coldtype reader 10 2007

TheREADERColdType

W R I T I N G W O R T H R E A D I N G � I S S U E 1 0 � J A N U A R Y 2 0 0 7

LEBAN0N, JULY 2006

INSIDE: HOW TO FIX A WAR GAME � DEMOCRACYTAKES A BEATING � WHAT’S FOR DINNER? PETFOOD � THE US GETS A NEWMONSTER � &MORE

CHAOS IN PALESTINE:

BY CHRIS HEDGES

THE ANATOMY OFA MASSACRE

THE SHAMEOF LEBANON:

BY ROBERT FISK

WORSE THANAPARTHEID

2 TheREADER | January 2007

TheREADERColdType

3. THE ANATOMY OF A MASSACREBy Robert Fisk

10. WORSE THAN APARTHEIDBy Chris Hedges

13. HOW TO FIX A WAR GAMEBy Tom Engelhardt

16. WITHDRAWAL? IN YOUR DREAMSBy Michael Schwartz

22. TAKE THIS WAR AND SHOVE ITBy Ron Jacobs

25. THE END OF CHILE’S BUTCHERBy Tony Karon

29. PINOCHET’S BLOODBATHBy David Edwards

39. THE US GETS A NEW MONSTERBy William Blum

46. WHAT’S FOR DINNER? PET FOODBy Jimmy Moyana

48. END TIME FOR THE CHRISTIAN COALITIONBy Bill Berkowitz

52. DEMOCRACY TAKES A BEATINGBy Danny Schechter

Editor:Tony [email protected]

ISSUE 10 | JANUARY 2007

For a free subscription to ColdType and the ColdType Reader,send an email to Julia Sutton at [email protected] type “SUBSCRIBE” in the subject line

In antiquity, Pliny wrote of the cliffsof Bayada.The chalk runs down tothe Mediterranean in an almostDover-like cascade of white rock,

and the view from the top – just belowthe little Lebanese village of Chama’a –is breathtaking. To the south lies theUnited Nations headquarters and theIsraeli frontier, to the north the city ofTyre, its long promentary, built byAlexander the Great, lunging out intothe green-blue sea. A winding, poorly-made road runs down to the shorebelow Chama’a and for some reason –perhaps because he had caught sightof the Israeli warship off the coast – 58-year-old Ali Kemal Abdullah took aright turn above the Mediterranean onthe morning of 15 July. In the open-topped pick-up behind him, Ali hadpacked 27 Lebanese refugees, most ofthem children. Twenty-three of themwere to die within the next 15 minutes.The tragedy of these poor young

people and of their desperate attemptsto survive their repeatedmachine-gun-ning from the air is as well-known inLebanon as it is already forgotten

abroad. War crimes are easy to talkabout when they have been committedin Rwanda or Bosnia; less so inLebanon, especially when the Israelisare involved. But all the evidence sug-gests that what happened on this bliss-fully lovely coastline two and a halfmonths ago was a crime against hu-manity, one that is impossible to justifyon any military grounds since the deadandwoundedwere fleeing their homeson the express orders of the Israelisthemselves.Mohamed Abdullah understands

the reality of that terrible morning be-cause his 52-year-old wife Zahra, hissons Hadi, aged six, and 15-year-oldWissam, and his daughters, Marwa,aged 10,and 13-year oldMyrna,were inthe pick-up. Zahra was to die. So wasHadi and the beautiful little girl Myrnawhose photograph – with immenselyintelligent, appealing eyes – nowhaunts the streets of Marwahin. Wis-sam, a vein in his leg cut open by an Is-raeli missile as he vainly tried to saveMyrna’s life, sits next to his father as hetalks to me outside their Beirut house,

War crimesare easyto talk aboutwhen they havebeen committedin Rwandaor Bosnia;less so inLebanon,especiallywhen theIsraelisare involved

January 2007 | TheREADER 3

SHAME OF LEBANON

THE ANATOMYOF AMASSACREBYROBERT FISK


Just downthe hill fromMarwahin,on Israeliterritory,stands a tallradiotransmissiontower andon the morningof 15 July, theIsraelis usedloudspeakerson the towerto order thevillagers to fleetheir homes

its walls drenched in black cloth.“From the day of the attack until

now, lots of delegations have come tosee us,” Mohamed says. “They all talkand it is all for nothing.My problem iswith a huge nation. Can the interna-tional community get me my rights? Iam a weak person, unprotected. I am a53-year-old man and I’ve been workingas a soldier for 29 years, day and night,to be productive and to support a fam-ily that can serve society and that canbe a force for good in this country. I wasable to build a home in my village formy wife and children – with no helpfrom anyone – and I did this in 2000, 23years after I was driven out of Mar-wahin and I finished our new homethis year.” And here Mohamed Abdul-lah stops speaking and cries.

MARWAHIN is one of a string of villagesopposite the Israeli border and, unlikemany others further north, is inhabitedby SunniMuslim Lebanese, followers ofthe assassinated former prime ministerRafiq Hariri rather than the Shiite-dominated Hizbollah militia, which issupported and supplied by Syria andIran. Most Sunnis blame Syria forHariri’s murder on 14 February lastyear.While no friends of Israel, the Sunni

community in Lebanon – especially thefew thousand Sunnis of Marwahinwho are so close to the frontier thatthey can see the red roofs of the near-est Jewish settlement – are no threat toIsrael. For generations, they have inter-married – which is why most of thepeople in this tragedy hold the familyname of al-Abdullah or Ghanem – and,

had their parents been born a few hun-dred metres further south, they would– like the Sunni Muslim Palestinianswho lived there until 1948 – have fledto the refugee camps of Lebanon whenIsrael was created.Mohamed recalls with immense

tiredness how his wife took his childrensouth from Beirut to their family homein Marwahin on 9 July this year. Thedate is important because just threedays later, Hizbollah members wouldcross the Israeli border, capture two Is-raeli soldiers and kill three others – fivemore were to die in a minefield laterthe same day – and Israel would re-spond with 34 days of air-strikes andbombardments that killed more than1,000 Lebanese civilians.Hizbollahmis-siles would kill fewer than 200 Israelis,most of them soldiers.Just down the hill from Marwahin,

on Israeli territory, stands a tall radiotransmission tower and on the morn-ing of 15 July, the Israelis used loud-speakers on the tower to order thevillagers to flee their homes. Survivorsdescribe how they visited two nearbyUN posts to appeal for protection, onemanned by fourmembers of the UnitedNations Truce Supervisory Organisa-tion – set up after the 1948 war with Is-rael – and the other by Ghanaiansoldiers of the United Nations InterimForce in Lebanon, the same armywhich, much expanded with French,Italian, Turkish and Chinese troops, isnow supposed to police the latestceasefire in southern Lebanon.Both theUNTSO men and the Ghanaians readthe rule-book at the villagers of Mar-wahin. Ever since the Israelis attacked

SHAME OF LEBANON


“She said theIsraelis werebombing in thefields aroundthe villagebut not in thevillage itself.She had no carand anywayit was toodangerousto travel onthe roads”

the UNIFIL barracks at Qana in 1996,slaughtering 106 Lebanese refugees –again,most of them children – the UNhas been under orders not to allowcivilians into their bases. The UN, itseems, can talk mightily of the need toprotect the innocent, but will do pre-cious little to shield them in southernLebanon.Mohamed’s four children had trav-

elled south with their mother to buyfurniture for their newly-built home;their father and his six other childrenin Beirut were to join them the follow-ing week.“When the Israeli soldiers were

taken, the airport closed down and allthe roads became dangerous,” Mo-hamed says. “But the mobile phonesstill worked and I had constant conver-sations with my wife. I asked her whatwas happening in the village. She saidthe Israelis were bombing in the fieldsaround the village but not in the villageitself. She had no car and anyway itwas too dangerous to travel on theroads. On 13 and 14 July, we spoke sixor seven times. She was asking aboutthose of our children who were withme. You see, she had heard that Beiruthad been bombed so we were worriedabout each other.”

MOHAMED’S calvary began when heturned to the Arabia television stationon the morning of the 15th. “I heardthat the people of Marwahin had beenordered by the Israelis to leave theirhomes within two hours. I tried to callmy wife and children but I couldn’t getthrough.Then after half an hour,Zahracalled me to say she was in the neigh-

bouring village of Um Mtut and thatpeople had gone to the UN to seek helpand been turned away.”Mohamed insists – though other vil-

lagers do not agree with this – thatwhile the UNwere turning the civiliansaway, a van drove into Marwahin con-tainingmissiles.The driver was amem-ber of Hizbollah, he says, and itsregistration number was 171364 (Leban-ese registrations have no letters). If thisis true, it clearly created a “crisis” – touse Mohamed al-Abdullah’s word – inthe village.Certainly,once the ceasefirecame into place 32 days later, there wasa damaged van beside the equallydamaged village mosque with amissilestanding next to it. Human rights in-vestigators are unclear of the date ofthe van’s arrival but seem certain that itwas attacked by the Israelis – probablyby an air-fired rocket – after Marwahinwas evacuated.In her last conversation with her

husband, Zahra told Mohamed thatthe four children were having breakfastin a neighbour’s house in Um Mtut. “Itold her to stay with these people,”Mohamed recalls. “I said that if all thecivilians were together, they would beprotected. My brother-in-law, AliKemal al-Abdullah, had a small pick-up and they could travel in this.” Firstto leave Marwahin was a car driven byAhmed Kassem who took his childrenwith him and promised to telephonefrom Tyre if he reached the city safely.He called a couple of hours later to saythe road was OK and that he hadreached Tyre. “That’s when Ali put hischildren and my children and his owngrandchildren in the pick-up. There

SHAME OF LEBANON


Two small girls–Fatmi andZainab Ghanem–were blastedinto such smallbody parts thatthey were buriedtogetherin the samegrave after thewar was over

were 27 people, almost 20 of them chil-dren.”Ali Kemal drove north from Mar-

wahin, away from the Israeli border,then west towards the sea. He musthave seen the Israeli warship and theIsraeli naval crew certainly saw Ali’spick-up. The Israelis had been firing atall vehicles on the roads of southernLebanon for three days – they hitdozens of civilian cars as well as ambu-lances and never once explained theiractions except to claim that they wereshooting at “terrorists”. At a corner ofthe road, where it descends to the sea,Ali Kemal suddenly realised his vehiclewas overheating and he pulled to ahalt. This was a dangerous place tobreak down. For seven minutes, hetried to restart the pick-up.

ACCORDING to Mohamed’s son Wis-sam, Ali – whose elderly motherSabaha was sitting beside him in thefront – turned to the children with thewords: “Get out, all you children getout and the Israelis will realise we arecivilians.” The first two or three chil-dren had managed to climb out theback when the Israeli warship fired ashell that exploded in the cab of thepick-up, killing Ali and Sabaha in-stantly. “I had almost been able tojump from the vehicle – my motherhad toldme to jump before the ship hitus,” Wissam says. “But the pressure ofthe explosion blew me out when I hadonly one leg over the railing and I waswounded. There was blood every-where.”Within a few seconds,Wissam says,

an Israeli Apache helicopter arrived

over the vehicle, very low and hoveringjust above the children. “I saw Myrnastill in the pick-up and she was cryingand pleading for help. I went to get herand that’s when the helicopter hit us.Its missile hit the back of the vehiclewhere all the children were and Icouldn’t hear anything because theblast had damaged my ears. Then thehelicopter fired a rocket into the car be-hind the pick-up. But the pilot musthave seenwhat he was doing.He couldsee we were mostly children. The pick-up didn’t have a roof. All the childrenwere crammed in the back and clearlyvisible.”Wissam talks slowly but without

tears as he describes what happenednext. “I lost sight ofMyrna. I just could-n’t see her any more for the dust flyingaround.Then the helicopter came backand started firing its guns at the chil-dren, at any of them who moved. I ranaway behind a tel [a small hill] and laythere and pretended to be dead be-cause I knew the pilot would kill me ifI moved. Some of the children were inbits.”Wissam is correct about the mutila-

tions. Hadi was burned to death inZahra’s arms. She died clutching hisbody to her.Two small girls – Fatmi andZainab Ghanem – were blasted intosuch small body parts that they wereburied together in the same grave afterthe war was over. Other children laywounded by the initial shell burst androcket explosions as the helicopter at-tacked them again. Only four survived,Wissam and his sister Marwa amongthem, hearing the sound of bullets asthey “played dead” amid the corpses.

SHAME OF LEBANON


“There wassomethingwrong.So I went tothe hospitalon my ownand I found mywife andchildren in thefridge.It was ahorrible shock.To this day,I feel like I amdreaming.And I cannotbelieve whathappened”

His father Mohamed heard on theradio that a pick-up had been attackedby the Israelis at Bayada,perhaps 10kmfrom Marwahin. “When I heard thatthe driver was Ali Kemal al-Abdullah, Iknew – I knew – that my children wereon that truck,” he says, “because mybrother-in-law would not have leftthem behind. He would have takenthem with him. I had another brotherin Tyre and I called him.He had heardthe same news and was waiting at thehospital. He said it was too dangerousto travel from Beirut to Tyre. He saidthat my family were only wounded. Isaid that if they were only wounded, Iwanted to speak to them. I spoke toMarwa. She said Wissam was in theoperating theatre. I asked to speak tothe others. My brother just said:‘Later.’“No one who has travelled the roads

of southern Lebanon under Israeli airattack can underestimate the dangers.But Mohamed and his nephew Khalildecided to make the run to Tyre in theafternoon. “We just drove fast, all theway,” Mohamed remembers. “I got tothe Hiram hospital and I found Ali,mybrother, waiting for me. I saw Marwaand I asked about her mother andHadi and Myrna and she said: ‘I sawthem in the pick-up, sleeping. Whenthe ship hit us, I was blown out of thevehicle.Afterwards, I sawMummy andmy brother sleeping.’“ Marwa toldMo-hamed that she had run from the pick-up with her 19-year-old cousin Zeinab.When Mohamed drove to the city

hospital in Tyre in search of Zahra,Hadi andMyrna,his brother refused totravel with him. “At this point, I knew

there was something wrong. So I wentto the hospital on my own and I foundmy wife and children in the fridge. Itwas a horrible shock. To this day, I feellike I am dreaming. And I cannot be-lieve what happened. No one came toask me about Marwa or Wissam wholost a vein in his leg. It seems no oneknows that this house has martyrs.”

