, the Centre on Budget and Policy Priorities estimates that new tax cuts in Bush's 2007 budget will cost the states 38 billion dollars over the next 10 years. By 2016, they would lose 8.1 billion dollars in revenues annually.

Helmut Anheier directs the Centre for Civil Society at the University of California, Los Angeles, which helps train local and regional nonprofits in leadership and capacity building. He says he is "mildly optimistic" about the future of nonprofits in the state.

"If you look at Los Angeles, the whole nonprofit field is much less developed compared to the (U.S.) East Coast," he said. "State and local governments have historically played a more direct role in providing basic social services."

"That's changed over the last 20 years -- nonprofits are growing, but the population is growing faster, and they are forced to play catch-up. Because of California's recent budget crisis, it's been a roller coaster. We're now in a transition period, where the government wants to learn, but doesn't quite know how to pass on responsibilities."

Later this month, Anheier is flying to Scotland for a civil society summit, the CIVICUS World Assembly, where NGO leaders from around the world share their experiences on themes of civic and economic justice.

"After the Cold War, the genie was out of the bottle," Anheier said. "There is one superpower, and many people disagree with it, but the U.N. is ineffective and the question is what can the people of the world do with a system that is unwilling to reform itself? That's what CIVICUS is about."

"And that's where civil society comes in. We have a similar thing happening in California," he noted. "The federal government is not charting a course for society, so the state government and nonprofits are moving into this void. Still, I would like to see a much more visionary framework in place."

Jared Bernstein's new book, "All Together Now: Common Sense for a Fair Economy", puts it this way: replace the YOYO economy with a society based on the idea of "WITT" -- We're All In This Together".

3. BUSH 'PLANTED FAKE NEWS STORIES ON AMERICAN TV'

ANDREW BUNCOMBE IN WASHINGTON

Federal authorities are actively investigating dozens of American television stations for broadcasting items produced by the Bush administration and major corporations, and passing them off as normal news. Some of the fake news segments talked up success in the war in Iraq, or promoted the companies' products.

Investigators from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) are seeking information about stations across the country after a report produced by a campaign group detailed the extraordinary extent of the use of such items.

The report, by the non-profit group Centre for Media and Democracy, found that over a 10-month period at least 77 television stations were making use of the faux news broadcasts, known as Video News Releases (VNRs). Not one told viewers who had produced the items.

"We know we only had partial access to these VNRs and yet we found 77 stations using them," said Diana Farsetta, one of the group's researchers. "I would say it's pretty extraordinary. The picture we found was much worse than we expected going into the investigation in terms of just how widely these get played and how frequently these pre-packaged segments are put on the air."

Ms Farsetta said the public relations companies commissioned to produce these segments by corporations had become increasingly sophisticated in their techniques in order to get the VNRs broadcast. "They have got very good at mimicking what a real, independently produced television report would look like," she said.

The FCC has declined to comment on the investigation but investigators from the commission's enforcement unit recently approached Ms Farsetta for a copy of her group's report.

The range of VNR is wide. Among items provided by the Bush administration to news stations was one in which an Iraqi-American in Kansas City was seen saying "Thank you Bush. Thank you USA" in response to the 2003 fall of Baghdad. The footage was actually produced by the State Department, one of 20 federal agencies that have produced and distributed such items.

Many of the corporate reports, produced by drugs manufacturers such as Pfizer, focus on health issues and promote the manufacturer's product. One example cited by the report was a Hallowe'en segment produced by the confectionery giant Mars, which featured Snickers, M&Ms and other company brands. While the original VNR disclosed that it was produced by Mars, such information was removed when it was broadcast by the television channel - in this case a Fox-owned station in St Louis, Missouri.

Bloomberg news service said that other companies that sponsored the promotions included General Motors, the world's largest car maker, and Intel, the biggest maker of semi-conductors. All of the companies said they included full disclosure of their involvement in the VNRs. "We in no way attempt to hide that we are providing the video," said Chuck Mulloy, a spokesman for Intel. "In fact, we bend over backward to make this disclosure."

The FCC was urged to act by a lobbying campaign organised by Free Press, another non-profit group that focuses on media policy. Spokesman Craig Aaron said more than 25,000 people had written to the FCC about the VNRs. "Essentially it's corporate advertising or propaganda masquerading as news," he said. "The public obviously expects their news reports are going to be based on real reporting and real information. If they are watching an advertisement for a company or a government policy, they need to be told."

