The JvL Bi

Check This Out If You're Doubtful. Don't Take My Word For It.

Democratic Party Presidential Candidate John Kerry has made it as clear as day follows night that he supports the continued occupation of Iraq by upwards of 140,000 US troops and a smaller number of troops from other countries, indefinitely. Kerry has said that he is prepared to send more US troops to Iraq and Afghanistan. He supports the Israeli wall of separation, declared illegal by The International Court of Justice in the Hague, that is imprisoning the Palestinian people while expropriating large portions of their land. Kerry has made clear with his threats against Venezuela and Cuba that he is no friend to those who are fighting to maintain their independence from US domination. He supports Bush's kidnapping of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide of Haiti and the occupation of that country by US troops. He has vowed to continue Bush's war and do a better job of pulling in "our allies". Kerry has also attacked affirmative action, and opposes equal marriage rights for LGBT.

This article is not about the scandal of Abu Ghraib or even the treatment of detainees at Guantanamo Bay. Both situations have been the subject of extensive reporting, investigations and court proceedings.

This article is about the crisis in America's own domestic prison system-a crisis of enormous proportions that has not received the attention required to force needed change.

Alan Elsner, a veteran Reuters correspondent, has addressed this crisis in a new book, Gates of Injustice. The book paints a shocking portrait of a situation about which most Americans know very little.

The statistics Elsner presents are staggering. There are, he notes, over 2.2 million people currently incarcerated in the US, giving the US the highest per capita prison population in the industrialized world. For example, while in the US, 702 out of 100,000 persons are in prison, the next highest is Russia, where 628 out of 100,000 are incarcerated. The numbers for the UK and France are only 138 and 90 respectively.

Even more disturbing is the fact that this extraordinarily high US ratio is a development of the last three decades. In 1972, for example, only 160 out of 100,000 people in the US were in prison. To get a sense of the magnitude of this problem, according to Elsner's calculations, the US, with five percent of the world's population, has 25% of the world's prisoners. Elsner quotes Rev. Jesse Jackson: "We are often tempted to think of China as an oppressive country, but we incarcerate 500,000 more people in this country-despite the fact that we have less than one fourth of the population of China. We lock up our poor, our uneducated, our unruly, our unstable and our addicted, where other countries provide treatment, mental hospitals and care."

Minority groups in the US are the most affected. Elsner notes that one in eight African American males between the ages of 20 and 34 are behind bars. One out of 25 Hispanics in the same age group is imprisoned. Overall, one out of three African American males and one out of five Hispanic males will most probably be imprisoned in their lifetime.

All of this comes at a huge cost. As Elsner points out, the cost of running the US prison system is now more than $57 billion per year. This compares with the entire federal Department of Education budget of only $42 billion.

The contrast can be seen now more dramatically on the state level. Elsner observes that in the last decade, the State of California university system laid off 10,000 employees, while the state added an additional 10,000 prison guards. California, it appears, spends $6000 per year per student attending university, while spending $34,000 per year for every prisoner it holds behind bars.

The "corrections industry" as it has come to be called, is a rapidly expanding growth industry in the US. Increasingly, the system is being privatized with major companies bidding for lucrative contracts to build and run US prisons. As Elsner notes, the US's "corrections industry" now employs more people than General Motors, Ford and Wal-Mart combined.

But this only defines one aspect of this issue. More disturbing are the shocking details of prison abuse and neglect that define the daily lives of those who are incarcerated. Instead of providing an environment that seeks to "correct" or rehabilitate those who are behind bars, a violent culture of brutality and extremism has been nurtured within the prison system. Violent gangs, often imbued with racist and extremist ideologies run free. Weaker prisoners are violently abused, often sexually, and drugs are, it appears, as available within prison as they are on the outside. According to Elsner, "hundreds of thousands of men are raped each year…. Racist and neo-Nazi gangs run drugs, gambling and prostitution rings from inside their prison cells, buying and selling weak and vulnerable fellow inmates as sex slaves, while authorities turn a blind eye." As a result, individual prisoners, once released are often more violent, more addicted, angrier and less able to function in society than they were when they entered the system.

