Publisher
& Editor
Tuesday
July 15th, 2003
Volume
2, No. 13
2.
Bush 'stretched truth' about Iraq—Poll
3.
You Call These Democrats an Alternative?
4.
Were Nuclear Weapons needed to defeat Japan in World War II?
(The
Danger of Becoming the "next Iraq")
BY
MICHAEL
LEBOWITZ
The most significant repression in Cuba (where I have been, except for trip to Venezuela, since early February) has been the repression of law breaking first and most significantly against an emerging drug network and extending to prosecution of people renting apartments without licenses, serving food obtained through the black market in the paladares and even to people selling peanuts on the street without a license. Policing and fines for traffic violations are also up substantially. Since so many people rely heavily on getting a little (and, in some cases, a lot) on the side, this crackdown has had great impact. My personal view is that it is an important part of the explanation as to why there was an upsurge in hijackings (not only the ones that made the headlines, but also the other 27 foiled plots) and why people with criminal records were prominent in these.
That's not the repression, however, that people mean when they go on about the plight of independent journalists, librarians, trade unionists, human-rights activists, etc. as if these people had been tried for these things rather than or accepting money and instructions from the US. Please, folks, take a little time to read the text of the Helms-Burton act, notably sections 205 and 206, on the demand for regime change (the transition government), and sections 109 and 115, on the money to be openly and secretly provided for the overthrow of the existing government through USAID.
Look, too, at the official US declarations of the more than $22 million devoted to this purpose by USAID. And, finally, read some of the evidence on-line, for example, copies of handwritten notes giving instructions and sending money for the establishment of the Varela Project, conceived, financed and directed from the outside. Or, for a shorter version look at the text of Cuban foreign minister Felipe Pérez Roque's press conference (available on-line at many sites, including www.ratb.ork.uk).
When you've read some of the statements by the Cuban undercover agents who were receiving as much as US $450 per month (more than 20 times the average Cuban salary) and their evidence about writing articles for foreign circulation on specific subjects recommended by US officials, you'll understand why the so-called dissidents are viewed in Cuba as mercenaries working on behalf of the US government to overthrow the Cuban government.
THE CAPITAL PUNISHMENT ISSUE
Of course, it's so much easier to recoil with horror at the concept of independent journalists, etc. being persecuted. In contrast to my feelings about the defenders of those mercenaries, I respect people whose criticism of Cuba proceeds from their view of the absolute sanctity of human life, including those who signed statements of condemnation or demonstrated against Cuba for this reason, (if they had done so in opposition to capital punishment in their own countries and in the United States—including that country's heinous torture of people, teenagers among them, in occupied Cuba, i.e. Guantanamo.
There have been very strong statements abut capital punishment—suggesting that capital punishment must be viewed as a moral (and/or political) absolute and that no circumstances could ever justify it. Accordingly, having recently resorted to capital punishment, Cuba must from this perspective be condemned. (This position is to be distinguished from that which argues that the use of capital punishment was a tactical or strategic error—one that has reduced support for Cuba at a critical time.)
I think it is unquestionable that state murders cannot be part of the society that we want to build. From my perspectives as a Marxist, however, central to a dialectical worldview is that parts do not exist separate from the whole; their properties are those they acquire from being existing within a particular whole—i.e. from a particular combination with other parts. (For example, money has different qualities when it mediates exchange between independent peasants and craftsmen than it does when mediating exchange with capitalism). From this perspective, one always has to consider context and combination. If you are willing to accept in principle that, under some set of extreme circumstances, capital punishment may be acceptable, then our discussion becomes no longer one of absolutes but, rather, whether or not the context in Cuba in any way justified the use of capital punishment.
Although I've argued in the past about the necessity to separate the capital-punishment question from the spy trials, I now think the two issues need to be understood together—i.e. that the actions of the Cuban government in both cases must be placed in a particular context.
WHY DID THE GOVENRMENT TAKE THESE EXTREME MEASURES?