The controversy over the use of VNRs by television stations first erupted last spring. At the time the FCC issued a public notice warning broadcasters that they were obliged to inform viewers if items were sponsored. The maximum fine for each violation is $32,500 (£17,500).

4. THE STUDENT BUSINESS

RALPH NADER

Al Lord is thinking about building his own private golf course. Not bad for an ex-corporate socialist. The former CEO of Sallie Mae is worth about a quarter of a billion dollars, running a company that Uncle Sam virtually guarantees against any losses while it makes enormous profits in the college student loan business.

In 2003 Mr. Lord told a public audience that "it would be very hard for me to tell you that what I make is not a lot of money." But the company he ran has been making it very hard for tens of thousands of students and blocking any reforms in Congress that would make his company less hard on American taxpayers.

Last year, citing George W. Bush's own budget office, Senator Ted Kennedy (D-Massachusetts) declared that, "We waste billions of dollars in corporate welfare every year on student loans, and we cannot afford it any longer."

Sallie Mae lobbyists have heard this before from Democrats and some Republicans, such as Representative Thomas Petri (R-Wisconsin). They are not worried. Sallie Mae executives own the majority leader in the House of Representatives, John Boehner (R-Indiana). He has been wined and dined with over $200,000 in campaign contributions to his PAC from individuals affiliated with the private student-loan industry in the 2003-2004 election cycle.

In December 2005, Mr. Boehner reassured a group of Sallie Mae types who wanted reassurance that their cushy deals would continue: "Know that I have all of you in my two trusted hands."

And what a cushy deal it is. Your federal government guarantees returns for these companies on student loans of at least 2.34 percent higher than the rates paid on commercial loans. At least. If the student borrower defaults, you the taxpayer picks up the tab for Sallie Mae and the banks.

If the student falls on very hard times after graduation and has to go bankrupt, federal law says bankruptcy does not affect collection of student loans. Even the powerful credit card industry can't get past bankruptcy to garnish what's left of the graduate's assets. The student lending industry can even get to a debtor's disability insurance payments under social security.

In February Congress did act on student loans in another way - backward. It cut $12 billion out of the student loan programs, mostly from students and parents. In a report just out, the California Public Interest Research Group (CALPIRG) found that in California, 17.9% of public college students and 28.8% of private college graduates have unmanageable student loan debt were they to take jobs as teachers or social workers. Yet these critical careers desperately need college graduates to replenish their ranks. (To download the full report, go to http://www.calpirg.org. See also http://www.studentloanjustice.org.)

Last Sunday, May 7th, I turned on CBS' 60 Minutes which unloaded on Sallie Mae in a devastating segment about its power, greed and profits.

Originally a government-sponsored enterprise like Fannie Mae, Sallie Mae was privatized in 1997 and is now the largest private lender to students. But not entirely private. The federal government is its guarantor. Michael Dannenberg of the New America Foundation told Leslie Stahl: "It may be called 'private' but it's not private at all. Frankly it's a socialist-like system. It's not as if this private entity is assuming any risks. No, no, no. The law makes sure that this so-called private entity has virtually no risk."

It gets worse. Let's say a graduated student defaults. The government pays Sallie Mae both the principal and the interest compounded. But the loan is still subject to collection. Guess who owns some of the largest collection agencies - you guessed it, Sallie Mae. When its collection agency collects, it gets 25% of the recovery. The profits go to Sallie Mae.

The corporate lawyers who conceived this self-enriching system ought to get the nation's top prize for shameless perversity.

Corporate socialism - an Uncle Sam (meaning you) guarantee - has been very good for Sallie Mae's stock, which has gone up twenty-fold since 1995, when it was already a mature, profitable company.

Ms. Stahl interviewed one graduate, Lynnae Brown, who borrowed $60,000 starting in college in 1985. She has been ill since her sophomore year. She keeps paying to avoid default, but by the time she is finished, she will have paid Sallie Mae $262,383. Now one can sense why Al Lord can build his private golf course.

The bright and compassionate Harvard Law School professor, Elizabeth Warren, told Ms. Stahl that "Sallie Mae makes money if you pay back on time. And Sallie Mae makes money if you don't pay back on time. It shouldn't be the case that Sallie Mae gets to play every hand at the poker table while the government is the one that keeps anteing up the money."