BEFORE the ceasefire in southernLebanon, Mohamed was called to saythat the medical authorities in Tyrewished to bury the dead of Marwahintemporarily in a mass grave. He at-tended their burial and returned to hismuch-battered village on 15 August –just over a month after his wife andtwo children were killed and in time fortheir final interment on 24 August. Hefound his house partially destroyed inthe Israeli bombardment along withthe van and its Hizbollah rockets.“Every day is worse than the one be-fore for me,” Mohamed says.And he blames the world. The UN

for giving no protection to his family,Hizbollah’s “vanity” in starting a warwith a more powerful enemy and theIsraelis for destroying the life of hisfamily. “Is Israel in a state of war withchildren? We need an answer, a re-sponse to this question. We ask for atrial for this Israeli pilot who killed thechildren. He is a war criminal becausehe killed innocents for no reason. Andwhat has happened? The south hasbeen destroyed. The people were mas-sacred. The Israelis were back on thesoil of my land. I could see them whenwe buried Zahra and Hadi andMyrna.How can I lose my children and then

SHAME OF LEBANON


“If all thesechildren wereIsraeli and theHizbollah hadkilled them allwith a helicopter– the USpresident wouldtravel to thecemeteryeach year fora memorialservice andthere wouldbe war crimestrials and theworld woulddenouncethis crime”

see the Israelis here?We are ignored bythe government and treated with neg-lect by the media and the political par-ties – including the Hizbollah – whowere the cause of what happened.”Almost all the “martyr” pictures of

the dead of Marwahin contain aghostly photograph of Rafiq Hariri, themightest Sunni Muslim of them all,who was assassinated last year. Themartyrs of Marwahin have becomeidentified with a man who soughtpeace rather than war with Israel. Butat the graveyard on the edge of the to-bacco-growing village, there is no endto mourning. I found two old womensitting beside the graves, weeping andbeating themselves and pulling at theirhair.One of themwas Ali Kemal’s wife.Adel Abdullah took me round the

graves.His sister-in-lawMariam lies inone of them, her body still containingthe unborn child she was carryingwhen she died.So are her five children,Ali, 14,Hamad, 12,Hussein, 10,Hassan,eight, and two-year-old Lama.“This is Myrna,” Adel says, patting

his hand gently on the concrete surfaceof the little girl’s still unadorned grave.“This is Zahra, her mother, whom weput just behind her. And here is Hadi.”The villagers have written their firstnames in Arabic in the concrete. “Thereis Naame Ghanem and her two chil-dren. And this is the grave of bothFatmi and Zeinab because we couldnot tell which bits of them belonged to-gether. That is why the 23 dead ofMar-wahin have only 22 graves.”On the dirt road to the cemetery on

the windy little hill above the village,there still lies a face mask worn by the

young men carrying the decomposingbodies to their final grave. And just tothe left of the dead,clearly visible to theIsraeli settlers in their homes across theborder, the villagers have left the re-mains of Ali Kemal Abdullah’s Dai-hatsu pick-up. It is punctured by ahundred shrapnel holes, bent and dis-torted and burned.The children in thisvehicle had no chance, killed outrightor smashed to pieces as they laywounded afterwards.“If it is right that these people should

bemartyred in this way,well fine,” Adelsays to me. “If not, why did this crimetake place? Why can’t a country – asingle country, your country – say thatIsrael was responsible for a war crime?But no, you are silent.” A woman,watching Adel’s anger, was more elo-quent. “The problem,” she said, “is thatthese poor people belonged to a coun-try called Lebanon and our lives areworth nothing to anyone else. If thishad happened in Israel – if all thesechildren were Israeli and the Hizbollahhad killed them all with a helicopter –the US president would travel to thecemetery each year for a memorialservice and there would be war crimestrials and the world would denouncethis crime. But no president is going tocome to Marwahin. There will be notrials.”

MOHAMEDAL-ABDULLAHweeps besidehis wounded son in Beirut. “I considerthis to have been a useless war andwith these atrocious massacres it is in-nocent civilians who paid the price.Those who died are resting but wewhoare living are paying a price every day.

SHAME OF LEBANON


“On some days,Israeli warplanes hitdozens ofcivilian cars,showinga clear patternof failing todistinguishbetweencivilian andmilitary objects”

That price is paid by the living who suf-fer. Why should I pay the price ofsomething I didn’t choose? I will sayjust one thing to you. God have mercyon Rafiq Hariri, a man of education andreconstruction. In God’s name, I hopehis children walk in his path. My wifeloved Sheikh Rafiq so much. In thishouse, my wife’s whole life changedafter his assassination. Before, Zahrawas not interested in politics but fromthe day his car was bombed, she lis-tened to the news every day. Beforebed, she wanted to hear any news.Andshe said to me once, ‘I hope I don’t die,so I will knowwho killed Rafiq Hariri’.”A UN investigation is still underway

into Hariri’s murder. An Israeli investi-gation is to start into the disastrousperformance of its army during the war.The Hizbollah still claims it won a “di-vine victory” in July and August lastyear. UNIFIL, which turned the refu-gees of Marwahin away on 15 July,stated that when they were removingthe children’s bodies, their soldierscame under fire.Human Rights Watch is still investi-

gating the killings of civilians at Mar-wahin and other locations andwrote ofthem before thewar ended.“The Israelimilitary,” it said in its initial report, “didnot follow its orders [to civilians] to

evacuate with the creation of safe pas-sage routes, and on a daily basis Israeliwarplanes and helicopters struck civil-ians in cars who were trying to flee,many with white flags out the win-dows, a widely accepted sign of civilianstatus ... On some days, Israeli warplanes hit dozens of civilian cars, show-ing a clear pattern of failing to distin-guish between civilian and militaryobjects.”International lawmakes it clear that

it is forbidden in any circumstances tocarry out direct attacks against civiliansand that to do so is a war crime.Human Rights Watch states that “warcrimes” include “making the civilianpopulation or individual civilians nottaking direct part in hostilities the ob-ject of attack”.Lama Abdullah was the youngest

victim of the Marwahin 23. Ali Kemal’swife Sabaha was in her eighties. Atleast six of the children were betweenthe ages of one and 10. The Israeli heli-copter pilot’s name is, of course, un-known. CT

Robert Fisk is the award-winning Mid-dle east correspondent for London news-paper, The Independent. His latest bookThe Great War For Civilsation, is nowavailable in paperback

SHAME OF LEBANON

MORE GREAT READING FROM COLDTYPEVisit the ColdType Archives for books,

essays and photojournalismwww.coldtype.net/archives.html

http://www.coldtype.net/archives.html

GAZA:WORSETHAN APARTHEIDBYCHRIS HEDGES


It is a sadcommentaryon thegutlessnessof the U.S.press and thetimidity of theDemocraticopposition thatmost Americansare not awareof thecatastrophichumanitariancrisis theybear so muchresponsibilityin creating

Israel has spent the last five monthsunleashingmissiles, attack helicop-ters and jet fighters over thedensely packed concrete hovels in

the Gaza Strip. The Israeli army hasmade numerous deadly incursions,andsome 500 people, nearly all civilians,have been killed and 1,600 morewounded. Israel has rounded up hun-dreds of Palestinians, destroyed Gaza’sinfrastructure, including its electricalpower system and key roads andbridges, carried out huge land confisca-tions, demolished homes and plungedfamilies into a crisis that has causedwidespread poverty and malnutrition.Civil society itself – and this appears

to be part of the Israeli plan – is unrav-eling. Hamas and Fatah factions battlein the streets, despite a tenuous cease-fire, threatening civil war.And the gov-erning Palestinian movement, Hamas,has said it will boycott early electionscalled by Palestinian Authority Presi-dent Mahmoud Abbas, done with theblessing of the West in a bid to tossHamas out of power. (Remember thatHamas, despite its repugnant politics,

was democratically elected.) In recentdays armed groups loyal to Abbas haveseized Hamas-run ministries in whatlooks like a coup.The stark reality of Gaza, however,

has failed to penetrate the conscious-ness of most Americans, who, whenthey notice the Israeli and Palestinianconflict, prefer to debate the merits ofthe word “apartheid” in former Presi-dent Jimmy Carter’s new book, “Pales-tine: Peace Not Apartheid.”It is a sad commentary on the gut-

lessness of the U.S.press and the timid-ity of the Democratic opposition thatmost Americans are not aware of thecatastrophic humanitarian crisis theybear somuch responsibility in creating.Palestinians are not only dying, theirolive trees uprooted, their farmlandand homes destroyed and theiraquifers taken away from them,but onmany days they can’t move because ofIsraeli “closures” that make basic tasks,like buying food and going to the hos-pital, nearly impossible. These Pales-tinians, after decades of repression,cannot return to land from which they

CHAOS IN PALESTINE


These Israeliattacks, despitethe rage andviolence theybreed againstIsraelis andagainst us,also createconditionsso intolerablethat Palestinianscan no longerreside ontheir land

were expelled. The 140-plus U.N. votesto censure Israel and two SecurityCouncil resolutions – both vetoed bythe United States – are blithly ignored.Is it any wonder that the Palestinians,gasping for air, rebel as the walls closein around them, as their children gohungry and as the Israelis turn up theviolence?Palestinians in Gaza live encased in

a squalid, overcrowded ghetto, sur-rounded by the Israeli military and amassive electric fence, unable to leaveor enter the strip and under daily as-sault. The word “apartheid,” given thewanton violence employed against thePalestinians, is tepid.This is more thanapartheid.

THE concerted Israeli attempts to or-chestrate a breakdown in law andorder, to foster chaos and rampant dep-rivation, are on public display in thestreets of Gaza City,where Palestinianswalk past the rubble of the PalestinianMinistry of Interior, theMinistry of For-eign Affairs and the Ministry of Na-tional Economy, the office of thePalestinian prime minister and a num-ber of educational institutions thathave been bombed by Israeli jets. Theelectricity generation plant, providing45 percent of the electricity of the GazaStrip,has beenwiped out,and even theprimitive electricity networks andtransmitters that remain have been re-peatedly bombed. Six bridges linkingGaza City with the central Gaza Striphave been blown up and main arteriescratered into obliteration. And theWest Bank is rapidly descending into acrisis of Gaza proportions. The juxta-

position of what is happening in Gazaand what is being debated on the U.S.airwaves about a book that is littlemore than a basic primer on the con-flict reinforces the impression mostoutside our gates have of Americansliving in a distorted, bizarre reality ofour own creation.What do Israel and Washington be-

lieve they will gain by turning Gazaand the West Bank into a miniatureversion of Iraq? How do they thinkpeople who are desperate, deprived ofhope, dignity and a way to make a liv-ing, under attack from one of the mosttechnologically advanced armies on theplanet, will respond? Do they believethat creating a Hobbesian nightmarefor the Palestinians will blunt terrorism,curb suicide attacks and foster peace?Do they not see that the rest of theMiddle East watches the slaughter inhorror and rage – its angry, disenfran-chised young men and women deter-mined to overcome feelings ofimpotence and humiliation,even at thecost of their own lives?And perhaps they do see and under-

stand all this. Israel and Washingtonprobably do get the recruiting value ofthis repression for Islamicmilitants.Butthese Israeli attacks, despite the rageand violence they breed against Israelisand against us, also create conditionsso intolerable that Palestinians can nolonger reside on their land. More than160,000 civil servants have not receivedfull salaries for almost nine months.These government employees supportfamilies that number more than a mil-lion Palestinians.And aUnitedNationsreport states that more than two-thirds

CHAOS IN PALESTINE


The questionis not whetherIsrael practicesapartheid.Apartheidis a fond dreamfor mostPalestinians.The awfulquestion israther willIsrael be ableto unleash apolicy sodraconian andcruel that it willobliterate acommunitythat has livedon this land forcenturies

of Palestinians are now living below thepoverty line.The unemployment rate ismore than 50 percent. The PalestinianForeign Ministry says 10,000 Palestini-ans have emigrated in the last fourmonths and almost 50,000 others haveapplied to leave.Israel,with no restraints fromWash-

ington, despite the Iraq Study Groupreport recommendations that thepeace process be resurrected, has beengiven themoral license by the Bush ad-ministration to carry out what is eu-phemistically in Israel called “transfer”and what in other parts of the world iscalled ethnic cleansing. Faced with ademographic time bomb,knowing thatby 2020 Jewswill make up only 40 to 46percent of the overall population of Is-rael, the architects of transfer, whoonce held the equivalent status in Is-raeli society of the Ku Klux Klan, havewormed their way into positions ofpower in the Israeli government.Washington and Israel, I suspect,

know the cost of this repression. But itis beginning to appear as though theyaccept it – as the price for riddingthemselves of the Palestinians.

ISRAELI Prime Minister Ehud Olmerthas installed in his Cabinet a politicianwho openly calls for the expulsion ofthe some 1.3 million Israeli Arabs wholive inside Israel. Avigdor Lieberman’s“Israel Is Our Home” Party, part ofOlmert’s governing coalition, proposesinvoluntary transfer in a region popu-lated mostly by Arab citizens of Israel,shifting those people to a future Pales-tinian state that would include Gaza,parts of theWest Bank and a small slice

of northern Israel.All Israeli Arabs whocontinued to reside in the territory oftransfer would automatically lose theirIsraeli citizenship unless they took aloyalty oath to the state and its Jewishsymbols. The inclusion of Lieberman,the David Duke of Israel, into the Cab-inet is an indication to most Palestini-ans that the worst is yet to come.The debate over Jimmy Carter’s

book, one that dishes up a fair numberof Israeli myths about itself and statesa reality that is acknowledged even bymost Israelis, misses the point. Thequestion is not whether Israel practicesapartheid. Apartheid is a fond dreamfor most Palestinians. The awful ques-tion is rather will Israel be able to un-leash a policy so draconian and cruelthat it will obliterate a community thathas lived on this land for centuries.There are other, far more loaded wordsfor what is happening to the Palestini-ans. One shudders to repeat them.Butunchecked, unstopped, the currentwave of violence and abuse meted outto the Palestinians will echo down thecorridors of history as one of the great-est moral and tactical blunders of theearly part of this century, one that willboomerang on Israel and on us, bring-ing to our own doorsteps the evil wehave allowed to be delivered to thenarrow alleys and refugee camps inGaza.When it was only apartheid, wehad some hope. CT

Chris Hedges, the former Middle EastBureau chief for The New York Times,is a senior fellow at The NationInstitute. This article originallyappeared at www.truthdig.com

CHAOS IN PALESTINE

HOWTO FIXAWARGAMEBYTOM ENGELHARDT


“Many enemiesare not frightenedby thatoverwhelmingforce. They puttheir mindsto the problemand thinkthrough:how can I adaptand avoid thatoverwhelmingforce andyet do damageagainst theUnited States?”

This is an old tale. Long forgot-ten. But like all good politicalbedtime stories, it’s well worthtelling again.