Elsner notes the growing problem of abuse of female prisoners. Almost 200,000 women are behind bars. Over two-thirds are mothers. Elsner notes that many are preyed upon by other more violent female inmates, or by their guards.

How did this problem grow to these monstrous proportions? Elsner targets the acceptance by both parties of a "get tough on crime" philosophy that has held sway since the 1970s. During this time, the prison population in the US increased 400%. Almost two-thirds of those arrested were simple drug users, and most of them African American or Hispanic. Meanwhile, law enforcement turned a blind eye to wide drug abuse and failed to deal more effectively with stopping the flow of drugs into the US.

During this same period, federal budget cuts of needed social services have also fed the problem. Elsner notes, "While gutting much of its social safety net by slashing welfare programs, subsidized housing for the poor and treatment for the mentally ill, the US turned incarceration into de facto final destination for those unable to find a place for one reason or another in our education-based, high-tech, winner-take-all economy."

Gates of Injustice not only details the problem of a brutal system run amuck, it also provides a wide range of proposals for reform of this broken institution.

Though the release of his book was overshadowed by the revelation of abuse at Abu Ghraib, there is a connection between the two problems. It turns out that some of the more brutal offenders at Abu Ghraib were, in civilian life, guards in US prisons. It appears that the culture of abuse cultivated at home was, in this instance, exported with devastating consequences.

The solution begins with recognizing the magnitude of the problem. In this regard, Elsner's book makes an invaluable contribution.

"Privatization" is presented as being the only alternative to an inefficient, corrupt state. In fact, it's not a choice at all. It's only made to look like one. Essentially, privatization is a mutually profitable business contract between the private (preferably foreign) company or financial institution, and the ruling elite of the third world. (One of the fallouts is that even corruption becomes an elitist affair. Your average small-fry government official is in grave danger of losing his or her bit on the side).

India's politicians have virtually mortgaged their country to the World Bank. Today India pays back more money in interest and repayment installments than it receives. It is forced to incur new debts in order to replay old ones. In other words, it's exporting capital. Of late, however, institutions like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund which have bled the third world all these years, look like benevolent saints compared to the new mutants in the market. These are known as ECAs – export credit agencies. If the World Bank is a colonizing army hamstrung by red tape and bureaucracy, the ECAs are freewheeling, marauding mercenaries.

Basically, ECAs insure private companies operating in foreign countries against commercial and political risks. The device is called an export credit guarantee. It's quite simple, really. No first world private company wants to export capital or goods or services to a politically and/or economically unstable country without insuring itself against unforeseen contingencies. So the private company covers itself with an export credit guarantee. The ECA, in turn, has an agreement with the government of its own country. The government of its own country has an agreement with the government of the importing country. The upshot of this fine imbrication is that if a situation does arise in which the ECA has to pay its client, its own government pays the ECA and recovers its money by adding it to the bilateral debt owed by the importing country. (So the real guarantors are actually, once again, the poorest people in the poorest countries). Complicated, but cool. And foolproof.

The quadrangular private company ECA-government-government formation neatly circumvents political accountability. Though they're all actually business associates, flak from noisy, tiresome nongovernmental organizations and activists groups can be diverted and funneled to the ECA, where, like noxious industrial effluent, it lies in cooling ponds before being disposed of. The attraction of the ECAs (for both governments and private companies) is that they are secretive and don't bother with tedious details like human rights violations and environmental guidelines. (The rare ones that do like the US Export-Import Bank, are under pressure to change). It short-circuits lumbering World Bank-style bureaucracy. It makes projects like Big Dams (which involved the displacement and impoverishment of large numbers of people, which in turn is politically risky) that much easier to finance. With an ECA guarantee, "developers" can go ahead and dig and quarry and mine and dam the hell out of peoples' lives without having to even address, never mind answer, embarrassing questions.