But the solution is plain. The government's Department of Education offers student loans directly, bypassing the middleman. It gives the loan money to Ohio State University, for example, which then loans it to students. Direct lending by Uncle Sam is far cheaper. It will cost taxpayers less than 1 cent on the dollar, while Sallie Mae guaranteed loans will cost taxpayers 12 cents on the dollar. Who made these projections? Mr. Bush's own budget analysts.

I have observed previously that our weakened, disorganized democracy is increasingly both expose-proof and solution-proof. Nonetheless, the solution is for the government to stop allowing companies special advantages like Sallie Mae kickbacks to universities in order to get the student business, as 60 Minutes pointed out. Then more direct Department of Education lending can save taxpayers money and provide more loans for hardpressed students and parents.

Was there any uproar after the 60 Minutes criticism? If so, I didn't hear it either from Congress or anywhere else. Well, at least Sallie Mae was affected; its stock went up the next day on Monday $1.70, to $53.85!

5. THE FAX THAT REVEALS THE US IS FLYING TERROR SUSPECTS TO EUROPE'S SECRET JAILS

NEIL MACKAY

The intercepted top-secret fax contained information that America never wanted the world to know – that the US was holding war-on-terror captives at clandestine “black site” prisons in eastern Europe.

The fax, datelined November 10, 2005, 8.24pm, was sent by the Egyptian foreign minister, Ahmed Aboul Gheit, in Cairo, to his ambassador in London. It revealed that the US had detained at least 23 Iraqi and Afghani captives at a military base called Mihail Kogalniceanu in Romania, and added that similar secret prisons were also to be found in Poland, Ukraine, Kosovo, Macedonia and Bulgaria.

The discovery of the fax seriously undermines the US’s denial that it has ever used secret detention facilities, breaching international law. It also adds to the pressure for the release of information on “extraordinary renditions”. These rendition flights see kidnapped terror suspects taken by the CIA to countries where torture is common, such as Uzbekistan. British intelligence has supported this practice and UK airports, particulary Prestwick, have given CIA jets logistical support.

The Council of Europe last week published the results of its long-running investigation into rendition and found that 14 European countries, including Britain, had colluded with the CIA. It also suggested that secret prisons were operating in eastern Europe, but did not have conclusive proof.

The fax, intercepted by Swiss intelligence, indicates that Egypt has such proof. It is headed: “The Egyptians have access to sources which confirm the existence of American secret prisons”.

Its shocking contents would never have been uncovered if it hadn’t been for a conscientious surveillance officer with the Swiss secret service, stationed at an eavesdropping centre in Zimmerwald, south of Berne. On November 16, six days after the fax was first sent via satellite from Cairo to London, the officer intercepted it using the Onyx eavesdropping system. The officer marked their personal coded identifier, “wbm”, on the page and put the information down in a COMINT SAT report. The intercepted fax was given the reference number S160018TER00000115.

The report noted: “The [Egyptian] embassy got the information from its own sources that 23 Iraqi and American citizens have actually been interrogated at the military base Mihail Kogalniceanu close to the [Romanian] city of Constanza at the Black Sea. Similar interrogation centres exist in Ukraine, Kosovo, Macedonia and Bulgaria.”

The fax also referred to “prisoners being transported with American military planes from the base Salt Pit in Kabul to the Polish base Szymany and to the Romanian base on September 21 and 22, 2005.” It then went on to say: “In contradiction to all quoted facts, the Romanians deny the existence of the prisons that are used to interrogate members of al-Qaeda.”

The activities of one secret CIA rendition jet do indicate that captives have been dropped off in Romania. The plane, N313P, a Boeing 737, landed in Timisoara on January 25, 2004 just before midnight after flying from Kabul. It stayed on the runway for just over an hour and then flew on to Palma, Mallorca, where a CIA rendition team stayed in a hotel under fake identities.

Dick Marty, the Swiss senator who led the Council of Europe investigations into renditions, said in his report: “Having eliminated other explanations – including that of a simple logistics flight, as the trip is a part of a well-established renditions circuit – the most likely hypothesis is that the purpose of this flight was to transport one or several detainees from Kabul to Romania.”

Rendition jet N313P also travelled from Tashkent, Uzbekistan, to Kabul on September 21, 2003. On September 22, it flew from Kabul to Szymany, a Polish defence ministry airfield. Close by is the Stare Kiejkuty base used by Polish intelligence. CIA jet N313P stayed only 64 minutes before flying to Romania.

