Fearing Fear Itself

By Paul Krugman

"In America's darkest hour, Franklin Delano Roosevelt urged the nation not to succumb to 'nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror.' But that was then.

"Today, many of the men who hope to be the next president — including all of the candidates with a significant chance of receiving the Republican nomination — have made unreasoning, unjustified terror the centerpiece of their campaigns.

"Consider, for a moment, the implications of the fact that Rudy Giuliani is taking foreign policy advice from Norman Podhoretz, who wants us to start bombing Iran 'as soon as it is logistically possible.'

"Mr. Podhoretz, the editor of Commentary and a founding neoconservative, tells us that Iran is the 'main center of the Islamofascist ideology against which we have been fighting since 9/11.' The Islamofascists, he tells us, are well on their way toward creating a world 'shaped by their will and tailored to their wishes.' Indeed, 'Already, some observers are warning that by the end of the 21st century the whole of Europe will be transformed into a place to which they give the name Eurabia.'

"Do I have to point out that none of this makes a bit of sense?

"For one thing, there isn't actually any such thing as Islamofascism — it's not an ideology; it's a figment of the neocon imagination. The term came into vogue only because it was a way for Iraq hawks to gloss over the awkward transition from pursuing Osama bin Laden, who attacked America, to Saddam Hussein, who didn't. And Iran had nothing whatsoever to do with 9/11 — in fact, the Iranian regime was quite helpful to the United States when it went after Al Qaeda and its Taliban allies in Afghanistan.

"Beyond that, the claim that Iran is on the path to global domination is beyond ludicrous. Yes, the Iranian regime is a nasty piece of work in many ways, and it would be a bad thing if that regime acquired nuclear weapons. But let's have some perspective, please: we're talking about a country with roughly the G.D.P. of Connecticut, and a government whose military budget is roughly the same as Sweden's.

"Meanwhile, the idea that bombing will bring the Iranian regime to its knees — and bombing is the only option, since we've run out of troops — is pure wishful thinking. Last year Israel tried to cripple Hezbollah with an air campaign, and ended up strengthening it instead. There's every reason to believe that an attack on Iran would produce the same result, with the added effects of endangering U.S. forces in Iraq and driving oil prices well into triple digits.

"Mr. Podhoretz, in short, is engaging in what my relatives call crazy talk. Yet he is being treated with respect by the front-runner for the G.O.P. nomination. And Mr. Podhoretz's rants are, if anything, saner than some of what we've been hearing from some of Mr. Giuliani's rivals.

"Thus, in a recent campaign ad Mitt Romney asserted that America is in a struggle with people who aim 'to unite the world under a single jihadist Caliphate. To do that they must collapse freedom-loving nations. Like us.' He doesn't say exactly who these jihadists are, but presumably he's referring to Al Qaeda — an organization that has certainly demonstrated its willingness and ability to kill innocent people, but has no chance of collapsing the United States, let alone taking over the world.

"And Mike Huckabee, whom reporters like to portray as a nice, reasonable guy, says that if Hillary Clinton is elected, 'I'm not sure we'll have the courage and the will and the resolve to fight the greatest threat this country's ever faced in Islamofascism.' Yep, a bunch of lightly armed terrorists and a fourth-rate military power — which aren't even allies — pose a greater danger than Hitler's panzers or the Soviet nuclear arsenal ever did.

"All of this would be funny if it weren't so serious ..."
New York Times

Categories: iran, usa, iraq, islam, war+on+terror, disinfo, disinformation

Ethanol: The great big green fraud

"A raft of new studies reveal European and American multibillion dollar support for biofuels is unsustainable, environmentally destructive and much more about subsidising agri-business corporations than combating global warming.

"Not only do most forms of biofuel production do little to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, growing biofuel crops uses up precious water resources, increasing the size and extent of dead zones in the oceans, boosting use of toxic pesticides and deforestation in tropical countries, such studies say.

"And biofuel, powered by billions of dollars in government subsidies, will drive food prices 20-40 percent higher between now and 2020, predicts the Washington-based International Food Policy Research Institute.

"'Fuel made from food is a dumb idea to put it succinctly,' says Ronald Steenblik, research director at the International Institute for Sustainable Development’s Global Subsidies Initiative (GSI) in Geneva, Switzerland ..."
Read on

Biofuels - At What Cost?

Google ethanol fraud and ethanol scam for more alternative views.

Categories: oil, energy, biofuel

Verizon Admits It Handed Over Records 94,000 Times to Gov't

USA: "Verizon Communications -- the nation's second largest telecom company -- has admitted it turned over the private telephone records of its customers to the government 94,000 times since 2005. Verizon made the admission in a letter to Congressional Democrats. The Washington Post reports that in about 700 of the cases, Verizon turned over records even when federal investigators did not have a court order. AT&T and Qwest also responded to inquires from Congress but declined to say how often they handed over customer records. All three companies refused to answer most questions about their involvement in the government's domestic surveillance program."
Democracy Now

'War on terror' has been a 'disaster': British think tank

LONDON (AFP) — The US-led "war on terror" has been a "disaster" and Washington and its allies must change their policy in Iraq and Afghanistan to defeat Al-Qaeda, an independent global security think tank said Monday.

The Oxford Research Group (ORG) said in a report that Western strategy since the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States had failed to extinguish the threat from Islamist extremism and even fuelled it.

"Every aspect of the war on terror has been counterproductive in Iraq and Afghanistan, from the loss of civilian life through mass detentions without trial. In short, it has been a disaster," report author Paul Rogers said.