There are two questions I think everyone needs to ask:
1. Why, after several years of a moratorium on capital punishment (which means that the terrorists who bombed hotels, resulting in deaths, in Cuba are still alive in prison despite receiving a death sentence), did the government apply the death penalty in the case of the hijackers of a small ferry? And secondly:
2. Given the clear isolation and ineffectiveness within Cuba of the dissidents, why did Cuba choose at this time to surface 12 undercover agents who were so well placed that they included among their number the head of the Pro-Human Rights Party, the dean of Cuba's independent reporters—so trusted by the US Interests Section that he had a permanent pass into the Interests Section—and the secretary of one of the best-known dissidents—so trusted that she had her employer's email password? Why throw away such years of investment in intelligence, now?
In part, the obvious answer is the escalation of the US campaign to overthrow the Cuban government—beginning with James Cason's assumption of office as head of the US Interests Section in Havana. (His actions, including the setting up of a Cuban political party, are well documented.) Add to this the recent welcoming of hijackers in the US; rather than returning them to Cuba and sending the signal that hijacking is not rewarded, they are out on bail, walking the streets of Miami along with other Cuban terrorists. Add to this the fact that, despite an annual quota established by treaty for a minimum of 20,000 legal immigrants from Cuba, Since October (the beginning of the year), the US Interests Section had as of March given out only 505 visas. Add to that recent statements from US officials that they would view a mass illegal emigration from Cuba as a threat to national security; the demands in Miami that Cuba be next after Iraq; and Rumsfeld's comment that there was no intention of attacking Cuba now. Add up all these things, and you can understand why Cuba might feel that the US was attempting to provoke an incident in order to justify an attack.
But there's more than just the direct provocations and assaults.
The essential context against which to understand Cuba's actions is the US war against Iraq—both the execution of that war and the powerlessness of opposition to it. The US determination to go ahead despite the historic worldwide demonstrations against the war revealed that, whatever long-term effect the mobilization might have, in the immediate situation the demonstrations could not stop an aggressor nation determined to have its way. That is, as long s there was business–as-usual, no high costs to be felt by the aggressor, every country was on its own. Cuba was on its own. Do you think that the leaders in Venezuela, for example, were not making the same observations when watching the US proceed to ignore the UN and world opinion?
This is why the Cubans speak about a nazi-fascism stalking the world. In this context, I believe Cuba opted for its own campaign of "shock and awe." It surfaced its undercover agents to demonstrate to the US how skillful Cuban intelligence really is. (Lest anyone miss that message, it was underlined by Pérez Roque at his pres conference, where he noted, "that no one in Cuba is a fool, that we have revealed only a small part of what we know so our people have learned to defend themselves.") Also, Cuba took the dramatic and painful act of executing the hijackers.
As Fidel Castro told the foreign participants to the Marx conference at an unannounced evening gathering (and as he subsequently told a Mexican journalist), the choice was between those deaths and many more that would result from the US plan to provoke an immigration crisis, which would be used as a pretext for a naval blockade, which would inevitably lead to war. We know full well this has a price, since a great number of friends—and may of our best friends—for various reasons, whether religious, humanitarian or philosophical, are opposed to the death penalty," he explained. But he insisted: "We didn't have the right to hesitate, and we will not hesitate. That was intended to send a message both to those within Cuba thinking about hijacking planes and those being released on bail in the US, and also to those in the US planning that Cuba should be the next Iraq. The message: Cuba is prepared to do what is necessary to defend itself."
I believe some friends of Cuba who are criticizing Cuba at this moment should explain what they would do at this time—not in reference to what they would do in their ideal socialist society, but what they would do if placed in Cuba's shoes in this real situation. And, if they differ with what Cuba has done, they should explain why they think they understand the real threats Cuba faces better than Cuba's own intelligence network. And they should explain what they are prepared to do to help Cuba defend itself.
2.
BUSH 'STRETCHED TRUTH' ABOUT IRAQ—POLL
BY
JORDAN
TIMES, THURSDAY, JULY 3RD, 2003
WASHINGTON (AFP)—For the first time since the beginning of the war in Iraq, a majority of Americans has come to the conclusion the Bush administration either "stretched the truth" about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction or told outright lies, according to a new opinion survey. The poll by the University of Maryland found that 52 per cent of respondents said they believed President George W. Bush and his aides were "stretching the truth, but not making false statements" about former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's chemical, biological and nuclear programmes.