In order to place India's first private Big Dam in perspective, I need to briefly set out the short, vulgar history of Big Dams in India in general and on the Narmada in particular.

The international dam industry alone is worth US $32-46 billion a year. In the first world, dams are being de-commissioned, blown up. That leaves us with another industry threatened with redundancy desperately in search of dumping grounds.

Fortunately (for the industry), most third world countries, India especially, are deeply committed to Big Dams.

India has the third-largest number of Big Dams in the world. Three thousand six hundred Indian dams qualify as Big Dams under the ICOLD (International Commission on Large Dams) definition. Six hundred and ninety-five more are under construction. This means that 40 percent of all the Big Dams being built in the world are being built in India. For reasons more cynical than honorable, politicians and planners have successfully portrayed Big Dams to an unquestioning public as symbols of nationalism – huge, wet, concrete flags. Nehru's speech about Big Dams being " the temples of modern India" has made its way into primary school textbooks in every Indian language. Every schoolchild is taught that Big Dams will deliver the people of India from hunger and poverty.

To merely ask these questions is to invite accusations of sedition, of being anti-national, of being a spy, and, most ludicrous of all – of receiving "foreign funds." The distinguished Mr. Advani (home minister now), while speaking at the inauguration of construction at the Sardar Sarovar Dam site on October 31, 2000 said that the three greatest achievements of his government were" the nuclear tests in 1998, the war with Pakistan in 1999, and the Supreme Court verdict in favor of the construction of the Sardar Sarovar Dam in 2000. He called it a victory for "development nationalism" (a twisted variation of cultural nationalism). For the home minister to call a Supreme Court verdict a victory for his government doesn't say much for the Supreme Court. I have no quarrel with Mr. Advani clubbing together nuclear bombs, big dams and wars. However, calling them "achievements" is sinister. Mr. Advani then went on to make farcical allegations about those of us who were against the dam were "working at the behest of …outsiders" and "those who do not wish to see India becoming strong in security and socio-economic development."

Unfortunately, this is not imbecilic paranoia. It's a deliberate, dangerous attempt to suppress outrageous facts by whipping up mindless mob frenzy. He did it in the run up to the destruction of the Babri Masjid. He's doing it again. He has given notice that he will stop at nothing . Those who come in his way will be dealt with by any methods he deems necessary.

Nevertheless, there is too much at stake to remain silent. After all, we don't want to be like good middle–class Germans in the '30s, who drove their children to piano classes and never noticed the concentration camps springing up around them – or do we?

There are questions that must be asked. And answered. There is space here for no more than a brief summary of the costs and benefits of Big Dams. A brief summary is all we need.

Ninety percent of the Big Dams in India are irrigation dams. They are the key, according to planners, of India's "food security."

The extraordinary thing is that there is no official government figure for this.

The India Country Study section in the World Commission on Dams Report was prepared by a team of experts – the former secretary of water resources, the former director of the Madras Institute of Development Studies, a former secretary of the Central Water Commission and two members of the faculty of the Indian Institute of Public Administration. One of the chapters in the study deduces that the contribution of large dams to India's food grain produce is less that 10 percent!

Ten percent of the total produce currently works out to 20 million tons. This year, more than double that amount is rotting in government storehouses while at the same time 350 million Indian citizens live below the poverty line (and while grain is actually being imported!). The ministry of food and civil supplies says that 10 percent of India's total food grain produce is eaten every year by rats.

It's hard to believe that things can go so grievously, so perilously wrong. But they have. It's understandable that those who are responsible find it hard to own up to their mistakes because Big Dams did not start out as a cynical enterprise. They began as a dream. They have ended as grisly nightmare. It's time to wake up.

A group of Americans have ignored their own government's tough new restrictions on Cuba by traveling to the impoverished island and donating tons of aid.

The Pastors for Peace (PFP) organization made their fifteenth trip to the communist state on Saturday, traveling there via Mexico.