Once upon a time, therewas a retiredgeneral named Paul Van Riper. In 1966,as a youngMarine officer and Americanadvisor in Vietnam,he was wounded inaction; he later became the first presi-dent of theMarine Corps University, re-tired from the Corps as a LieutenantGeneral, and then took up the task ofleading the enemy side in Pentagonwargames.Over the years,Van Riper had devel-

oped into a free-wheeling military thin-ker, given to quoting Von Clausewitzand Sun-tzu, and dubious about theability of the latest technology to con-quer all in its path. If you wanted towage war, he thought, it might at leastbe reasonable to study war seriously (ifnot go to war yourself) rather than justfall in love with military power. Itseemed to him that you took a risk anytime you dismissed your enemy aswith-out resources (or a prayer) against yourawesome power and imagined your

campaign to come as a sure-fire “cake-walk.” As he pointed out, “Many ene-mies are not frightened by thatoverwhelming force. They put theirminds to the problem and thinkthrough:how can I adapt and avoid thatoverwhelming force and yet do damageagainst the United States?”As a result, Van Riper took the task

of simulated enemy commander quiteseriously.He also had a few issues withSecretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’smuch vaunted “military transforma-tion,” his desire to create a sleek, high-tech, agile military that would driveeverything before it. He thought theRumsfeld program added up to just somany “shallow,” “fundamentally flaw-ed” slogans. (“There’s very little intellec-tual content to what they say…‘Information dominance,’ ‘network-cen-tric warfare,’ ‘focused logistics’ – youcould fill a book with all of these slo-gans.”)In July 2002,he got the chance to test

that proposition. At the cost of a quar-ter-billion dollars, the Pentagon laun-ched the most elaborate war games in

RULES? WHAT RULES?


After threeor four days,with the BlueTeam in obviousdisarray, thegame was haltedand the rulesrescripted.In a quietprotest,Van Riperstepped downas enemycommander

its history, immodestly entitled “Millen-nium Challenge 02.” These involved allfour services in “17 simulation locationsand nine live-force training sites.” Offi-cially awar against a fictional country inthe Persian Gulf region – but obviouslyIraq – it was specifically scripted toprove the efficacy of the Rumsfeld-styleinvasion that the Bush administrationhad already decided to launch.Lt. Gen. Van Riper commanded the

“Red Team” – the Iraqis of this simula-tion – against the “Blue Team,” U.S.forces; and, unfortunately for Rumsfeld,he promptly stepped out of the script.Knowing that sometimes the only effec-tive response to high-tech warfare wasthe lowest tech warfare imaginable, heemployed some of the very techniquesthe Iraqi insurgency would begin to useall-too-successfully a year or two later.Such simple devices as, according to

the Army Times, using “motorcyclemessengers to transmit orders,negatingBlue’s high-tech eavesdropping capabil-ities,” and “issuing attack orders via themorning call to prayer broadcast fromthe minarets of his country’s mosques.”In the process, Van Riper trumped thetechies.“At one point in the game,” as Fred

Kaplan of Slate wrote in March 2003,“when Blue’s fleet entered the PersianGulf,he sank some of the shipswith sui-cide-bombers in speed boats. (At thatpoint, the managers stopped the game,‘refloated’ the Blue fleet, and resumedplay.)“ After three or four days,with theBlue Team in obvious disarray, the gamewas halted and the rules rescripted. In aquiet protest, Van Riper stepped downas enemy commander.

Millennium Challenge 02 was subse-quently written up as a vindication ofRumsfeld’s “military transformation.”On that basis – with no one payingmoremind to VanRiper (who,this April,called openly for Rumsfeld’s resignation)than to ArmyChief of Staff Eric Shinsekiwhen, in February 2003, he pointed outthat hundreds of thousands of troopswould be needed to occupy Iraq, the“transformational” invasion was laun-ched – with all the predictably cata-strophic results now so widely known.The Millennium Challenge 02 war

games were already underway when,late that July,Sir RichardDearlove,headof MI6 (the British equivalent of theCIA), returned to London from high-level meetings in Washington to reportto PrimeMinister Tony Blair and his topofficials. In a secret meeting, he toldthem that the decision for war in Iraqhad already beenmade by the Bush ad-ministration and that now, in a memo-rable phrase, “the intelligence and factswere being fixed around the policy.”On May 1st, 2005, notes from this

meeting, dubbed “the Downing StreetMemo,” were leaked to the LondonSunday Times. Thanks to that memoand other documents, it’s now com-monly accepted that the Bush adminis-tration “fixed” the intelligence aroundtheir war of choice. But Lt. Gen. VanRiper’s forgotten story should remind usthat they also “fixed” thewar theywereplanning to fight.

BETWEEN then and now, when it cameto Iraq, there wasn’t much that wasn’t“fixed” in a similar manner. Only re-cently, James A. Baker’s Iraq Study

RULES? WHAT RULES?


The problemcomes whenyou only controlone side of asituation;and when, asAmericancommanderslearned in theearly daysof the KoreanWar and againin Vietnam,whether due toracism orimperialblindness, youalso discountand disrespectyour enemies

Group report described the way levelsof violence in Iraqwere grossly underre-ported by U.S. intelligence officials – inone case, only 93 “attacks or significantacts of violence” being officially recordedon a day when the number was wellabove 1,000. As the report politelysummed up this particular fix-it-upmethodology,“Good policy is difficult tomake when information is systemati-cally collected in a way that minimizesits discrepancy with policy goals.”But here’s the thing: The Iraq Study

Group, too – like every other main-stream gathering of advisors,officials,orpundits – “fixed” the intelligence.Thinkof the ISG as the clean-up-crew versionof the Blue Team of Millennium Chal-lenge 02. Before they even began, Bushfamily consigliere Baker and cohorts en-sured that,while the ISGwould be filledwith notable movers and shakers fromprevious administrations, no one on it,nor any expert “team” advising it wouldrepresent the point of view that a ma-jority of Americans have by now cometo support – actual withdrawal of allU.S. forces from Iraq on a set timeline.You would not, for instance, find re-

tired Lt.Gen.William E.Odom, the for-mer Director of the National SecurityAgency, who has openly called for theU.S. to “cut and run” from Iraq, on thepanel. Despite the report’s harsh de-scriptions of the last three years of failedpolicy and some perfectly sane negotia-tion suggestions, it dismissed the idea ofsuch a withdrawal out of hand – be-cause such a dismissal was simply builtinto the group’s very make up.It turns out,of course, that when you

control both sides of a war game or the

range of opinion on a panel, you are as-sured of the results you’re going to get.The problem comeswhen you only con-trol one side of a situation; andwhen,asAmerican commanders learned in theearly days of the KoreanWar and againin Vietnam, whether due to racism orimperial blindness, you also discountand disrespect your enemies.Unfortunately for the Bush adminis-

tration, it turned out that, while youcould fix the war games and the intelli-gence, you couldn’t be assured of fixingreality itself,which has a tendency to re-main obdurately, passionately, irasciblyunconquerable.Yes,you could ignore re-ality for a while. (The President, whenbeing told a few hard Iraqi truths in 2004by Col.DerekHarvey, the Defense Intel-ligence Agency’s senior intelligence offi-cer for Iraq, reportedly turned to hisaides and asked, “Is this guy a Democ-rat?”) But you couldn’t do it forever,notwhen the Lt.Gen.Van Ripers of Iraq re-fused to step aside and you weren’t ca-pable of removing them; not when youcouldn’t even figure out, most of thetime, who they were. It was then thatthe fixers first found themselves in agenuine fix, from which none of Wash-ington’s movers and shakers have yetbeen willing to extract themselves. CT

Tom Engelhardt, who runs the NationInstitute’s Tomdispatch.com (“a regularantidote to the mainstreammedia”), isthe co-founder of the American EmpireProject and, most recently, the author ofMission Unaccomplished: TomdispatchInterviews with American Iconoclastsand Dissenters (Nation Books), the firstcollection of Tomdispatch interviews.

RULES? WHAT RULES?

EXIT STRATEGIES

WITHDRAWAL?IN YOUR DREAMSBYMICHAEL SCHWARTZ


The ISG reportis not an “exitstrategy;”it is a newplan forachievingthe Bushadministration’simperial goalsin theMiddle East

The report of James A. Baker’sIraq Study Group has alreadybecome a benchmark for Iraqpolicy, dominating the print

and electronic media for several daysafter its release, and generating excitedcommentary by all manner of leadershiptypes from Washington to London toBaghdad. Even if most of the commen-tary continues to be negative, we cannevertheless look forward to highlypublicized policy changes in the near fu-ture that rely for their justification onthis report, or on one of the several oth-ers recently released, or on those cur-rently being prepared by the Pentagon,the White House, and the National Se-curity Council.This is not, however, good news for

those of us whowant the U.S. to end itswar of conquest in Iraq. Quite the con-trary: The ISG report is not an “exitstrategy;” it is a new plan for achievingthe Bush administration’s imperial goalsin the Middle East.The ISG report stands out among the

present flurry of re-evaluations as thesole evaluation of the war by a group

not beholden to the President; as theonly report containing an unadornednegative evaluation of the current situ-ation (vividly captured in the oft-quotedphrase “dire and deteriorating”); and asthe only public document with un-remitting criticism of the Bush adminis-tration’s conduct of the war.This negativity brings into focus the

severely constrained nature of the de-bate now underway in Washington –most importantly, the fact that U.S.withdrawal from Iraq (immediate orotherwise) is simply not going to be partof the discussion.Besides explicitly stat-ing that withdrawal is a terrible idea –“our leavingwouldmake [the situation]worse” – the Baker report is builtaround the idea that the United Stateswill remain in Iraq for a very long time.To put it bluntly, the ISG is not calling

on the Bush administration to abandonits goal of creating a client regime thatwas supposed to be the key to estab-lishing the U.S. as the dominant powerin the Middle East. Quite the contrary.As its report states: “We agree with thegoal of U.S. policy in Iraq.” If you ignore

EXIT STRATEGIES


No proposalat presenton the tablein Washingtonis likely to resultin significantreductionseven in theportion ofAmerican troopsdefined as“combatbrigades”

the text sprinkled with sugar-coatedwords like “representative government,”the report essentially demands that theIraqi government pursue policies shapedto serve “America’s interest and valuesin the years ahead.”Don’t be fooled by this often quoted

passage from the Report: “By the firstquarter of 2008, subject to unexpecteddevelopments in the security situationon the ground, all combat brigades notnecessary for force protection could beout of Iraq.” The ebullient interpreta-tions of this statement by the mediahave been misleading in three ways:First, the combat brigadesmentioned

in this passage represent far less thanhalf of all the troops in Iraq.Themilitarypolice, the air force, the troops thatmove the equipment, those assigned tothe Green Zone, the soldiers that order,store, and move supplies, medical per-sonnel, intelligence personnel, and soon, are not combat personnel; and theyadd up to considerably more than70,000 of the approximately 140,000troops in Iraq at the moment. They willall have to stay – as well as actual com-bat forces to protect them and to pro-tect the newAmerican advisors who aregoing to flood into the Iraqi army – be-cause the Iraqi army has none of theseunits and isn’t going to develop them forseveral years, if ever.Second, the ISG wants those “with-

drawn” American troops “redeployed,”either inside or outside Iraq. In all likeli-hood, this will mean that at least someof themwill be stationed in the five per-manent bases inside Iraq that the Bushadministration has already spent bil-lions constructing, and which are small

American towns, replete with fast foodrestaurants,bus lines,and recreation fa-cilities. There is no other place to putthese redeployed troops in the region,except bases in Kuwait, Qatar, and theUnited Arab Emirates, none of whichare really suited to, or perhaps eager to,host a large influx of American troops(guaranteed to be locally unpopular anda magnet for terrorist attacks).Third, it’s important not to ignore

those two modest passages: “subject tounexpected developments in the secu-rity situation on the ground” and “notnecessary for force protection.” In otherwords, if the Iraqi troops meant to re-place the redeployed American ones arefailures, then some or all of the troopsmight never be redeployed. In addition,even if Iraqi troops did perform well,Americans might still be deemed neces-sary to protect the remaining (non-com-bat) troops from attack by insurgentsand other forces. Given that Americantroops have not been able to subdue theSunni rebellion, which is still on agrowth curve, it is highly unlikely thattheir Iraqi substitutes will do any better.In other words,even if the “withdrawal”parts of the Baker report were acceptedby the President, which looks increas-ingly unlikely, its plan has more holesand qualifications than Swiss cheese.Put another way,no proposal at pres-

ent on the table in Washington is likelyto result in significant reductions even inthe portion of American troops definedas “combat brigades.” That is why thisstatement says that the combat troops“could be out of Iraq,” not “will be out ofIraq” in the first quarter of 2008.So, the ISG report contemplates –


Most Americansinitially believedthat the U.S. wentinto Iraq to shutdown SaddamHussein’s WMDprograms and/orsimply to topplea dangerousdictator (or evena dictatorsomehowconnected to the9/11 attacks).Of course, hadthat really beenthe case, theBushadministrationshould havewithdrawnalmostimmediately

best case scenario – “a considerablemilitary presence in the region,with ourstill significant [at least 70,000 strong]force in Iraq, and with our powerful air,ground, and naval deployments inKuwait,Bahrain,andQatar…“Given aless-than-optimum scenario, the Amer-ican presence in Iraq would assumedlyremain much higher, perhaps even ap-proaching current levels. As if this isn’tbad news enough, the report is lacedwith qualifiers indicating that the ISGmembers fear their new strategy mightnot work, that “there is no magic for-mula to solve the problems of Iraq” – atheme that will certainly be picked upas the right-wing of the RepublicanParty and angry neocons continue toblast at the report.Whywas the Iraq StudyGroup so re-

luctant to advocate the withdrawal ofAmerican troops and the abandonmentof the Bush administration’s goal ofpacifying Iraq? The likely explanation is:Its all-establishment membership (andthe teams of experts that gave it advice)understood that withdrawing from Iraqwould be an imperially momentous de-cision. It would, in fact,mean the aban-donment of over two decades ofAmerican foreign policy in the MiddleEast. To grasp this, it’s helpful to com-pare the way most Americans look atthe war in Iraq to the way those inpower view it.Most Americans initially believed

that the U.S. went into Iraq to shutdown Saddam Hussein’s WMD pro-grams and/or simply to topple a dan-gerous dictator (or even a dictatorsomehow connected to the 9/11 attacks).Of course,had that really been the case,

the Bush administration should havewithdrawn almost immediately. Eventoday, it could, at least theoretically,withdraw and declare victory the dayafter SaddamHussein is executed, sincethe WMDs and the 9/11 connectionwere evanescent. In this scenario, thedismal post-invasion military failurewould represent nothing but the defeatof Bush’s personal crusade – articulatedonly after the Hussein regime was top-pled – to bring American-style democ-racy to a benighted land.Because of this,most people,whether

supporters or opponents of the war, ex-pect each new round of policy debatesto at least consider the option of with-drawal; and many hold out the hopethat Bush will finally decide to give uphis democratization pipe dream.Even ifBush is incapable of reading the hand-writing on the Iraqi wall, this analysisencourages us to hope that outside ad-visers like the ISG will be “pragmatic”enough to bring the message home tohim, before the war severely under-mines our country economically and interms of how people around the worldthink about us.However, a more realistic look at the

original goals of the invasion makesclear why withdrawal cannot be so eas-ily embraced by anyone loyal to thegrandiose foreign policy goals adoptedby the U.S. right after the fall of the So-viet Union. The real goals of the war inIraq add up to an extreme version of thislarger vision of a “unipolar world” or-biting around the United States.The invasion of 2003 reflected the