Another 10 per cent said US officials were presenting Congress, the American public and the international community "evidence they knew was false," indicated the survey which was made public Tuesday.
Only 32 per cent said they thought the government was
being "fully truthful"
about the Iraqi arsenal.
The weapons of mass destruction—as well as the Iraqi government's alleged ties to the Al Qaeda terrorist group—which the administration claimed represented an immediate threat to the United States, served as the chief rationale for launching the March 20th invasion of Iraq.
But more than three months since the start of the war, US troops have yet to find any of the suspected weapons.
AS a result, 63 per cent of Americans now believe the US Congress should investigate the intelligence agencies to find out how they came with information about the alleged Iraqi arsenal, the survey found.
Similarly, 56 per cent of those polled believed the US government stretched the truth or made outright false statements about Hussein's ties to Al Qaeda.
Although overall support for the war in Iraq remained high, the poll gave indications of its erosion, as Americans began to qualify their backing for the White House on the subject.
Thus, the share of those who unconditionally supported the war because they thought launching it was the right thing to do dwindled from 53 per cent in early May to 46 per cent in early June, the poll showed.
By contrast, 29 per cent of respondents—up from 22 per cent in May—now say the United States was wrong in starting the war.
3.
YOU CALL THESE DEMOCRATS AN ALTERNATIVE?
BY
ALAN
MAASS
There is plenty of anger with the Bush administration. But what should be done? And can the Democrats be trusted to do it?
After all, one major reason that the Bush administration has gotten away with so much has been the cowardly (or is there more to it?) behavior of the Democrats. Especially since September 11th, but even before, the Democratic leadership in Washington has caved (or agreed) again and again to (or with) the White House, providing Republicans with an often comfortable margin of victory such as on the resolution authorizing war on Iraq, the USA Patriot Act, the misnamed "partial-birth" abortion ban, and both of Bush's tax cut giveaways to the rich, to name just a few examples.
At one level, this is nothing new. The Democratic Party's claim to represent ordinary people has always hidden a different reality. In any election, the Democrat is likely to be to the left of the Republican. But the differences between the two, important though they may be, are really quite small compared to what they share—an agenda that puts the interest of big business first, even if the two parties sometimes disagree about how.
Ultimately, the Democrats are not a party that represents the interests of working people. They represent big business. Whenever its preferred choice, the Republicans, becomes too discredited to win elections, corporate America can count on the Democrats, waiting in the wings with predictable and non-threatening policies.
This is ultimately why the Democrats—to the great frustration of many of their most dedicated supporters—usually give up ground to the Republicans, and not the other way around. But despite this record, the same appeal is made at every election—that while the Democrats may not be perfect, at least they are the "lesser of two evils."
In the 2000 election, discontent with this Republican and democratic "duopoly" over national politics produced the most successful left-wing challenge in half a century—the Green Party presidential campaign of Ralph Nader, who won nearly 3 percent of the vote nationwide. Despite the abuse he took from Democrats for supposedly throwing the election to Bush—actually, Al Gore has only himself to blame for the miserable campaign he ran in an election that was his to lose—Nader was a lighting rod for millions of people fed up with a system that offers so little choice.
The 2004 election will shape up very differently. Already, many Nader supporters—even members of the Green Part itself—are talking about supporting the Democratic candidate in order to defeat Bush.
Medea Benjamin, cofounder of Global Exchange and the Green Party's candidate for US Senate from California in 2000, says that she is leaning toward a limited Green presidential campaign that doesn't try to win votes in states that could tip the balance for the Democrats in the Electoral College. "[The Democrats are] shameful in terms of even calling themselves an opposition party," Benjamin says. "But despite that, I still think that we've got to get rid of Bush. He's too dangerous for the globe, and too dangerous for any of the issues we stand for."
Liberal Democrats themselves are even more outspoken. At the Take Back America conference, Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.), one of the top liberals in the House of Representatives, said that people who feel fed up with the Democrats should "get over it."
"Like it or not, either George W. Bush or the Democratic nominee, whoever he may be, will be our next president," Schakowsky said. "We should, by all means, be working to promote a progressive agenda with each and every candidate and to make the nominee as progressive as possible. But in the end, we are going to have to dedicate ourselves to electing the Democrat. To do otherwise is a luxury we cannot afford."