Despite the threat of $7500 fines for each of 120 expedition members, the humanitarian convoy arrived in Havana with school buses, medicines, medical equipment, computers and books.

Many arrived in Cuba's capital wearing T-shirts that said "Regime change in the US, not in Cuba".

PFP is an arm of the Interreligious Foundation for Community Organisation, an ecumenical group based in Harlem, New York.

Since 1992, it has delivered 2350 tonnes of aid to Cuba without requesting a US government license, Cuban officials said.

PFP promised that their work for "a more humane and reasoned US policy toward Cuba" would continue.

The group wants to see an end to what they describe as "the immoral US economic blockade" that began in the early 60s.

Group leader Lucius Walker told Aljazeera.net on Saturday that this year's mission comes at a crucial time for some of the "most disadvantaged people in the world".

He also condemned US President George Bush's administration "provocations and aggressions against Cuba" and cited the new policies prepared by the US Presidential Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba.

He said these policies include plans to fly a C-130 military cargo plane constantly around Cuban waters, in order to beam in US government propaganda on TV/Radio Martí.

Other ideas include plans to spend millions of American tax payers' dollars on appropriations to fund an internal opposition movement in Cuba.

"Even Cuban-Americans would be allowed to visit Cuba only once every 3 years, only to visit their most immediate relatives, and only if they apply for a US Treasury license."

Walker believes a growing number of Americans want to reverse hostile US policies toward Cuba that date from Castro's 1959 revolution in the midst of the Cold War.

He pointed to Republican congressmen who voted on Wednesday to overturn a White House decision to bar people in the US from sending parcels with food, soap, and other personal hygiene products to Cuba.

The convoy was received by government official Caridad Diego. She expressed Havana's appreciation for the generosity of ordinary US citizens despite the White House's "spiteful determination" to do Cuba harm.

The president of the Cuban Institute for Friendship, Sergio Corrieri, added that the equipment and medical supplies would be put to good use and would benefit hundreds of people.

A group of American activists returned Monday without incident to US soil after deliberately defying new rules increasing travel restrictions to Cuba.

About 90 members of the Venceremos Brigade re-entered the country on foot in groups of 15, carrying banners and pulling suitcases behind them.

"Very smooth," was how Los Angeles social worker Georgina Peralka, 27, described her passage through a customs checkpoint after walking across the Peace Bridge from Canada into Buffalo.

While US citizens have been making such trips for the past 35 years, the latest travelers were the first to directly challenge new rules that further tightened restrictions.

Meanwhile, in Texas about 120 volunteers with Pastors for Peace crossed the US-Mexican border over the Hidalgo International Bridge without any incident or arrests.

The group brought busloads of medical and other equipment to Cuba, traveling through Mexico to avoid US travel restrictions.

Aid was shipped from the Mexican port of Tampico, and volunteers followed by plane. Border agents had warned the group that only three were authorized to travel on to Cuba. The rest were subject to prosecution.

Breaking the US travel rules can lead to fines of up to $7500. The US government typically notifies violators by letter after their trip.

Officials with the Bureau of Customs and Border Protection, a division of the US Department of Homeland Security, said both groups re-entered the country without incident.

"I feel very strongly that our policy toward Cuba is terrible, very unfair," said Billey Fink, 80, of Buffalo. "We ought to make friends and not be at each others' throats."

The new rules which took effect June 30^th, cut the amount of money Cuban émigrés can send home and curtailed visits to Cuba by cultural and academic groups as well as Cuban-Americans.

The Bush administration hopes the measures will close loopholes in the long-standing US embargo on Cuba and weaken the rule of President Fidel Castro.

Venceremos organizer Ann Sparanese said travelers with the group signed paperwork at the US-Canadian border acknowledging travel to Cuba, but did not provide details, such as how much money they spent, she said,. The group, whose name means 'We will be victorious,' brought busloads of medical and other equipment to Cuba, traveling through Mexico to avoid US travel restrictions.