"Western countries simply have to face up to the dangerous mistakes of the past six years and recognise the need for new policies."

Rogers, professor of peace studies at the University of Bradford, northern England, also warned that any military action against Iran over the Islamic republic's disputed nuclear programme would further aggravate the situation.

"Going to war with Iran will make matters far worse, playing directly into the hands of extreme elements and adding greatly to the violence across the region," he added ...

Chief among the report's criticisms is that the US-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003 was a "grievous mistake", which had created a combat training zone for extremist elements linked to or inspired by Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaeda ...

On Afghanistan, the ORG said ousting the hardline Taliban from power in late 2001 had been of "direct value" to Al-Qaeda and militia sympathetic to its violent Islamist ideology were now re-invigorated, it added.

In addition, mass detentions of suspected extremists, torture, prisoner abuse and the "extraordinary rendition" of suspects for questioning in third countries outside US legal jurisdiction was a useful propaganda weapon ...

Among the ORG's recommendations are the withdrawal of foreign forces from Iraq and an increase in diplomacy, including with Syria and Iran; greater civil aid to Afghanistan, a scaling down of military action and talks with militia.

"Extraordinary rendition", detention without trial and prisoner abuse should stop immediately; countries should commit to advancing the stalled Middle East peace process, because of its central role in anti-Western sentiment, it said.

More

Categories: war+on+terror, iraq, usa, bush, iran, war

On torture and American values

New York Times editorial, October 7, 2007

"Once upon a time, it was the United States that urged all nations to obey the letter and the spirit of international treaties and protect human rights and liberties. American leaders denounced secret prisons where people were held without charges, tortured and killed. And the people in much of the world, if not their governments, respected the United States for its values.

"The Bush administration has dishonored that history and squandered that respect. As an article on this newspaper’s front page last week laid out in disturbing detail, President Bush and his aides have not only condoned torture and abuse at secret prisons, but they have conducted a systematic campaign to mislead Congress, the American people and the world about those policies.

"After the attacks of 9/11, Mr. Bush authorized the creation of extralegal detention camps where Central Intelligence Agency operatives were told to extract information from prisoners who were captured and held in secret. Some of their methods — simulated drownings, extreme ranges of heat and cold, prolonged stress positions and isolation — had been classified as torture for decades by civilized nations. The administration clearly knew this; the C.I.A. modeled its techniques on the dungeons of Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the Soviet Union.

"The White House could never acknowledge that. So its lawyers concocted documents that redefined 'torture' to neatly exclude the things American jailers were doing and hid the papers from Congress and the American people. Under Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, Mr. Bush’s loyal enabler, the Justice Department even declared that those acts did not violate the lower standard of 'cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.'

"That allowed the White House to claim that it did not condone torture, and to stampede Congress into passing laws that shielded the interrogators who abused prisoners, and the men who ordered them to do it, from any kind of legal accountability.

"Mr. Bush and his aides were still clinging to their rationalizations at the end of last week. The president declared that Americans do not torture prisoners and that Congress had been fully briefed on his detention policies.

"Neither statement was true — at least in what the White House once scorned as the 'reality-based community' — and Senator John Rockefeller, chairman of the Intelligence Committee, was right to be furious. He demanded all of the 'opinions of the Justice Department analyzing the legality' of detention and interrogation policies. Lawmakers, who for too long have been bullied and intimidated by the White House, should rewrite the Detainee Treatment Act and the Military Commissions Act to conform with actual American laws and values.

"For the rest of the nation, there is an immediate question: Is this really who we are? ..."
NY Times

More Torture Memos :: Links

Bush’s torturers follow where the Nazis led

Secret US Endorsement of Severe Interrogations

Categories: usa, bush, cia, torture, war+on+terror, iraq

Aung San Suu Kyi is the last hope

By May Ng
September 29, 2007

"Since the day the monks went to Aung San Suu Kyi's residence and prayed the government began attacking and brutalizing the monks.

"In defiance of the international pleas, Myanmar military has done unspeakable deeds.

"Never in recorded history, including the period under British colonialism and Japanese fascism were the Burmese monasteries ransacked or the monks massacred in this manner. This is no doubt a religious sacrilege of immense proportion.

"The US Campaign for Burma, led by former political prisoner Ko Aung Din, has tirelessly worked hard in the US to raise awareness about Burma's democracy movement for many years.

"Finally, the latest tragedy in Burma has drawn the attention of major US grass root organizations such as moveon.com which is making a commitment to work with avaaz.org to mobilize the United Nations Security Council to help the monks and the Burmese people.

"But for the people in Burma, who are being targeted by the military, time is running out.

"It is a tragedy easily prevented if the UNSC is willing to use the authority entrusted by the people. But they have failed in January and there is very little hope that they will try to succeed now.

"A Singaporean worker said that he was shot at even though he was not at the protest site and luckily escaped. He said that he could not imagine what those brutes were doing to the protesters if they did it to him. The world also witnessed firsthand a veteran photo journalist Kenji Nagai being killed in a cold blooded manner. Mr. Nagai was a seasoned journalist who had been to many dangerous places in the world but it seems that the level of risk in Burma had broken all records.

"With their final savage act the military has lost any remaining trust of the people.

"No one can help Burma now from descent except, Aung San Suu Kyi, Min Ko Naing and the various ethnic and religious leaders.

"The United Nations has done precious little except to give the junta free publicity during previous UN visits ..."
Source

Free Burma online resources

Categories: action, activism, liberty, human+rights, civil+rights, burma