Bush administration’s ambition to es-tablish Iraq as the hub of American im-

EXIT STRATEGIES


It was hopedthat privatizedIraqi oil mightthen breakOPEC’s hold onthe global oilspigot.In the Iraqof the Bushadministration’sdreams,the U.S. wouldbe the key playerin determiningboth the amountof oil pumpedand the favoreddestinationsfor it

perial dominance in the oil heartlands ofthe planet.Unsurprisingly, then, theU.S.military entered Iraqwith plans alreadyin hand to construct and settle into atleast four massive military bases thatwould become nerve centers for ourmil-itary presence in the “arc of instability”extending from Central Asia all the wayinto Africa – an “arc” that just hap-pened to contain the bulk of the world’sexportable oil.The original plan included wresting

control of Iraqi oil from Saddam’s hostileBaathist government and delivering itinto the hands of the large oil compa-nies through the privatization of new oilfields and various other special agree-ments. It was hoped that privatizedIraqi oil might then break OPEC’s holdon the global oil spigot. In the Iraq of theBush administration’s dreams, the U.S.would be the key player in determiningboth the amount of oil pumped and thefavored destinations for it. (This ambi-tion was implicitly seconded by theBaker Commission when it recom-mended that the U.S. “should assistIraqi leaders to reorganize the nationaloil industry as a commercial enterprise”)All of this, of course, was contingent

upon establishing an Iraqi governmentthat would be a junior partner in Amer-ican Middle Eastern policy; that, underthe rule of an Ahmed Chalabi or IyadAllawi, would, for instance, be guaran-teed to support administration cam-paigns against Iran and Syria. Bushadministration officials have repeatedlyunderscored this urge, even in the pres-ent circumstances, by attempting, how-ever ineffectively, to limit the ties of thepresent Shia-dominated Iraqi govern-

ment to Iran.Withdrawal from Iraq would signal

the ruin of all these hopes. Without apowerful American presence, perma-nent bases would not be welcomed byany regime that might emerge from thecurrent cauldron in Baghdad; every fac-tion except the Kurds is adamantlyagainst them. U.S. oil ambitions wouldprove similarly unviable.Though J.PaulBremer, John Negroponte and ZalmayKhalilzad, our three ambassador-vice-roys in Baghdad, have all pushedthrough legislation mandating the pri-vatization of oil (even embedding thispolicy in the new constitution), only ahandful of top Iraqi politicians have ac-tually embraced the idea. The religiousleaders who control the Sunni militiasoppose it, as do the Sadrists, who arenow the dominant faction in the Shiaareas. The current Iraqi government isalready making economic treaties withIran and even sought to sign a militaryalliance with that country that theAmericans aborted.

Still staying the course

Added to all this, from Lebanon to Pak-istan, the administration’s politicalagenda for the “arc of instability” is nowvisibly in a state of collapse. Thisagenda, of course, predated Bush, goingback to the moment in 1991 when theSoviet Union simply evaporated, leavingan impoverished Russia and a set ofwobbly independent states in its place.While the elder George Bush and BillClinton did not embrace the use of themilitary as the primary instrument offoreign policy, they fully supported thegoal of American preeminence in the

EXIT STRATEGIES


Of course,if the Bushadministrationwere somehowto succeedin stabilizinga compliantclient regime,such a regimewould surelyrequest thatAmerican troopsremain in their“temporary”bases on amore-or-lesspermanentbasis, since itssurvival woulddepend on them

Middle East and worked very hard toachieve it – through the isolation of Iran,sanctions against Iraq, various unpubli-cized military actions against Saddam’sforces, and a ratcheting upward of per-manent basing policies throughout theGulf region and Central Asia.This is the context for the peculiar

stance taken by the Iraq Study Grouptowards the administration’s disaster inIraq. Coverage has focused on the waythe report labeled the situation as“grave and deteriorating” and its call fornegotiations with the previously pariahstates of Iran and Syria. In itself, the ne-gotiation proposal is perfectly reason-able and has the side effect of lesseningthe possibility that the Bush adminis-tration will launch an attack on Iraniannuclear facilities in the near future.But no one should imagine that the

“new” military strategy proposed byBaker and his colleagues includes dis-missing the original goals of the war. Intheir letter of transmittal, ISG co-chairsJames Baker and Lee Hamilton de-clared: “All options have not been ex-hausted. We believe it is still possible topursue different policies that can giveIraq an opportunity for a better future,combat terrorism, stabilize a critical re-gion of the world and protect America’scredibility, interests and values.”This statement, couched in typical

Washington-speak, reiterates thoseoriginal ambitious goals and commitsthe ISG to a continuing effort to achievethem. The corpus of the report doesnothing to dispel that assertion. Its mil-itary strategy calls for a (certainlyquixotic) effort to use Iraqi troops tobring about the military victory Ameri-

can troops have failed for three years toachieve. The diplomatic initiatives callfor a (certainly quixotic) effort to enlistthe aid of Syria and Iran, as well asSaudi Arabia and other neighbors, indefeating the insurgency. And the cen-terpiece of the economic initiatives seeksto accelerate the process of privatizingoil, the clearest sign of all that Baker andHamilton – like Bush and his circle – re-main committed to the grand scheme ofmaintaining the United States as thedominant force in the region.Even as the group called on the Pres-

ident to declare that the U.S. “does notseek permanent military bases in Iraq”once the country is secure, it hedgedthis intention by pointing out that we“could consider” temporary bases, “ifthe Iraqi governmentwere to request it.”Of course, if the Bush administrationwere to succeed in stabilizing a compli-ant client regime, such a regime wouldsurely request that American troops re-main in their “temporary” bases on amore-or-less permanent basis, since itssurvival would depend on them.Perhaps themost disturbing aspect of

the ISG report is its embrace of the Bushadministration’s imperial attitude to-ward the Iraqi government. Althoughthe report repeatedly calls for American“respect” for Iraqi “sovereignty” (an im-plicit criticism of the last three years ofIraq policy), it also offers a series of whatare essentially non-negotiable demandsthat would take an already weak andless-than-sovereign government andstrip it of control over anything thatmakes governments into governments.As a start, the “Iraqi” military would

be flooded with 10,000-20,000 new

EXIT STRATEGIES


It is hardlysurprising,then, that Iraqileaders almostimmediatelybegancomplainingthat the report,for all its bowsto “respect,”completelylacked it

American “advisors,” ensuring that itwould continue to be an American-con-trolled military, even if a desperatelypoor and recalcitrant one, into the dis-tant future. In addition, the ISG offereda detailed program for how oil shouldbe extracted (and the profits distrib-uted) as well as specific prescriptions forhandling a number of pressing prob-lems, including fiscal policy,militias, thecity of Kirkuk, sectarianism, de-Baathi-fication, and a host of other issues thatnormally would be decisions for an Iraqigovernment, not an American advisorypanel in Washington. It is hardly sur-prising, then, that Iraqi leaders almostimmediately began complaining thatthe report, for all its bows to “respect,”completely lacked it.Most striking is the report’s twenty-

first (of seventy-nine) recommendations,aimed at describing what the UnitedStates should do if the Iraqis fail to sat-isfactorily fulfill the many tasks that theISG has set for them. “If the Iraqi gov-ernment does not make substantialprogress toward the achievement ofmilestones on national reconciliation,security, and governance, the UnitedStates should reduce its political, mili-tary, or economic support for the Iraqigovernment.”This could be interpreted as a threat

that the United States will withdraw –and the mainstream media has chosento interpret it just that way. But whythen did Baker and his colleagues notword this statement differently?(“… the United States should reduce,and ultimately withdraw, its forces fromIraq.”) The phrase “reduce its political,military, or economic support for the

Iraqi government” is probably better in-terpreted literally: that if that govern-ment fails to satisfy ISG demands, theU.S. should transfer its “political, mili-tary, or economic support” to a newleadership within Iraq that it feelswould bemore capable of making “sub-stantial progress toward” themilestonesit has set. In other words, this passage ismore likely a threat of a coup d’état thana withdrawal strategy – a threat thatthe façade of democracy would bestripped away and a “strong man” (or agovernment of “national salvation”) in-stalled, one that the Bush administra-tion or the ISG believes could bring theSunni rebellion to heel.Here is the unfortunate thing. Evi-

dently, the “grave and deteriorating” sit-uation in Iraq has not yet deterioratedenough to convince even establishmentAmerican policymakers,who have beenon the outside these last years, to followthe lead of the public (as reflected in thelatest opinion polls) and abandon theirsoaring ambitions of Middle East dom-ination. If they haven’t done so, imaginewhere George W. Bush and Dick Ch-eney are in policy terms. So far, it seemseveryone of power or influence inWash-ington remains committed to “stayingthe course.” CT

Michael Schwartz is a Professor ofSociology and Faculty Director of theUndergraduate College of Global Studiesat Stony Brook University. His booksinclude Radical Protest and SocialStructure, and Social Policy and theConservative Agenda (edited, withClarence Lo).This article originallyappeared at tomdispatch.com.

EXIT STRATEGIES

“Every gun that is made, every warshiplaunched, every rocket fired, signifies inthe final sense a theft from those whohunger and are not fed, those who arecold and are not clothed.”

– President Dwight D. EisenhowerApril 16, 1953

Talk about stepping into theabyss. George Bush and hisPentagon allies are consideringincreasing the number of

troops in Iraq by 40,000. The idea issupported by some members of Con-gress, although JohnMcCain is the onlyone so far to express his support pub-licly. This is despite the fact that over60% of US residents want the troopsout of there sooner rather than later.Not only does the Bush position repre-sent another blow to the idea that thepeople of the US run the country, it is ablatant kick in the voters’ face.Yet, as long as Congress continues to

give the White House and Pentagonwhatever monies theywant to fight thewar, any other legislative actions meanless than zero. In a reversal of Bush’s

domestic initiatives like the No ChildLeft Behind act – an act which de-manded individual states to follow cer-tain mandates from the federalgovernment without providing anyfunding, Congress provides unlimitedfunding of the war effort without ask-ing for any guidelines, much less re-quiring any show of success.It’s not like this is unusual. Certain

funding requests rarely get a careful ex-amination in Congress. Two of themost obvious ones both concern theMiddle East.One is the constant fund-ing that Tel Aviv gets no matter whatthey do or how they do it. The other isthe budgeting that concerns thosecountries that contain big oil’s profitsource. Sometimes the money for thelatter is to prop up a regime friendly toWashington’s interests and sometimesit’s used to destroy a regime with dif-ferent ideas. In Iraq, the former is takento its historical extreme.In other words, a regime that ap-

pears to be barely holding on to itspower is being supported with un-abashed US military power – to the

In other words,a regime thatappears to bebarely holdingon to its poweris beingsupportedwith unabashedUS militarypower –to the tune ofapproximately180 milliondollars per day


TAKE THISWARAND SHOVE ITBYRON JACOBS

OUT OF IRAQ

Instead of theemergencyrequestsMessrs. Bushand Cheney tendto prefer, theDemocrats wantthe war fundingrequests to beincluded in theannual budget


tune of approximately 180 million dol-lars per day. This is only the financialcost, of course. Human costs are im-measurable, but here are some rawnumbers regarding them: over thecourse of the war, US troops have diedon the average of more than two perday; somewhere around a half millionIraqis have died (probably more ratherthan less), over 20,000 US troops havebeen wounded, along with unknownnumbers of Iraqis.Despite these statistics, the war con-

tinues. In fact, as noted above, it mayvery well escalate. The Democratssqueak a lot about their frustrationwith the war and say they will dothings differently, yet very few havemade any genuine indication that theywill refuse to fund the war.Instead, a good number have signed

on to the suggestions of the essentiallyirrelevant Iraq Study Group,whose re-port suggested a continuation of thewar by renaming the mission of thetroops on the ground and eventuallywithdrawing the combat troops – amove that a Washington Post reportsaid would leave 75% of the troops incountry.In addition, not a single Democratic

Senator voted against the appointmentof CIA man and war apologist RobertGates as Secretary of Defense.

NOW, I don’t know about you,but thatsounds likemore business as usual.TheDemocratic Congress’ first test willcome soon after they are seated. it willcome in the shape of a $100 billion re-quest for continuing the Iraq war.Other than a few noises from the left

wing of the party – mostly from Con-gressman Kucinich of Ohio – there hasbeen no indication that this requestwill not be granted.Indeed, a cursory reading of news-

paper reports regarding the requestleads me to believe that the only prob-lem the Democrats have with the ad-ministration’s war funding request isthemanner in which he requests them.Instead of the emergency requestsMessrs. Bush and Cheney tend to pre-fer, the Democrats want the war fund-ing requests to be included in theannual budget.Recently, antiwar vet Mike Ferner,

speaking for the groups Voices for Cre-ative Nonviolence and Veterans ForPeace, announced their call to antiwarprotesters around the country to oc-cupy the hometown offices of Repre-sentatives and Senators who havevoted money for the war.These actions will take place in Feb-

ruary, since Congress convenes in lateJanuary and the aforementioned fund-ing request will be one of the first piecesof legislation on its agenda. This is agood idea. Indeed, I say let’s go evenfurther. Let’s take up the call for themass march on the Pentagon sched-uled for March 17th and stage a sit-down protest there.Take over the lawnand refuse to leave.Sure, the upcoming antiwarmarches

on January 27th andMarch 17th are im-portant, but, if all indications are cor-rect, manifestations such as these haveso far only succeeded in getting ourelected officials to say they oppose thewar, but not to do anything concreteabout it. It’s up to us to make them

OUT OF IRAQ

stick to their words. Sitting in their of-fices until they answer our questions orcall the police is a logical next step. Sois the idea of a massive sit-in on thePentagon lawn.It’s called heightening the contradic-

tions. The United States could usesome of that. Think about it.If these ideas don’t work for you and

your people,perhaps another one will.,or a combination of other ones. If werecall the protests in Seattle in 1999against the WTO, we will rememberhow effective they were in raising thelevel of awareness and opposition tothe aims of global capitalism. We willalso remember how effectively the

protests were organized. Everythingwas done on a local level.Sure, the actual protests took place

in Seattle (and several other places inthe following years),but if we are to be-lieve the polls, there are enoughUS res-idents opposed to the war that we cansit in on the Pentagon lawn AND takelocal actions. It’s in our interest to stopthis war now. We have to make it inCongress’s interest, too. CT

Ron Jacobs is an anti-imperialist inAsheville. NC. His first novel, ShortOrder Frame Up is forthcoming fromMainstay Press in early 2007. He can bereached at [email protected]

If we recallthe protestsin Seattle in1999 againstthe WTO,we willremember howeffective theywere in raisingthe level ofawarenessand oppositionto the aimsof globalcapitalism


OUT OF IRAQ

If you enjoy The ColdType Readersubscribe to future issues – it’s free!