The Message is clear: Any Democrat is better than Bush. But is this true?
Just how big a difference is there between Bush and Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.), one of the early front-runners for the 2004 presidential nomination? Lieberman, after all, loudly supported the war on Iraq, demands that the White House spend more money on homeland security, made his reputation as a Hollywood-bashing cultural conservative, and regularly attacks other Democratic presidential hopefuls for proposing "big government" programs to fix the US health care crisis.
The record of Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), the most prominent liberal among the other leading candidates, isn't that much better. And his appearance at the Take Back America conference was a prime example of how Democrats snub their supporters to appeal to the "center."
Kerry spent the final portion of his speech lecturing the overwhelmingly antiwar crowd about whey he rejects "those who reflexively oppose any US military intervention anywhere, or who see US power as a mostly malignant force in the world, or who place a higher value on achieving multilateral consensus than necessarily protecting vital interest of our nation…If Democrats are not prepared to make America safer, stronger and more secure, for all we care about all those other issues, we will not win back the White House, and we won't deserve to."
There are other candidates for the nomination who are more willing to take a stand against the Bush agenda, rather than adapt to it. Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean is trying to stake out a position as the main left-wing candidate, challenged by R. Al Sharpton, former Sen. Carol Moseley-Braun and Rep. Dennis Kucinich.
But Dean—who himself admits that it is "pathetic" he's considered a left-winger—is a long shot to win the nomination, and the rest aren't even that. Thus, Kucinich gave the best-received speech among the seven candidates who addressed the Take Back America conference—but afterward, talk among attendees returned to whether they could tolerate a more conservative Democrat.
"I think a lot of people now are agonizing," says Barbara Ehrenreich, a Nader supporter in 2000 who spoke at the conference. "How far would they go to get 'anything but Bush'? A lot of people I know say it stops at Lieberman."
In fact, when the eventual nominee is chosen, the Sharptons and Kucinichs will have a time-honored role to play for the Democratic Party—to accept defeat and round up their supporters behind whatever candidate did win, no matter how conservative.
Opponents of the Republican agenda felt the same urgency about retaking the White House in 1992—and in 1984 and 1988 for that matter—when Ronald Ragan and George Bush Sr. were on the rampage. The same argument—that another four years of Reagan or Bush would be a disaster, and the left therefore had to bury its criticisms and unite behind the Democrats—could be heard everywhere.
But what we got after 12 years of Republican rule in the White House was finally brought to an end wasn't an end to the Republican agenda. Instead , the Clinton-Gore administration carried through very similar policies.
Even worse, when Bill Clinton signed into law outrages like welfare "reform"—which effectively shredded the decades-old social safety net for the most vulnerable people in the US—the organizations that could be expected to mobilize a response were silent. Their justification was explicit—opposition to the Clinton administration might damage the Democrats' chances in the 1996 election.
"This is a bad bill, but a good strategy," said Rep. Gary Ackerman (D-N.Y.), explaining why he would vote for the welfare bill he opposed. In order to continue economic and social progress, we must keep President Clinton in office…. Sometimes in order to make progress and move ahead, you have to stand up and do the wrong thing."
To listen to today's discussion about 2004, it's as if Washington's attack on working and poor people began in January 2001, when Bush took over the White House. For example, at the Take Back America conference, Barbara Ehrenreich, quoted Bush describing welfare "reform" as "resounding success." But this is precisely the opinion of Bill Clinton and the Democratic Party leadership.
Likewise, other speakers referred to the recent Federal Communications Commission vote on new rules that will make it easier for right-wing press barons like Rupert Murdoch to expand their media empires. But no one mentioned the Telecommunications Act of 1996, shepherded through Congress by Al Gore, which set the stage for today's media merger mania. Leaders of organized labor criticized the Bush White House anti-union offensive. But they neglected to point out that the Clinton White House championed the NAFTA free trade deal.
There are real differences, of course. Bill Clinton vetoed several versions of legislation banning the late-term abortion procedure misnamed "partial-birth" abortion. Bush is about to sign the ban into law.