Consistent with the tradition of the 1967 Russell Tribunal (BRussells Tribunal) on the Vietnam War and the work of the People's permanent tribunal and other similar tribunals such as the one held in Brussels in 1991, the BRussells Tribunal met on 14-17 April 2004. This Tribunal is the opening session of the World Tribunal on Iraq, a series of hearings scheduled to conclude in Istanbul in 2005.

The BRussells Tribunal focused on the programs and policies proposed by "The Project for the New American Century" (PNAC), a predominantly neo-conservative "think-tank" that has advocated global US hegemony, primarily through the threat or use of military power. The objective of the Tribunal, working as a commission of inquiry, was to establish whether there was a link between PNAC's proposal and the foreign and military strategy of the current US government, and the subsequent invasion and occupation of Iraq. The Commission also examine the impact of policies and programs advocated by (PNAC) on the stability and security of international relations.

To establish its findings and shape its report the Commission heard testimony from specialists on international affairs and witnesses knowledgeable about the current conditions in Iraq. The Commission also relied on PNAC's reports and official US government documents, as well as written analyses (*). The Commission came to the following conclusions:

To establish US hegemony in the new century, relying primarily on military and technological superiority; to prevent the emergence of any competing global or regional powers by imposing what is sometimes termed a "Pax American"; to exercise pre-emptive action against all perceived threats to American "interests" and security.

Second. A significant number of signatories to PNAC's 1997 founding Statement of Principles became senior members of the current US administration, including Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz. The adoption of those principles by this administration is evidenced by official White House documents such as "The National Security Strategy" of September 2002. These principles have been put into action through the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

Third. According to a clear majority of States and a large consensus of legal experts, the invasion of Iraq constitutes an act of aggression, a breach of one of the most fundamental norms of the international legal order. This demonstrates that the implementation of policies emanating from PNAC and endorsed by the current administration runs counter to the principles of the UN Charter and undermines the United Nations itself, which bears the primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security.

Fourth. The invasion of Iraq has resulted in more than ten thousand civilian deaths, With each passing day of occupation, the number of victims grows, as do the gross violations of humanitarian law and human rights, such as arbitrary detention, ill-treatment and deprivation in regard to basic needs. The situation of the Iraqi people has clearly deteriorated and the promises of democracy and freedom have proved to be illusory. The constant use of the words "democracy", "freedom" and "human rights" in such a context amounts to a complete perversion of those terms.

Fifth. Far from bringing stability and peace in Iraq and the region, the invasion and occupation have created instability and chaos. Moreover, the deliberate destruction of Iraq has effectively promoted the Israeli government's policies of further unlawful expansion and de facto annexation of territories as well as further annihilation of the rights of the Palestinian people. The Tribunal noted that PNAC itself called explicitly in 2002 for the US administration to align itself with the views of the Israeli government. These developments increase hostility between the peoples of the region and the West, contrary to the proclaimed objectives of making the world a safer place.

Sixth. There is evidence of a consistent US strategy, as envisioned by the PNAC report entitled "Rebuilding America's Defenses", to establish global domination by military means. Contrary to claims that this domination would be a "benevolent hegemony", it is more likely to lead to a state of permanent war. PNAC policies are based on brutal unilateralism and disregard for legality. As such, the ideas of PNAC constitute an intellectual crime. The war in Iraq is only one element of a global agenda which is linked with logics of the dominant economic system, inspired by neo-conservative ideology and supported by religions fundamentalism.

Seventh. Due to the growing resistance encountered by the occupying powers in Iraq and other unanticipated difficulties, the United States and United Kingdom have made cynical requests for involvement of the United Nations in Iraq, thereby pre-empting the sovereign rights of the Iraqi people to determine their future. The United Nations should avoid complicity with -- let along legitimize in any way -- the illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq. Any such action would further discredit this world body. The UN should restore its legitimacy through ensuring the complete withdrawal of all occupying forces and assisting the Iraqi people in recovering their full sovereignty. Any involvement of the European Union or of NATO to help the occupying powers should be refused.