E-mail: [email protected]

TheREADERColdType

W R I T I N G W O R T H R E A D I N G � I S S U E 8 � O C T O B E R 2 0 0 6

BALLS

INSIDE: IRAQ AT THE GATES OF HELL � SHOPPINGWITH BIG BROTHER � EUROPE’S NEW DUMPINGGROUND � BLAIR’S BRILLIANT SPEECH � &MORE

A LOAD OF

POSITIVELYTHE BEST

(AND POSSIBLYTHE LAST)

STORY YOU’LLREAD ON THE2006 SOCCERWORLD CUP

BY JOHNLANCHESTER

General Augusto Pinochetdied on December 10,shamed as a butcher andhuman rights abuser – even

an international terrorist, given theCIA’s finding of his complicity in the1976 Washington, D.C. car bombingthat killed Orlando Letelier and RonniMoffit – and yet, as a free man. Somewill argue that this was justice deniedfor the thousands killed and torturedby his regime. But only if justice ismeasured as retribution.Long before the attacks on the

World Trade Center and the Pentagon,September 11 was a black day forChileans. It was on that day, in 1973,that years of subversion directed byHenry Kissinger and the CIA came tofruition, with a coup led by Pinochetthat overthrew the democraticallyelected Marxist government of Sal-vador Allende. The U.S. and Chile’sright-wingmilitary and conservative el-ements in Chilean society the country’sOpus Dei-dominated Catholic Churchhated the values represented by Al-lende’s government, and warned that

he was plunging the country into chaos(not that the CIA wasn’t activelyspreading that chaos as part of an ex-plicit campaign based on HenryKissinger’s memorable statement that“I don’t see why we need to stand byandwatch a country go communist be-cause of the irresponsibility of its ownpeople.”) But regardless of his ideology,Allende wasn’t killing people,or tortur-ing them,or summarily arresting them.They were free to organize and expresstheir opposition.But they couldn’t win in democratic

elections, so they made a coup. Andwhat followed, in the name of “savingChile from communism” (supposedlyan authoritarian system of humanrights abuses) was a wave of savage re-pression that included rounding upleft-wing activists in the national sta-dium, where many were tortured todeath – none more famously than thegentle musician Victor Jara, whosehands were broken by Pinochet’s goonsand was then told to play his guitar,during four days of torture before hewas machine gunned.

Regardlessof his ideology,Allende wasn’tkilling people,or torturingthem, orsummarilyarresting them.They were freeto organize andexpress theiropposition


THE ENDOFCHILE’S BUTCHERBYTONY KARON

DEATH OF A DICTATOR

Pinochet’s savagery was conve-niently overlooked by such pals as Rea-gan and Thatcher, simply becausethose hewas brutalizing were people ofthe left – never mind that they werethe non-violent democrats who be-lieved in the will of the people, ex-pressed through the ballot box,and therule of law,while Pinochet representedthe vile stench of the torturer’s exer-tions.

BACK in the 80s, as I was coming of agepolitically in South Africa, the exampleof Chile immediately explained why itwas that the Reagan Administrationbacked the apartheid regime – becauseChile showed that the U.S. cared noth-ing about democracy abroad, andwould actively support vicious tyrantswho declared themselves anti-commu-nist. Even Zaire’s deranged kleptocratandmass murderer Mobutu Sese Seko,for example, was an honored guest inReagan’s White House. As the Clash(who also memorialized Victor Jara on‘Sandinista’) sang on a different track,“If Adolf Hitler,were here today, they’dsend a limousine anyway…“Back then, I believed that Pinochet

deserved to die, to avenge all thosewhose lives he destroyed for no reasonother than that their views weredeemed unacceptable to his own, ablend of Prussian Military authoritari-anism, Catholic crypto-fascism and theeconomics of free enterprise funda-mentalist Milton Friedman.But we all grow upThe South African experience taught

me that once the leaders of a violentauthoritarian regime are stripped of

their power, they are forced to confronttheir own criminality in the eyes of asociety that has moved on, repudiatingthem – and more importantly, simplymoving on to build a better societythat, in itself, shows the moral bank-ruptcy of those that unleashed violenceon the people in the name of progressand security.P.W.Botha,another third world thug

admired by Lady Thatcher, died a cou-ple of months ago, too, stripped of hispower, a cantankerous old fool whohad destroyed tens of thousands oflives,but had faced no retribution fromhis victims. Instead, they had simplymoved on, repudiating him by buildinga new society that had no need for tor-ture chambers.Botha spent his last years living in

the dustbin of history, and so didPinochet. Once he was forced to allowthe Chilean people to vote for theirown leaders, he was summarily re-jected. And he had to endure the factthat the society in which he had killedsomany to “protect” from communismhad, in fact, chosen to return to powerthe very people he had locked up andtortured.And in theWest, in whose de-fense he had ostensibly committed hisatrocities, he was now treated as acriminal, freed from the ignominy of ex-tradition to Spain after 18 monthsunder house arrest only on humanitar-ian grounds.Today,Chile is ruled by a former de-

tainee and torture victim, but the soci-etyMichele Bachelet is helping develophas no need to turn Pinochet’s ownmethods on him. They even allowedhim a military funeral, but not a state

January 2007 | TheREADER 2626 TheREADER | January 2007

DEATH OF A DICTATOR


Back then,I believed thatPinochetdeserved to die,to avenge allthose whoselives hedestroyed forno reason otherthan that theirviews weredeemedunacceptableto his own


In its humanehandlingof Pinochet,in fact, thegovernmentof his victimsproved itssuperiority.Sure, his victimswould have likedto see him facea judge andanswer to eachand everycharge –Pinochet, whilestill ruling as thehead of themilitary, createdfor himself abogus amnesty

one.After all, he was legitimately headof the military (having been appointedby the legally elected President he laterkilled); he was never legitimately ahead of state.

IN its humane handling of Pinochet, infact, the government of his victimsproved its superiority. Sure, his victimswould have liked to see him face ajudge and answer to each and everycharge – Pinochet, while still ruling asthe head of the military, created forhimself a bogus amnesty.They pursuedhim to his death, but only via the law.It is Pinochet’s victims who will be me-morialized with honor as the oldman’sbones are interred. And all Chileansknow, whether or not they admit it,that they have created a better societyby getting rid of him.And since his arrest and extradition

trial in Britain in 1998, he has had toconfront the reality that even in theWest, he is deemed a criminal – his re-lease, remember, was on compassion-ate grounds. This from a piece I wrotefor Britannica.com following his re-lease:

Abuse is made all the more trau-matic when its victims are denied theright to remember, and post-PinochetChilean society had–until the gen-eral’s arrest– imposed a cruel amne-sia on those who had suffered at thehands of the dictatorship. A trial is acathartic moment for people onwhom silence has been imposed; it’san affirmation, a bearing of witnessto their pain and suffering, a momentthat allows a healing process tobegin. Confronting their tormentor,

now stripped of both the power tohurt them and of the palliatives ofpolitical rationalization, and recallingthe horrors he perpetrated in all theirpainful detail can be of immeasura-ble psychological benefit to thoseburdened by trauma. Pinochet’s vic-tims won’t get to confront him incourt, although there’s been an un-precedented bearing of witness–mostly through the media, bothChilean and international–since hisarrest.

No matter what crimes he may beguilty of, Pinochet is unlikely ever tosee the inside of a prison cell. Butjustice–imperfect at the best oftimes–may well have been servedprecisely by denying the general theexoneration by the West he so des-perately craved. In Pinochet’s mind,every head that had ever beencracked by his goons, every torture-riddled corpse tossed into the PacificOcean, every child stolen from itsdoomed leftist parents and handedover to a childless military couple, allof his junta’s crimes against the peo-ple of Chile had been committed indefense of Western values–ugly butnecessary measures to defenddemocracy and freedom from totali-tarian communism.

This involved some twisted logicfrom a man who’d overthrown a left-ist government that had meticulouslyupheld the constitution of LatinAmerica’s oldest democracy, whilethe general himself turned it into toi-let paper–but then the ability to ra-tionalize is an essential skill for thosewho commit crimes against human-

DEATH OF A DICTATOR

ity. Torturers go home at the end oftheir day to wives and families; theyhave to create a structure of meaningthat sanctions unconscionably sadis-tic behavior toward their foes andthen allows them, only hours later, toread their children a bedtime story.And that leaves them vulnerable to ajustice more subtle, yet every bit asharsh, as that dispensed by courts.

South Africa’s Truth and Reconcili-ation Commission was not a court oflaw, and it had no power to punishindividuals no matter how heinousthe crimes to which they were admit-ting. And yet there are numeroustales of torturers and assassinsbreaking down in its sessions orafter, being overwhelmed by theweight of their own confession. Theyare left depressed and anxious, un-able to function socially now thattheir own children knew what they

had once done. Stripped of their dig-nity and acceptability in polite soci-ety, the torturers of the past aresubject to a justice more profound,perhaps, than any prison could offer,because prisons inevitably cast theprisoner, in his own mind, as a vic-tim.

After 15 months as a prisonerawaiting trial in England, Pinochet’sspirit and body are in decline. The ar-rogant generalissimo will returnhome diminished and humiliated,shunned by the West as a criminal,the abuses of his regime exposed.And that may be a punishment moreprofound than any prison term: Gen-eral Pinochet has been sentenced tolive with himself. CT

Tony Karon is a senior editor atTIME.com. This was first published athis personal web site – tonykaron.com


Stripped of theirdignity andacceptability inpolite society,the torturers ofthe past aresubject to ajustice moreprofound,perhaps, thanany prison couldoffer, becauseprisonsinevitably castthe prisoner,in his own mind,as a victim.

READ MORE GREAT STUFFFROM COLDTYPE

Visit the ColdType Archives for books,essays and photojournalism

www.coldtype.net/archives.html

DEATH OF A DICTATOR

http://www.coldtype.net/archives.html

PINOCHET’SBLOODBATHBYDAVID EDWARDS

It is a feature of the bureaucraticmindset that trivial details are sub-ject to meticulous attention, whileissues relating to personal and

moral responsibility are dismissed asnon-existent.Thus correspondent Brid-get Kendall’s pinpoint pronunciation asshe described the death of Chileantyrant Augusto Pinochet – pronounced“Peenochet” by the BBC reporter.Kendall got the name right, but every-thing that mattered was swallowed upby what media academic Richard Kee-ble calls “the apparatus of silence”.(http://www.medialens.org/weblog/richard_keeble.php)“Peenochet’s” rise to power was dis-

cussed, as were his crimes, as were thefailed attempts to hold him account-able. But of the power behind thethrone, the nation that birthed thismonster, there was not a word. (‘Chile’sgeneral dies’: http://search.bbc.co.uk/cgi-bin/search/results.pl?q=pinochet+and+kendall&scope=all&edition=d&tab=all&recipe=all)Kendall concluded her piece thus:

“To the very end judgements on Aug-

usto Pinochet remained keenly div-ided.”That can be said of a mass murderer

like Pinochet, aWestern ally, but not ofofficial enemies like Saddam Husseinand Osama bin Laden.I wrote to Kendall on December 10

noting that she had made no mentionof the American role in the September1973 coup that overthrew Chile’s dem-ocratically elected president, SalvadorAllende. We asked if, for example, shewas aware that an early, October 1970plot to unseat Allende, was made “us-ing CIA ‘sub-machine guns andammo’“, and was the direct result of arequest for action from the chairman ofPepsiCo, according to Greg Palast inthe Observer.I received no reply. I re-sent the email

on December 11 and again received noresponse.Readers may be puzzled bymention

of the words ‘Nixon’ and ‘PepsiCo’ inthe context of Pinochet’s bloodbath – amedia database search showed that notone UK national newspaper has con-nected these words to this story since

WHO’S COUP?


“Peenochet’s”rise to powerwas discussed,as were hiscrimes, aswere the failedattemptsto hold himaccountable.But of thepower behindthe throne,the nation thatbirthed thismonster, therewas not a word


Quite what theCIA had spentmillions on wasleft to thereader’simagination.Perhapsoppositionpoliticianswere funded.Perhapspropagandamessages wereruthlesslyposted aroundSantiago.Who knows?

Pinochet’s death.Before we explore the links, let’s con-

sider what the press has had to say onUS involvement in Chile.A Guardian obituary read: “The

coup, in which CIA destabilisationplayed a part...” (Malcolm Coad, ‘Au-gusto Pinochet,’ The Guardian,Decem-ber 11, 2006; http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/story/0,,1968953,00.html)And that was that! Space is always a

problem for the media. Presumably,there was not space for more detail inthis 3,049-word piece.A BBC online obituary was fraction-

ally bolder: “It became known later thatthe CIA had spent millions to desta-bilise the Allende government.”(http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/world/americas/472707.stm)That, again, was that. Quite what

the CIA had spent millions on was leftto the reader’s imagination.Perhaps op-position politicians were funded. Per-haps propaganda messages were ruth-lessly posted around Santiago. Whoknows?On reading the above,a friend joked

that it represented a reversal of SpikeMilligan’s book title: ‘Adolf Hitler: MyPart In His Downfall,’ with the pressdesperate to downplay Western in-volvement in Allende’s fall.Rupert Cornwell in the Independent

edged slightly closer to forbidden facts:“Yes, the turmoil in Chile before thecoup of September 1973 was shamefullyfomented by the United States. Butthere is no evidence that Washingtondirectly ordered the coup.” (RupertCornwell, ‘The general willing to kill hispeople to win the battle against com-

munism,’ The Independent, December11, 2006; http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article2064694.ece)Again, vague hints sufficed. Note,

also, the irrelevant apologetic for USactions – “there is no evidence thatWashington directly ordered the coup”.But there is evidence that Washingtonmoved heaven and earth to make thecoup happen.The hard facts and directquotes making this all too clear – avail-able to us and anyone else with an in-ternet connection – were nowhere insight.Jonathan Kandell in the New York

Times trotted safely with the mediaherd: “General Pinochet initially led afour-man junta in the 1973military coupthat brought him to power, with thesupport of the United States govern-ment...” (Kandell, ‘Augusto Pinochet –DictatorWho Ruled by Terror in Chile,Dies at 91,’ New York Times,December11, 2006)And that,also,was that in this 2,600-

word piece. A theme is emerging, is itnot?The Daily Telegraph had many

pieces saying little on the subject, refer-ring in one 1,200-word report to “theCIA-backedmilitary coup in 1973”. (NeilTweedie, ‘Pinochet, the friend of Britainwho ruled his country by fear,’ DailyTelegraph,December 11, 2006)The Telegraph’s 2,300-word obituary

had only this to say of US involvement:“Inevitably, such a government [Al-lende’s] did not appeal to the Ameri-cans. RichardHelms, the director of theCIA, sought means to ‘make the(Chilean) economy scream’, while the

WHO’S COUP?