“It is possible,” says Marty, “that several detainees may have been transported together on the flight out of Kabul, with some being left in Poland and some being left in Romania.” After leaving Romania, the plane landed in Morocco, where “rendered” captives have been tortured with the knowledge of both British and American intelligence.

Both Poland and Romania deny allowing CIA “black site” prisons to operate on their territory. EU justice commissioner Franco Frattini has warned that any member states caught operating secret jails on behalf of the Americans could have their voting rights suspended.

Russian TV has also accused Ukraine of running a secret CIA prison near Kiev, claiming that an old Soviet site used to store nuclear weapons has been turned into a holding facility where trucks have been seen delivering shipments of people to Ukrainian soldiers.

6. CONGRESS VALUES OWN PAYCHECKS MORE THAN WORKERS'

HOLLY SKLAR

Members of Congress like to talk about values. They sure don't mean the Golden Rule: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."

While more and more hardworking Americans struggle to make ends meet, Congress showed what it really values -- the rising value of congressional pay.

The House refused to block the $3,300 "cost of living adjustment" that will raise congressional pay on Jan. 1 to $168,500 -- not counting great health benefits, pensions and perks.

Congressional pay raises between 1997 and 2007 will add up to $34,900. That's more than average workers make in a year.

It would take more than three workers to make $34,900 at the minimum wage stuck at $5.15 an hour -- just $10,712 a year -- since Sept. 1, 1997.

Full-time workers at minimum wage make less than $900 a month to pay rent, food, healthcare, gas and everything else. No wonder the U.S. Conference of Mayors Hunger and Homelessness Survey found that 40 percent of adults requesting emergency food assistance were employed, as were 15 percent of the homeless.

Childcare workers and security guards struggle to care for their own children. EMTs and health care aides can't afford to take sick days.

Yet Congress has given itself raise after raise, while giving none to minimum wage workers.

As Adam Smith himself wrote in "The Wealth of Nations," "It is but equity … that those who feed, clothe, and lodge the whole body of the people, should have such a share of the produce of their own labor as to be themselves tolerably well fed, clothed, and lodged."

Today's minimum wage workers have less buying power than minimum wage workers did back in 1950 when Harry Truman was president. The 1950 minimum wage is $6.30 in 2006 dollars, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics Inflation Calculator.

It would take $9.31 today to match the value of the minimum wage of 1968. It takes nearly two minimum wage workers to make what one worker made four decades ago.

The minimum wage has become a poverty wage instead of an anti-poverty wage. This has ripple effects far beyond minimum wage workers and their families.

The minimum wage sets the wage floor. When the minimum wage sinks, it drags down wages for workers up the pay scale as well. Between 1968 and 2005, worker productivity rose 111 percent, but the average hourly wage fell 5 percent, adjusting for inflation, and the minimum wage fell 43 percent.

The inflation-adjusted earnings of college-educated workers have fallen since 2000. Poverty rates are higher now than in the 1970s and we have an increasingly low-wage workforce instead of a growing middle class.

Contrary to myth, raising the minimum wage helps business and boosts the economy. We had high economic growth, low inflation, low unemployment and declining poverty rates after the last minimum wage hikes in 1996 and 1997. States that have raised their minimum wages above the increasingly inadequate $5.15 federal level have had better employment trends than the other states, including for retail businesses and small businesses.

Higher wages increase consumer purchasing power, reduce costly employee turnover, and improve productivity and the quality of products and services. For example, In-N-Out Burger, home of the nation's first drive-through hamburger stand, ranks first nationwide among fast food chains in overall excellence, food flavor, quality and customer service. Their entry-level wage of $9 is nearly $4 above the federal minimum wage.

Small business owner Malcolm Davis wrote in a letter to the editor, "My lowest-paid employee makes $8 per hour. … If I can find a way to be fair with my employees in rural Eastern North Carolina, why can't our government?"

A recent survey by the National Consumers League and Fleishman-Hillard Communications found that 76 percent of American consumers believe "how well a company treats/pays employees influences what they buy." Consumers said "commitment to employees" is the strongest proof of corporate responsibility and it is important for companies to ensure that workers "are paid a living wage."

A job should keep you out of poverty, not keep you in it. It's time for Congress to stop their luxury raises, and raise the minimum wage to a living wage.