Finally, the Tribunal calls upon the peoples of the world to demand that their governments deny military, political, financial or any other support to the occupying powers; and oppose the illegal implementation by occupation forces or their surrogates of any plans for the wholesale privatization of the Iraqi economy. The Tribunal also expresses its solidarity with the Iraqi people and its support for their attempts at recovering their full sovereignty.

The Norwegian government and individual politicians have reacted strongly to the alleged abuse of children in Iraqi prisons by American soldiers, as reported in a German TV documentary on Monday evening (070504)

The leader of the Parliamentary Foreign Policy Committee, Thorbjoern Jagland (Labour), calls for those politically responsible in the US to step down.

"It is completely atrocious and contravening international law, if this is true, and it is difficult to understand if this should not have the consequences that someone in the US take direct political responsibility and step down," Jagland says.

He says that the US credibility within the international community has been weakened by the revelations.

The Norwegian Government said earlier on Tuesday that they will bring up the matter with the US authorities at the earliest convenience.

"Such abuse is unacceptable. It is in violation of intentional law. We will take the matter up in a very sharp and direct way," said Undersecretary of State at the Prime Minister's Office, Odd J. Saeter, to public broadcaster NRK.

The Socialist Left Party (SV) has also reacted, and states that the alleged child abuse must have repercussions for the US authorities, but also for the relationship between the US and Norway.

"If this turns out to be true, it must have consequences for our relationship to a close ally in military operations. It will be very difficult to participate with an ally who is willing to carry out such a breach of International Law, says SV's Secretary General, Baard Vegar Solhjell.

Leader of the Agrarian Party, Aaslaug Haga, says the Government should react vis-avis the US immediately, and at the same time she proposes a discussion among NATO member countries to avoid that similar things should happen in Afghanistan.

Every self-respecting president has a doctrine attached to his name. The core principle of the Bush II doctrine is that the United States must "rid the world of evil," as the president said right after 9/11.

A special responsibility is to wage war against terrorism, with the corollary that any state that harbours terrorists is a terrorist state and should be treated accordingly.

Let's ask a fair and simple question: What would the consequences be if we were to take the Bush doctrine seriously, and treat states that harbour terrorists as terrorist states, subject to bombardment and invasion?

The United States has long been a sanctuary to a rogues' gallery of people whose actions qualify them as terrorists, and whose presence compromises and complicates US proclaimed principles.

Consider the Cuban Five, Cuban nationals convicted in Miami in 2001 as part of a spy ring.

To understand the case, which has prompted international protests, we have to look at the sordid history of US – Cuban relations (leaving aside here the issue of the crushing, decades-long US embargo).

The US has engaged in large and small scale terrorist attacks against Cuba since 1959, including the Bay of Pigs invasion and the bizarre plots to kill Castro. Direct US participation in the attacks ended during the late '70s – at least officially.

In 1989, the first president Bush granted a pardon to Orlando Bosch, one of the most notorious anti-Castro terrorists, accused of masterminding the bombing of a Cuban airliner in 1976. Bush overruled the Justice Department, which had refused an asylum request from Bosch, concluding: "The Security of this nation is affected by its ability to urge credible other nations to refuse aid and shelter to terrorists, whose target we too often become."

Recognizing that the US was going to harbour anti-Castro terrorists, Cuban agents infiltrated those networks. In 1998, high-level FBI officials were sent to Havana, where they were given thousand of pages of documentation and hundreds of hours of video tape about terrorist actions organized by cells in Florida.

The FBI reacted by arresting the people who provided the information, including a group now known as the Cuban Five.

The arrests were followed by what amounted to a show trial in Miami. The Five were sentenced, three to life sentences for espionage; (and the leader, Gerardo Hernandez, also for conspiracy to murder), convictions that are now being appealed.

Meanwhile, people regarded by the FBI and Justice Department as dangerous terrorists live happily in the US and continue to plot and implement crimes.