The Guardianomitted tomention that theCIA initiallyreporteddifficulty findingofficers willingto participatein a coupthanks to whatit described as“the apolitical,constitutional-oriented inertiaof the Chileanmilitary”

Nixon administration cut off all aid andcredits. Suchmeasures exacerbated in-flation in Chile, and intensified classconflicts.” (Daily Telegraph, ‘Obituaryof General Augusto Pinochet,’ Decem-ber 11, 2006)Economic strangulation was the

more passive element of what was ahighly pro-active US campaign to de-stroy democracy in Chile.The Telegraph described Pinochet as:

“not only an extraordinarily successfuldictator; hewas also one of the very fewto surrender power at the behest of theelectorate.” (Ibid)The Daily Mail noted merely that

the junta “had secret CIA backing”.(PatrickMarnham and Richard Pendle-bury, ‘Death of a friendly dictator,’ DailyMail, December 11, 2006)TheMail asked of Pinochet: “So will

history judge him as a brute or a prag-matic economic and political strong-man, who rescued Chile from Marxistorchestrated disaster?”This of amanwho,as the same jour-

nalists wrote, “modelled himself onStalin in the Thirties”.Writing in the Daily Mirror,Christo-

pher Hitchens managed one veiled ref-erence to US involvement, noting thatHenry Kissinger had been “anxious toprotect the criminal he helped usurppower”. (Hitchens, ‘Thatcher’s tyrant,’Mirror, December 11, 2006)There was nothing more. A remark-

able performance from the author ofThe Trial Of Henry Kissinger,which in-cluded many of the details of the USrole in Chile. Hitchens only other arti-cle on the subject since Pinochet’s deathappears to have been in Slate maga-

zine (‘Augusto Pinochet – 1915-2006,’December 11, 2006; http://www. slate.com/id/2155242/). Hitchens made nomention at all of US involvement in thecoup.A Guardian news story noted:

“When Pinochet seized power in 1973,he knew he would be enjoying thestrong support of the United States.The secretary of state and national se-curity adviser, Henry Kissinger, was anadmirer.” (Jonathan Franklin,Rory Car-roll and Duncan Campbell, ‘Glee andgrief as man who “brought Spanish in-quisition to Chile” dies at 91,’ TheGuardian,December 11, 2006)The Guardian omitted to mention

that the CIA initially reported difficultyfinding officers willing to participate ina coup thanks to what it described as“the apolitical, constitutional-orientedinertia of the Chilean military”.(Quoted, William Blum, Killing Hope,Common Courage Press, 1995, p.210– the chapter on Allende’s overthrowfrom Blum’s book is also republished athttp://coldtype.net/archives.html) TheUnited States did not merely supportPinochet, they worked energetically tocreate him.The Times wrote: “... the coup was

launched on September 1, 1973,with thesupport of the US which had playedan active role in supporting the anti-Al-lende opposition”. (‘General AugustoPinochet, November 25, 1915 – Decem-ber 10, 2006,’ The Times, December 11,2006)The theme, then? The US “backed”,

“supported”,“fomented” and “assisted”the coup,and cut off aid.But the active,central role played by the United States

WHO’S COUP?

is simply not described.We found a single article, in the In-

dependent, that gavemore than fleetingattention to US subversion of Chileandemocracy. Hugh O’Shaughnessywrote: “the Chilean right, RichardNixon, Henry Kissinger and US com-panies such as ITT [International Tele-phone and Telegraph] sought to pre-vent Allende’s assuming the presidencyto which he had been freely and fairlyelected.“A US military attaché was later to

confess that he carried down fromWashington a large sum in dollar ban-knotes to buy the assassination of Gen-eral René Schneider... [who] was resist-ing calls from the Chilean right and theUS for an immediate coup against Al-lende.”O’Shaughnessy added: “By then,

within Chile and in the United States,the enemies of the President’s unstablecoalition of six parties of the left andcentre-left had shown their continuingdesire to topple the head of state.”(Hugh O’Shaughnessy, ‘General Au-gusto Pinochet,’ The Independent, De-cember 11, 2006)But this also only hints at the true

scale of US subversion. The vast politi-cal sabotage of Chilean democracy andthe fierce US determination to destroyAllende’s regime militarily were bothburied out of sight by the Independent,as was the general trend in Latin Amer-ica (and the Third World more gener-ally) of which these horrors form onetiny part.A media database search showed

that thewords ‘Pinochet’ and ‘CIA’ havebeenmentioned in seven articles in the

UK national press since Pinochet’sdeath.

Not acceptable to theUnited States

Peter Kornbluh is director of the Na-tional Security Archive’s Chile Docu-mentation Project at George Washing-ton University. In an October 1998article, Kornbluh described how theCIA “laid the groundwork for the coupd’etat” in Chile. (Kornbluh, ‘The ChileCoup – The U.S. Hand,’ iF magazine,October 25, 1998; http://www. third-worldtraveler.com/Terrorism/Chile%20Coup_USHand.html)After Allende had narrowly failed to

win the 1958 elections, the United Statesworked hard to avert future risks. Priorto the 1964 elections, a vast CIA cam-paign was mounted to subvert Chileandemocracy. Eduardo Frei’s ChristianDemocratic Party was selected, withthe CIA underwriting more than halfthe party’s campaign costs.The agency’selectoral operation cost $20million – farmore per voter thanwas spent by John-son and Goldwater combined in thesame year in the US presidential elec-tions. A senate committee later gave aninsight into one small segment of theonslaught: “The propaganda campaignwas enormous.During the first week ofintensive propaganda activity, a CIA-funded propaganda group producedtwenty radio spots per day in Santiagoand on 44 provincial stations; twelve-minute news broadcasts five times dailyon three Santiago stations and 24 pro-visional outlets, and much paid pressadvertising. By the end of June, thegroup produced 24 daily newscasts in


After Allendehad narrowlyfailed to winthe 1958elections, theUnited Statesworked hardto avert futurerisks.Prior to the 1964elections,a vast CIAcampaign wasmountedto subvertChileandemocracy.Eduardo Frei’sChristianDemocraticParty wasselected, withthe CIAunderwritingmore than halfthe party’scampaign costs

WHO’S COUP?


AmbassadorKorry was giventhe job ofimplementingthe “soft line.”He describedhis task: “not anut or bolt willbe allowed toreach Chileunder Allende”

Santiago and the provinces, 26 weekly‘commentary’ programs, and distrib-uted 3,000 posters daily.” (Quoted,William Blum, Killing Hope, CommonCourage Press, 1995, p.207)These efforts were supported by ‘red

scare’ campaigns, funding of strikes,funding of right-wing organisationscommitting acts of violence,promotionof grassroots programmes, speakingtours and propaganda stories placed inWestern media, and numerous otherexamples of flak and subversion.Despite all of this, Allende won the

September 4, 1970 election. The US re-sponse was clear. CIA director RichardHelms informed his senior covert actionstaff that “President Nixon had decidedthat an Allende regime in Chile was notacceptable to the United States.” Helmsadded:“The President asked the Agency to

prevent Allende from coming to poweror to unseat him.”Helms’s handwritten notes of the

meetingwithNixon reveal themindset:“One in 10 chance perhaps, but saveChile!... not concerned with risks in-volved... $10,000,000 available, more ifnecessary... make the economyscream...” (Quoted, ibid, p.209)Helms reported two parallel strate-

gies for destroying Allende. As dis-cussed, the “soft line” was (in Nixon’swords) to “make the economy scream.”The “hardline” was to aim for amilitarycoup.Ambassador Korry was given the job

of implementing the “soft line.” He de-scribed his task: “not a nut or bolt willbe allowed to reach Chile under Al-lende. Once Allende comes to power

we shall do all within our power to con-demn Chile and the Chileans to utmostdeprivation and poverty, a policy de-signed for a long time to come to accel-erate the hard features of a Communistsociety in Chile”. (Quoted, Chomsky,Year 501 – The Conquest Continues,South End Press, 1993, p.36)NoamChomsky comments: “Even if

the hard line did not succeed in intro-ducing fascist killers to exterminate thevirus, the vision of ‘utmost deprivation’would suffice to keep the rot fromspreading, and ultimately demoralizethe patient itself.And crucially, it wouldprovide ample grist for the mill of thecultural managers, who can producecries of anguish at ‘the hard features ofa Communist society,’ pouring scorn onthose ‘apologists’ who describe what ishappening.” (Footnote 15; http://www.understandingpower.com/chap1.htm)On October 16, a secret cable from

CIA headquarters to the CIA stationchief in Santiago, read:“It is firm and continuing policy that

Allende be overthrown by a coup...prior to October 24. But efforts in thisregard will continue vigorously beyondthis date.We are to continue to gener-ate maximum pressure toward this endutilizing every appropriate resource. It isimperative that these actions be imple-mented clandestinely and securely sothat the USG [U.S. government] andAmerican hand be well hidden.”(Quoted, Kornbluh, op. cit)Despite initial difficulties in recruiting

officers within the Chilean army, sup-porters for the “hard line” were even-tually found and an initial, botchedcoup attempt was made in October

WHO’S COUP?

1970. The attack began with the assas-sination of the commander-in-chief ofthe Chilean army,Rene Schneider,whohad insisted that constitutional pro-cesses be followed. The assassinationbackfired, however, serving to consoli-date traditional army support for con-stitutional solutions.

IN a vanishingly rare mainstream arti-cle on the subject, the Observer’s GregPalast reported that the failed October1970 plot,using CIA “sub-machine gunsand ammo”,was “the direct result of aplea for action amonth earlier by Don-ald Kendall, chairman of PepsiCo, intwo telephone calls to the company’sformer lawyer, President RichardNixon”. (Palast, ‘Marxist threat to colasales? Pepsi demands aUS coup.Good-bye Allende. Hello Pinochet,’ The Ob-server, November 8, 1998; http://www.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,,305870,00.html)Palast described how Kendall had

arranged for the owner of PepsiCo’sChilean bottling operation tomeet Kis-singer on September 15. Hours later,Nixon called in CIA chief RichardHelms and,according to Helms’s hand-written notes, ordered the CIA to pre-vent Allende’s inauguration onNovem-ber 3.Meanwhile, an ITT board member,

ex-CIA director John McCone, pledgedKissinger $1 million in support of CIAaction to prevent Allende from takingoffice. In addition, Anaconda Copperand other multinationals offered$500,000 to buy influence with Chileancongressmen to reject confirmation ofAllende’s victory.

Having failed to prevent both Al-lende’s election victory and his inaugu-ration, the CIA continued pursuingboth its “soft” and “hard” lines.As CIAdirector William Colby later put it, thecampaign was a “prototype laboratoryexperiment to test the techniques ofheavy financial investment in an effortto discredit and bring down a govern-ment”. (Quoted,Mark Curtis,The Am-biguities of Power, Zed Books, 1995,p.129)A 1970 ITT memorandum stated: “A

more realistic hope among those whowant to block Allende is that a swiftly-deteriorating economy will touch off awave of violence leading to a militarycoup.” (Quoted, Blum, op. cit, p.211)While almost all economic aid was

cut off in its attempt to inflict “utmostdeprivation” on the Chilean people, theUnited States increased its military as-sistance to Chile in 1972 and 1973, andtrained Chilean military personnel inthe US and Panama. The focus was onstrengthening ties in pursuit of a “hardline” solution.The rationale for overthrowing Al-

lende was outlined in a CIA reportdated November 12, 1970: “Dr.SalvadorAllende became the first democrati-cally-elected Marxist head of state inthe history of Latin America – despitethe opposition of the U.S.Government.As a result, U.S. prestige and interestsare being affected materially at a timewhen the U.S. can ill afford problems inan area that has been traditionally ac-cepted as the U.S. ‘backyard’.” (Quoted,Kornbluh, op. cit)The US was concerned, Kissinger’s

aides recall, because “Allende was a liv-


Hours later,Nixon calledin CIA chiefRichard Helmsand, accordingto Helms’shandwrittennotes, orderedthe CIA topreventAllende’sinaugurationonNovember 3

WHO’S COUP?


Nixon officialswere delightedby the turnof events.A situationreport fromthe US militaryin Valparaisodeclared:“Chile’s coupd’etat was closeto perfect”

ing example of democratic social reformin Latin America.” (Quoted, Curtis,p.130) Kissinger stated that the “conta-gious example” of Chile would “infect”not only Latin America but also South-ern Europe. (Ibid)Chomsky comments on Allende: “He

was basically a social democrat, verymuch of the European type. He wascalling for minor redistribution ofwealth, to help the poor. (Chile was avery inegalitarian society.) Allende wasa doctor, and one of the things he didwas to institute a free milk program forhalf a million very poor, malnourishedchildren.He called for nationalization ofmajor industries like copper mining,and for a policy of international inde-pendence –meaning that Chile would-n’t simply subordinate itself to the US,but would takemore of an independentpath.” (‘Secrets, Lies and Democracy –Interview with Noam Chomsky,’ byDavid Barsamian; http://www. third-worldtraveler.com/Chomsky/Secret-sLies_Chile_Chom.html)

A SECOND, failed coup attempt wasmade on June 29, 1973.This is the BBC’sversion of events: “Political strife, rock-eting inflation and general economicchaos resulted in an abortive militarycoup in June 1973.” (‘Obituary:AugustoPinochet,’ December 10, 2006;http://news.bbc. co.uk/ 1/hi/world/americas/472707. stm)As discussed above, the BBC noted

merely that the CIA had made efforts“to destabilise the Allende govern-ment”.Ultimately, the superpower’s eco-

nomic sabotage, and political and mil-

itary subversion, was successful. OnSeptember 11, 1973, Chile’s militaryseized control of strategic sites through-out the country and cornered Allende inhis presidential offices, where he ap-parently committed suicide.The CIA’s Santiago station had ear-

lier described the operational intelli-gence it had collected: “arrest lists, keycivilian installations and personnel thatneed protection, key government in-stallations which need to be taken over,and government contingency planswhich would be used in case of a mili-tary uprising”. (Quoted, Blum, op. cit,p.213) US officials later denied that thisinformation had been passed on to thejunta, although the rapid arrests of keytargets immediately after the coup sug-gest otherwise,William Blum notes.Nixon officials were delighted by the

turn of events. A situation report fromthe US military in Valparaiso declared:“Chile’s coup d’etat was close to per-fect.” The report characterised it asChile’s “day of destiny” and “Our D-Day.” (Kornbluh, op. cit)In a telephone conversation taped

shortly after the coup andmade publicafter Nixon’s death, Kissinger is heardto laugh: “The press is bleeding becausea pro-Communist government has beenoverthrown.” Nixon responded: “Ourhand doesn’t show on this one,though.” (Washington Bullets: ‘PinochetAnd Kissinger,’ http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2006/12/12/washing-ton_bullets_pinochet_and_kissinger.php)Kissinger immediately authorised

the CIA to “assist the junta in gaining amore positive image,both at home and

WHO’S COUP?