But these differences are no excuse for amnesia when it comes to the Democrats' real record. And anyone who is considering voting for a Democrat as the lesser evil in 2004 should think about how organized labor and mainstream liberal organizations found themselves disarmed when they fell in line behind the Clinton White House.
If Democrats know that they have the support of those to their left safely in hand, they will always pander to the right in the search for more votes. That's why those who vote for the lesser evil usually get both the lesser and the greater evil.
And independent political alternative that stands uncompromisingly against the two-party "duopoly" in Washington is every bit as necessary today as in 2000. Ralph Nader has not said yet whether he will run again in 2004, through green Party members say that he is inclined toward another campaign. Another potential presidential candidate for the Greens is former Rep. Cynthia McKinney, who lost her seat in congress last year after she was targeted by a right-wing crusade—and the national Democratic party abandoned her.
Whether a Green Party presidential campaign can find an audience in the face of the massive "anybody but Bush" climate is another question. Green Party supporters will definitely find themselves in a much smaller minority this time around. But that doesn't change the need for an independent alternative.
Does all this mean that we supporters of a third party challenge don't care abut stopping bush? Not at all. We have to mobilize in every way against the Bush agenda, around whatever issues where struggle develops—including those that the Democrats find too inconvenient to take a stand.
These struggles from below, after all, are the way that real social victories have been won in US history—not by relying on politicians, no matter how liberal. Thus, the major pieces of civil rights legislation in 1964 and 1965 that marked the success of the struggle against Jim Crow segregation came at the crest of a mass movement of African Americans that was shaking the political power structure in the South and the US as a whole. Before that, democrats—including the party's northern liberal wing—resisted taking action in favor of civil rights.
As Howard Zinn put it in an interview with the Socialist Worker right after George Bush took office, "There's hardly anything more important that people can learn than the fact that the really critical thing isn't who is sitting in the White House, but who is sitting in the streets, in the cafeterias, in the halls of government, in the factories. Who is protesting, who is occupying offices and demonstrating—those are the things that determine what happens."
If the Clinton-Gore record suddenly looks rosier compared to the crimes of the Neanderthals occupying the White House now, it shouldn't be forgotten that Clinton stands out in many ways as more conservative than the presidents that came before him—Republicans included. So, for example, Richard Nixon launched more anti-discrimination and affirmative action programs than Clinton. Obviously, that's not because Nixon was more liberal on civil rights—on the contrary, he was a miserable right-winger. But Nixon was under pressure to act from the mass social movements of the 1960s and early 1970s—something Clinton didn't face, in part because organized labor and mainstream liberal groups fell in line behind the White House during the 1990s on the reasoning that the Democrats were the "lesser evil."
As long as corporate America dominates Washington and the most important votes are the dollars given by the biggest campaign contributors, the US political system will remain out of touch with what working people want—and beyond of their ability to exercise any real democratic control.
The job of defeating the Bush agenda can't be left to an unaccountable Democrat, who will decide which Republican policy to overturn, and which to keep. We need to organize that struggle from below. And in the process, we can build an alternative to a political system where the only real choices come down to versions of the status quo.
4.
WERE NUCLEAR WEAPONS NEEDED TO DEFEAT JAPAN IN WORLD WAR II
BY
David
Krieger and Angela McCracken
It IS widely believed, particularly in the United States, that the use of nuclear weapons against the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was necessary to defeat Japan in World War II. This is not, however, the opinion of the leading US military figures in the war, including General Dwight Eisenhower, General Omar Bradley, General Hap Arnold and Admiral William Leahy. Genera Eisenhower, for example, who was the Supreme Allied Commander Europe during World War II and later US president, wrote:
"I had been conscious of a feeling of depression and so I voiced [to Secretary of War Stimson] my grave misgivings, first on the basis of my belief that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary, and secondly because I thought that our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure save American lives. It was my belief that Japan was, at that very moment, seeking some way to surrender with a minimum loss of 'face'…."
Not only was the use of nuclear force unnecessary; its destructive force was excessive resulting in 220,000 deaths by the end of 1945.
5.
BOOKS
I would like to recommend two books:
1. Studs Terkel. "The Good War"
2. Charles Austin Beard. An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States