The list of terrorists-in-residence in the US also includes Emmanuel Constant from Haiti, known as Toto, a former paramilitary leader from the Duvalier era. Constant is the founder of the FRAPH (Front for Advancement of Progress in Haiti), the paramilitary group that carried out most of the state terror in the early 1990s under the military junta that overthrew president Jean Bertrand Aristide.

The United States has refused Haiti's request for extradition. The reason, it is generally assumed, is that Constant might reveal ties between Washington and the military junta that killed 4,000 to 5,000 Haitians, with Constant's paramilitary forces playing the leading role.

For the US , Cuba has long been the primary concern in the hemisphere. A declassified 1964 State Department document declares Fidel Castro to be an intolerable threat because he "represents a successful defiance of the US, a negation of our whole hemispheric policy of almost a century and half," since the Monroe Doctrine declared that no challenge to US dominance would be tolerated in the hemisphere.

Venezuela now presents a similar problem. A recent lead article in the Wall Street Journal says, "Fidel Castro has found a key benefactor and heir apparent to the cause of derailing the US's agenda in Latin America: Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez."

As it happens, last month, Venezuela asked the US to extradite two former military officers who are seeking asylum in the US. The two had taken part in a military coup supported by the Bush administration which backed down in the face of outrage throughout the hemisphere.

The Venezuelan government, remarkably, observed a ruling of the Venezuelan supreme court barring prosecution of the coup leaders. The two officers were later implicated in a terrorist bombing, and fled to Miami.

Outrage over defiance is deeply ingrained in US history. Thomas Jefferson bitterly condemned France for its "attitude of defiance" in holding New Orleans, which he coveted. Jefferson warned that Frances's "character (is) placed in a point of eternal friction with our character, which though loving peace and the pursuit of wealth, is high minded."

France's "defiance (requires us to) marry ourselves to the British fleet and nation," Jefferson advised, reversing his earlier attitudes, which reflected France's crucial contribution to the liberation of the colonies from British rule.

Thanks to Haiti's liberation struggle of 1804, unaided and almost universally opposed, Frances's defiance soon ended. But, then as now, the guiding principles of American outrage over defiance remain in place, determining friend and foe.

Cuban television tonight broadcast remarkable segments of a one-hour program on Miami TV Channel 41 in which known paramilitaries from the Florida based Comandos F4 organization openly spoke of their preparations for an armed attack against Cuba.

In moments of near-hysteria, the leader of Comandos F4, Rodolfo Frometa, said that his organization has people inside and outside Cuba ready to carry out armed acts against the Cuban government. Dressed in fatigues, as were the others of his organization present, in the studio, Frometa said that his group trained with AK47 semi-automatic weapons—arms, he said, that were legally obtained in the US although he admitted he had no paperwork to prove it.

The program was hosted by Oscar Asa, the nephew of former Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista. Batista was responsible for the murder of thousands of Cubans until he was forced out by revolutionary forces in 1959. Asa seemed to enjoy posing provocative questions relating to assassination in what critics on Cuba's nightly televised Round Table classed as openly violating US federal law.

It is illegal in the US to defend terrorist actions on TV. The promotion of the assassination of another nation's leader is also illegal under the US Neutrality Act. Nonetheless, commented round table participants, these men were able to openly sit in a studio dressed for war and happily discuss the different armaments they were using to train paramilitaries to attack Cuba, and get away with it. There couldn't be better proof of the US government's complicity with such would-be terrorists.

Adding weight to recent accusations of Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez, former Venezuelan army captain Eduardo Garcia was also present in full uniform to discuss the help Comandos F4 were giving in his efforts to bring down Chavez by force. Chavez has frequently charged that Miami Cuban-American terrorist organizations are involved with Venezuelans seeking to assassinate him.

The host of the Round Table program, Randy Alonso, simply asked viewers to form their own conclusions after seeing such an astonishing program, commenting that the message that Frometa gave was clear: his paramilitary organization was ready and trained—it just needed the money. And, said Alonso, the money is there--$36 recently earmarked by the US government to support such groups.