abroad,” according to subsequently re-leased documents. (Kornbluh, op. cit)As part of these efforts, the CIA

helped the junta write a “white book”justifying the coup. Kornbluh writes:“The CIA financed advisors who helpedthe military prepare a new economicplan for the country. The CIA paid formilitary spokesmen to travel aroundthe world to promote the new regime.And, the CIA used its ownmedia assetsto cast the junta in a positive light.”The Nixon administration also sup-

ported Pinochet by opening the flood-gates on economic aid.Three weeks af-ter the coup, the US governmentauthorised $24 million in commoditycredits to buy wheat and $24 millionmore for feed corn, and planned thetransfer of two destroyers to theChilean navy.Ultimately, the coup plotters were

rewardedwith a 558 per cent increase inUS economic aid and a 1,079 per centincrease in US and multinational cred-its. (Rai,Chomsky’s Politics,Verso, 1995,p.67)

ONLY 19 days after Allende’s death,a se-cret briefing paper prepared forKissinger – entitled “Chilean Execu-tions” – put the “total dead” from thecoup at 1,500. The paper reported thatthe junta had summarily executed 320individuals – three times more thanpublicly acknowledged. After threemonths, 11,000 people had been killed.Between 1994-1997 a further 2,400 peo-ple disappeared. According to theCatholic Institute for International Re-lations (CIIR): “... the single-minded fe-rocity of the coup and the subsequent

deliberate use of torture, ‘disappear-ances’ and murder had at that time noparallel in the history of Chile or LatinAmerica, a continent with a long expe-rience of dictatorship andmilitary bru-tality”. (Quoted, Curtis, op. cit, p.130)CIIR described how the Pinochet

regime instigated a “policy of perma-nent terror.” (Ibid, p.131)When Kissinger was told of initial

reports of massacres following the couphe responded: “I think we should un-derstand our policy – that however un-pleasant they act, the [military] gov-ernment is better for us than Allendewas.” (Kornbluh, ‘The Pinochet File,’http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB110/index.htm)This is the Guardian’s version of

these events: “Pinochet quickly becameundisputed leader of the four-manjunta – declaring himself president in1974 – and set about the task of stamp-ing out opposition. The ferocity andsurgical precision of that repression re-pulsed theworld andmade Chile an in-ternational pariah for nearly twodecades.” (‘Repression,’ The Guardian,December 11, 2006)On December 11, I wrote to the

Guardian’s Isabel Hilton regarding herarticle that day, ‘A dictator dismantled.’(http://www.guardian.co.uk/chile/story/0,,1969317,00.html):

Dear IsabelI was interested to read your ar-

ticle, ‘A dictator dismantled,’ onComment Is Free. You write ofPinochet: “The dictatorship he in-stalled was not the bloodiest inLatin America. It was shocking be-cause it happened in a country


Only 19 daysafter Allende’sdeath, a secretbriefing paperprepared forKissinger– entitled“ChileanExecutions”– put the “totaldead” from thecoup at 1,500.The paperreported thatthe junta hadsummarilyexecuted 320individuals– three timesmore thanpubliclyacknowledged.After threemonths,11,000 peoplehad been killed

WHO’S COUP?


Is thesuppressionof this evidenceof the US rolein Chile’sbloodbathan irrelevantone-off?If the medianormally doa fearlesslyhonest job,it would beabsurd to maketoo much ofthese particularomissions,would it not?

proud of its democratic traditions.”Surely the real shock value lies in

the fact that the United States or-ganised the coup... [We cited GregPalast’s article]...That’s pretty shocking, isn’t it?

And there’s much more besides, ofcourse. But not a word in your arti-cle even hinted at it.Why not?Best wishesDavid Edwards

Hilton responded on December 16.Dear David EdwardsThere is never room to say

everything in a rather short articleand I have written about the USrole many times. Is it surprising orshocking that the US played a cen-tral role? Hardly. The US hadplayed that role in coups all overthe sub continent for some time,(for me the worst was the oneagainst Arbenz – worse for its longterm effect) their role in Chile wasnot surprising for anyone who fol-lowed Latin American events, andthe shock factor had long sinceworn off.bestIsabel Hilton

I replied on December 17:Dear IsabelMany thanks for your reply. You

write: “Is it surprising or shockingthat the US played a central role?Hardly. The US had played thatrole in coups all over the sub conti-nent for some time...”Yes, you know that, but do your

readers? In fact journalists generally

refer to the US role in Pinochet’scoup in vague terms (as in currentreporting) – the details and motivesare rarely discussed. As for thewider US pattern of forcibly subor-dinating people to profit, this is es-sentially a taboo subject for themedia.A media database search shows

that in the last ten years you havementioned the words ‘Pinochet’and the ‘CIA’ in three articles.Obvi-ously this covers a period when youwere writing about Pinochet’s de-tention in Britain. You have madeno mention at all of PepsiCo or ITTin connection with the 1973 coup.Unfortunately, your references toUS involvement have been superfi-cial and have buried the wider pat-tern discussed above.SincerelyDavid Edwards

Why does any of this matter?

Is the suppression of this evidence ofthe US role in Chile’s bloodbath an ir-relevant one-off? If the media normallydo a fearlessly honest job, it would beabsurd to make toomuch of these par-ticular omissions, would it not? Themedia track record is visible enough,readers can find any number of compa-rable examples in these andmany otherearlier alerts:http://www.medialens.org/alerts/06

/061113_hanging_saddam_hussein.phphttp://www.medialens.org/alerts/04

/040610_Reagan_Visions_1.HTMhttp://www.medialens.org/alerts/04

/040615_Reagan_Visions_2.HTMhttp://www.medialens.org/alerts/04

WHO’S COUP?

/040706_Covering_Mr_President.HTMhttp://www.medialens.org/alerts/02/020601_east_timor.htmlA stunningly consistent pattern

emerges. The elite corporate media al-ways passes over Western responsibil-ity for mass killing in the Third World.The standard motives at work – thesubordination of human rights to cor-porate profit – are buried even deeper.Deepest of all lies the systematic patterntraced over decades right across theThird World revealing the utter ruth-lessness of Western priorities.But why is this so crucially impor-

tant? The answer is because this sup-pression of the historical pattern en-ables contemporary politicians likeGeorge Bush and Tony Blair to deceivethe public when they claim to be pur-suing ‘democracy’ in Iraq, ‘freedom’ inIran, and a ‘just settlement’ in Pales-tine. It means that we in the West aresimply unable to understand what

Hugo Chavez represents for the peopleof Venezuela,what Evo Morales repre-sents for the people of Bolivia – what itis these nations know they have to fearandwhat they are desperately trying toresist.Forever presented a picture of Britain

and America as civilised and humane,how can the public imagine that humanbeings are systematically subordinatedto profit by their own governments?And how can anyone hope to preventfurther atrocities until this basic truth iswidely understood and acted upon? CT

David Edwards is co-editor, withDavid Cromwell, of the London-basedmedia watchdog, Medialens.(www.medialens.org). The Media Lensbook ‘Guardians of Power:The Myth Of The Liberal Media’ byDavid Edwards and David Cromwell(Pluto Books, London) was publishedlast year.


This suppressionof the historicalpattern enablescontemporarypoliticians likeGeorge Bushand Tony Blairto deceive thepublic whenthey claimto be pursuing‘democracy’ inIraq, ‘freedom’in Iran, and a‘just settlement’in Palestine

READ JOHN PILGERDownload all of his political essays andcolumns, all in pdf format, at

www.coldtype.net/columnists.html

WHO’S COUP?

http://www.coldtype.net/columnists.html


However, likewith all suchdesignermonsters madebigger than lifeduring the ColdWar and sinceby Washington,the truth aboutAhmadinejadis a bit morecomplicated.Accordingto people whoknow Farsi,the Iranianleader hasnever saidanything about“wiping Israeloff the map”

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is aman seemingly custom-made for theWhite Housein its endless quest for en-

emies with whom to scare Congress,the American people, and the world, inorder to justify the unseemly behaviorof the empire. The Iranian presidenthas declared that he wants to “wipe Is-rael off the map”. He’s said that “theHolocaust is a myth”.He recently helda conference in Iran for “Holocaust de-niers”. And his government passed anew law requiring Jews to wear a yel-low insignia, à la the Nazis. On top ofall that, he’s aiming to build nuclearbombs, one of which would surely beaimed at Israel. What right-thinkingperson would not be scared by such aman?However, as with all such designer

monsters made bigger than life duringthe ColdWar and since byWashington,the truth about Ahmadinejad is a bitmore complicated.According to peoplewho know Farsi, the Iranian leader hasnever said anything about “wiping Is-rael off the map”. In his October 29,

2005 speech, when he reportedly firstmade the remark, the word “map”does not even appear.According to thetranslation of Juan Cole,American pro-fessor of Modern Middle East andSouth AsianHistory,Ahmadinejad saidthat “the regime occupying Jerusalemmust vanish from the page of time.” Hisremark, said Cole, “does not imply mil-itary action or killing anyone at all,”which presumably is what wouldmakethe remark threatening.[1] Readers areadvised that the next time they comeacross such an Ahmadinejad citation tonote whether a complete sentence isbeing quoted, and not just “wipe Israeloff the map”.At the conference in Teheran (“Re-

view of the Holocaust:Global Vision”),the Iranian president said: “The Zionistregime will be wiped out soon, thesame way the Soviet Union was, andhumanity will achieve freedom.”[2]Ob-viously, the man is not calling for anykind of violent attack upon Israel, forthe dissolution of the Soviet Union didnot occur through force or violence.As for the Holocaust myth, I have

THE US GETS ANEWMONSTERBYWILLIAM BLUM

ANTI-EMPIRE REPORT


He also wondersabout theaccuracy of thenumber of Jews– six million –killed in theHolocaust,as have manyother peopleof all politicalstripes,includingHolocaustsurvivorssuch as authorPrimo Levi

yet to read or hear words from Ah-madinejad’s mouth saying simply andclearly and unequivocally that hethinks that the Holocaust never hap-pened. He has commented about thepeculiarity of a Holocaust which tookplace in Europe resulting in a state forthe Jews in the Middle East instead ofin Europe. And he argues that Israeland the United States have exploitedthe memory of the Holocaust for theirown imperialist purposes.He also won-ders about the accuracy of the numberof Jews – six million – killed in theHolocaust, as have many other peopleof all political stripes, including Holo-caust survivors such as author PrimoLevi. (The much publicized World WarOne atrocities which turned out to befalse made the public very skeptical ofthe Holocaust claims for a long time.)The conference gave a platform to

various points of view, including sixmembers of Jews United Against Zion-ism, at least two of whom were rabbis.One was Ahron Cohen, from London,who declared: “There is no doubt whatso ever, that during World War II theredeveloped a terrible and catastrophicpolicy and action of genocide perpe-trated by Nazi Germany against theJewish People.” He also said that “theZionists make a great issue of theHolocaust in order to further their ille-gitimate philosophy and aims,” indi-cating as well that the figure of sixmillion Jewish victims is debatable.Theother rabbi was Moshe David Weiss,who told the delegates: “We don’t wantto deny the killing of Jews inWorldWarII, but Zionists have givenmuch higherfigures for how many people were

killed.They have used theHolocaust asa device to justify their oppression.” Hisgroup rejects the creation of Israel onthe grounds that it violates Jewish reli-gious law in that a Jewish state can’texist until the return of the Messiah .[3]

Clearly, the conference – which theWhite House called “an affront to theentire civilized world”[4] – was not setup to be simply a forum for people todeny that the Holocaust, to any signif-icant degree, literally never took placeat all. I think it’s safe to say that veryfew of the attendees held this position,which is so untenable.As to the yellow star story of this

past May – that was a complete fabri-cation by a prominent Iranian-Ameri-can neo-conservative, Amir Taheri.There are as well other egregious ex-amples of Ahmadinejad’s policies andwords being twisted out of shape in theWestern media,making him look like adanger to all that’s holy and decent.Po-litical science professor Virginia Tilleyhas written a good account of this.“Why isMr.Ahmadinejad being so sys-tematically misquoted and demo-nized?” Tilley asks. “Need we ask? Ifthe world believes that Iran is prepar-ing to attack Israel, then the US or Is-rael can claim justification in attackingIran first.On that agenda, the disinfor-mation campaign about Mr. Ah-madinejad’s statements has beenbonded at the hip to a second set oflies: promoting Iran’s (nonexistent) nu-clear weapon programme.”[5]

Ahmadinejad, however, is partly toblame for this “disinformation”. I heardhim in an interviewwhile he was at theUN in September being asked directly

ANTI-EMPIRE REPORT


“Denyinghistorical facts,especiallyon suchan importantsubject asthe Holocaustis just notacceptable.Nor is itacceptableto call for theeliminationof any stateor people”

about “the map” and the reality of theHolocaust, and he refused to give ex-plicit answers of “yes” or “no”,which Iinterpret as his prideful refusal to ac-cede to the wishes of what he regardedas a hostileWestern interviewer askinghostile questions. In an interview withthe German news magazine, DerSpiegel (May 31 2006), Ahmadinejadstates: “We don’t want to confirm ordeny the Holocaust.” The Iranian pres-ident is also in the habit of prefacingcertain remarks with “Even if the Holo-caust happened ... “, a rhetorical devicewe all use in argument and discussion.It may already be too late. The con-

ventional wisdom about what Ah-madinejad has said and meant mayalready be set in marble. Ban I Moon,at a news conference on December 14,after being sworn in as the new secre-tary-general of the UnitedNations,wasasked by an Israeli reporter whetherthe United Nations was going to ad-dress the issue of Holocaust deniers.Ban replied: “Denying historical facts,especially on such an important subjectas the Holocaust is just not acceptable.Nor is it acceptable to call for the elim-ination of any state or people.”[6] Let’shope that this is not very indicative ofthe independence of mind that we canexpect from the new secretary-general.Myths die so hard.Time magazine has just foregone its

usual selection of “Person of the Year”and instead chosen “You”, the Internetuser. Managing editor Richard Stengelsaid that if it came down to one indi-vidual it probably would have beenMahmoud Ahmadinejad, but that “Itjust felt to me a little off selecting

him.”[7] In previous years Time’s “Personof the Year” has included Joseph Stalinand Adolf Hitler.

No one ever thinks they’reguilty of anything. They’re alljust good ol’ patriots

General Augusto Pinochet, who es-caped earthly justice on December 10,was detained in London in 1999 await-ing a ruling by a British court onwhether he would be extradited toSpain on a Spanish judge’s warrant toface charges of crimes against human-ity committed during his rule in Chilefrom 1973 to 1990. “I tell you how I feel,”he told a London journalist at the time.“I would like to be remembered as aman who served his country, whoserved Chile throughout his entire lifeon this earth. And what he did was al-ways done thinking about the welfareof Chile.”[8]

P.W. Botha, former president ofSouth Africa died November 1.He wasa man who had vigorously defendedthe apartheid system,which led to thejailing of tens of thousands of people.He never repented or apologized for hisactions, and resisted attempts to makehim appear before the South AfricanTruth and Reconciliation Commission.At one point he declared: “I am notgoing to repent. I am not going to askfor forgiveness.What I did, I did for mycountry.”[9]

As Pol Pot lay on his death bed in1997, he was interviewed by a journal-ist, who later wrote: “Askedwhether hewants to apologize for the suffering hecaused, he looks genuinely confused,has the interpreter repeat the question,

ANTI-EMPIRE REPORT

and answers ‘No’. ... ‘I want you toknow that everything I did, I did for mycountry’.”[10]

“In these three decades I have beenactuated solely by love and loyalty tomy people in all my thoughts, acts, andlife.” Adolf Hitler, “LastWill and Testa-ment”, written in his bunker in his finalhours, April 29, 1945.Fast Forward now to 2036 ...George

W. Bush lies dying, Fox News Channelis in the room recording his last words... “I know that people think the wholething ... that thing in Iraq ... was a badthing, and they hold it against me ... Iappreciate their view ... I can under-stand how they feel ...But y’know, I didit for America, and the American peo-ple, and their freedom ...Themore youlove freedom, the more likely it is you’llbe attacked ... Saddam was a realthreat ... I still think he hadweapons ofmass destruction ... and someday we’llfind ‘em ... someday we’ll say missionaccomplished! ... that will really be aturning point! ... So I’m prepared tomeet my maker and whatever he hasin mind for me ... in fact I say Bring iton!”William Shirer, in his monumental

work “The Rise and Fall of the ThirdReich”, comments that Hitler’s LastWill and Testament “confirm that theman who had ruled over Germanywith an iron hand for more than twelveyears, and over most of Europe for four,had learned nothing from his experi-ence.”[11]

Shirer tells us of another happeningconcerning Hitler’s bunker, on April 12.When news of the death of PresidentFranklin Roosevelt reached Nazi Prop-

aganda Minister Joseph Goebbels, hephoned Hitler in the bunker. “MyFuehrer,” Goebbels said. “I congratu-late you! Roosevelt is dead! ... It is theturning point.”[12]

The United Statesof Punishment

2.2 million imprisoned ... “We’re Num-ber One! USA! USA! USA!” ... 7 million– one in every 32 American adults – ei-ther behind bars, on probation, or onparole ...When it comes to sentencing,let me tell you, people, and pardon mylanguage, the United States is one hellof a tough mother fucker ... beginningwithmandatoryminimum sentences ...there are tens of thousands of youngmen rotting their lives away in Ameri-can prisons for simple possession of adrug, for their own use, for their ownpleasure, to enjoy with a friend,no vic-tims involved.Do you think a person should be in

prison if he hasn’t hurt anyone? Eitherphysically, financially, or in some otherreal and serious manner?Jose Antonio Lopez, a legal perma-

nent resident with a family and busi-ness in South Dakota, was deportedback to Mexico a while ago because ofa cocaine charge – Sale? No. Use? No.Possession? No. ... He told someonewhere they could buy some.[13]

Another man was sentenced to 55years in prison for three marijuanadeals because he was in possession of agun each time,which he did not use orbrandish. Possession of a firearm in adrug transaction requires amuch stifferprison sentence.Four former attorneys-general and


When it comesto sentencing,let me tellyou, people,and pardonmy language,the UnitedStates is onehell of a toughmother fucker

ANTI-EMPIRE REPORT


In the US, themere mentionof the word“terrorist” in acourtroom willlikely bringdown 30, 40, 50years, life inprison, on thedefendant’shead, evenfor only thinkingand talkingof an action,an Orwellian“thoughtcrime”,with nothingconcrete doneto furtherthe plan

145 former prosecutors and judgeswrote in support of a lighter sentencefor this man. The presiding judge him-self called the sentence “unjust, crueland irrational”, but said the law lefthim no choice.[14]

On December 1, a court in the Neth-erlands convicted four Dutch Muslimsof plotting terrorist attacks against po-litical leaders and government build-ings. The heaviest sentence for any ofthem was eight years.[15] On December13, a priest was convicted of taking partin Rwanda’s 1994 genocide by orderingmilitiamen to set fire to a church andthen bulldoze it while 2,000 people see-king safety were huddled inside. TheInternational Criminal Tribunal forRwanda sentenced him to 15 years inprison.[16] Considerably lighter senten-ces than in the United States are gen-erally a common phenomenon inmuchof the world. In the US, the mere men-tion of the word “terrorist” in a court-room will likely bring down 30, 40, 50years, life in prison, on the defendant’shead, even for only thinking andtalking of an action, an Orwellian“thoughtcrime”,with nothing concretedone to further the plan.Colombian drug traffickers, British

Muslims, and others accused of “ter-rorist” offenses strenuously fight extra-dition to the United States for fear ofUncle Sam’s merciless fist. They’re thelucky ones amongst Washington’s for-eign targets; they’re not kidnapped offthe street and flown shackled andblindfolded to secret dungeons in shad-owy corners of the world to be tor-tured.For those who think that no punish-

ment is too severe, too cruel, in theWaron Terrorism against the Bad Guys, itmust be asked what they think of thecase of the Cuban Five. These are fiveCubans who were engaged in theUnited States in the 1990s trying to un-cover information about anti-Castroterrorists based in Miami, some ofwhom shortly before had been carry-ing out a series of bombing attacks inHavana hotels and may have beenplotting new attacks. The Five infil-trated Cuban-American organizationsbased in Miami to monitor their ac-tions, and they informed the Cubangovernment of their findings. TheCuban government then passed onsome of the information to the FBI.And what happened next? The FBI ar-rested the five Cubans.The Cubans were held in solitary

confinement for 17 months; eventuallythey were tried, and in 2001 convictedon a variety of charges thrown togetherby the government for the occasion, in-cluding murder (sic!) and conspiracy tocommit espionage (probably the firstcase in American judicial history of al-leged espionage without a single pagefrom a single secret document). Theywere sentenced to prison terms rangingfrom 15 years to life. But the federalgovernment’s lust for punishment wasstill not satisfied.They havemade it ex-tremely difficult for their Cuban pris-oners to receive family visits. Two ofthem have not seen their wives andchildren since their arrest in 1998; theother three have had only scarcely bet-ter luck.[17]

Yet another glorious chapter in theWar on Terrorism.

ANTI-EMPIRE REPORT

The making of official history

It was just a passing remark in an As-sociated Press story about the recentoverthrow of the Fiji government. “Itwas the nation’s fourth coup in 19years,” the article noted, the first beingthe 1987 coup. “The takeover, like theprevious three coups, has its roots inthe ethnic divide between the descen-dants of ancient Melanesian warriortribes and those of Indian laborersbrought by former colonial powerBritain to work in sugar plantations.”[18]

That’s how “official history” is createdand passed on, all the more effectivebecause it’s unconscious, unknowing,voluntary, and done by “objective”journalists.In 1987, Fiji Prime Minister Timoci

BavradamadeWashington officials un-happy by identifying himself with thenon-aligned movement (always a riskfor a country during the ColdWar),andeven more so by taking office with apledge to reinstate Fiji as a nuclear freezone,meaning that nuclear-powered ornuclear-weapons-carrying ships couldnot make port calls. When Bavrada’spredecessor,R.S.K.Mara, instituted thesame policy in 1982, he was put underintense American pressure to drop it.Said the US ambassador to Fiji thatyear,William Bodde, Jr., “a nuclear freezone would be unacceptable to the US,given our strategic needs ... the USmust do everything possible to counterthis movement.” The following year,Mara dropped the policy.Twoweeks after Bavrada took office,

American UN Ambassador VernonWalters visited the island. The formerDeputy Director of the CIA had a long

and infamous history of showing upshortly before, during, or shortly afterCIA destabilization operations.Waltersmet with Bavrada,ostensibly to discussUN matters. He also met with Lt. Col.Sitiveni Rabuka, third-in-command ofthe Army.Two weeks later, Rabuka leda military coup which ousted Bavrada.The day after the coup, a Pentagon

source,while denying US involvement,declared: “We’re kinda delighted ... Allof a sudden our ships couldn’t go to Fiji,and now all of a sudden they can.”These happenings, and others con-

cerning the 1987 Fiji coup which I re-count elsewhere [19], are of the type thatthe mainstream media typically ignoreor, if obliged to deal with them, wouldhave us believe are no more than coin-cidences.The anonymous author of the Asso-

ciated Press story can be forgiven fornot knowing of the American finger-prints all over the Fiji coup. The storyhas probably not appeared in anymedia except those on the left; if bychance a mainstream editor cameacross such a story he would likely dis-miss it as a “conspiracy theory”. Well,you can call people like me “conspiracytheorists” if you call everyone else “co-incidence theorists”.There are of course implausible con-

spiracy theories, but that is an alto-gether different matter.

Some things to look forwardto in 2007

JANUARY: Insurgents in Iraq explode anuclear bomb, totally destroying all ofIraq and everyone in it. Bush declares:“There will be no change in our policy


The day afterthe coup, aPentagonsource, whiledenying USinvolvement,declared:“We’re kindadelighted ...All of a suddenour shipscouldn’t goto Fiji, and nowall of a suddenthey can”

ANTI-EMPIRE REPORT


The anonymousauthor of theAssociated Pressstory canbe forgivenfor not knowingof the Americanfingerprintsall over theFiji coup.The story hasprobably notappeared in anymedia exceptthose on theleft; if by chancea mainstreameditor cameacross such astory he wouldlikely dismiss itas a “conspiracytheory”

of bringing freedom and democracy tothe people of Iraq.We will not cut andrun.”MARCH: To add to the ban of liquids

and jells aboard aircraft, solids are nowbanned. But gasses are still allowed.JUNE: Halliburton is awarded a 300

million dollar no-bid contract to inves-tigate contractor fraud in Iraq.SEPTEMBER: New York City police-

men run down, then shoot,mace, stab,beat up,and hang aMuslim resident ofBrooklyn after thinking that he mightbe a suspected terrorist who fit the Ter-rorist Profile, was alleged to be on theMaster Terrorist Watch List, and ap-peared to be carrying what they imag-ined, or think they imagined,might bea concealed bomb,or something of thatnature.NOVEMBER: George W. announces

that he will ask Congress to give em-bryos the vote.DECEMBER:Gasses are now banned

aboard aircraft. The only permittedforms of matter are now ionized atoms,electrons, neutrinos, quarks, and darkmatter. (The last being what Dick Ch-eney is completely composed of, he isallowed aboard any airplane.) CT

NOTES

[1] AlterNet,www.alternet.org/,May 5,2006[2] Associated Press, December 12, 2006[3] nkusa.org/activities/Speeches/2006Iran-ACohen.cfm (Cohen’s talk); Tele-graph.co.uk, article by Alex Spillius, De-cember 13, 2006; Associated Press,December 12, 2006

[4] Associated Press, December 12, 2006[5] counterpunch.org/tilley08282006.html[6] Washington Post, December 15, 2006,p.27[7] Associated Press, December 16, 2006[8] Sunday Telegraph (London), July 18,1999[9] Democracy Now (Pacifica Network),November 1, 2006[10] Nate Thayer, in Far Eastern EconomicReview (Hong Kong),October 30, 1997,pages 15 and 20[11] paperback edition, p.1459[12] Ibid., p.1441[13] Washington Post, December 6, 2006,p.3[14] Bulletin News Network, Inc., TheWhite House Bulletin, December 4, 2006[15] Associated Press, December 1, 2006[16] Associated Press, December 13, 2006[17] For the details of the case see myessay, “Cuban political prisoners ... in theUnited States”,members.aol.com/bblum6/polpris.htm[18] Associated Press, December 6, 2006[19] William Blum, Rogue State: A Guideto the World’s Only Superpower, pages199-200 CT

William Blum is the author of:Killing Hope: US Military and CIAInterventions Since World War 2;Rogue State: A Guide to the World’sOnly Superpower; West-BlocDissident: A Cold War Memoir;Freeing the World to Death: Essays onthe American Empire.His Anti-Empire Reports and excerptsfrom his books may be read atwww.killinghope.org

ANTI-EMPIRE REPORT

Not only ispet foodpopular amongpoor families,but pigskinand discardedfat from beefalso sell wellin the country’steemingworking classsuburbs


While Kenyans took of-fence at the offer of dogfood for hungry childrenlast year, Zimbabweans

are queuing up at meat suppliers andabattoirs to buy pet food. They craveany kind of meat, and quality productsare now far beyond the means of ordi-nary people.Not only is pet food popular among

poor families, but pigskin and dis-carded fat from beef also sell well in thecountry’s teeming working class sub-urbs. Kenyan officials dismissed as“culturally insulting” the offer of pow-dered dog food to feed starving chil-dren made by the founder of a dogbiscuit company in New Zealand.The offer might have received a

warmer welcome from poor Zimbab-weans, who had been forced to adopt avegetarian diet before they discoveredpackaged pet food.Beef and pork now cost between

4,000 and 6,000 Zimbabwean dollars(16 to 24 US dollars) a kilogram in thesupermarkets. A family of six whichwould have consumed 12 kilos of meat

amonth in the days before Zimbabwe’seconomic implosion began would nowneed to spend 72,000 Zimbabwean dol-lars (288 US dollars).Eighty per cent of the population is

unemployed and the majority of peo-ple in work earn less than 20,000 Zim-babwean dollars a month. People buypet food even though the packagingclearly states that it is not for humanconsumption. A 500-gram packet ofbranded pet food costs around 1,250Zimbabwean dollars – five US dollars– and a kilo of “meat sawdust” whichcontains meat gristle and bone and issold as dog meat by abattoirs costs1,200 Zimbabwean dollars.Those who cannot afford pet food

have to be content with flavouringboiled rape leaves with animal fat cutfrom beef or pork.Dignity is a luxury few can afford

these days in a country which untilseven years agowas the breadbasket ofsouthern Africa. At Colcom Foods inHarare’s Willowvale area, there arelong queues at the department wherepet food is sold.

WHAT’S FORDINNER? PET FOODBY JIMMYMOYANA

INSIDE ZIMBABWE

“To us pet foodis a relish welook forward to.It gives us thefeeling of theold days whenwe had chickenand rice atChristmas”


I asked some of the people waitingwhat they were planning to buy. Onewoman from the densely populatedMbare suburb, one of the poorest resi-dential areas in Harare, said softly, “Petfood.What else?”Upon further probing, the woman,

who asked not to be named as she feltashamed, said the pet food was for herfamily. “Pet food is food and it is per-fectly edible by human beings,” shesaid. “What can I do when I cannot af-ford to buymeat? Have you ever tastedit? It’s like minced meat and is verytasty.We boil it or fry it andmix it withvegetables.We go through a 500-grampacket of pet food in three to four days.We eat the whole packet all at once ifwe want to give ourselves a treat.”This woman is a widow with three

children, who sells bananas at MbareMusika, the biggest vegetable marketin Harare. On a lucky day she makes600 Zimbabwean dollars, enough tobuy two loaves of bread.“I feel so humiliated. I never dreamt

in all my life that I would queue up tobuy dog meat. I feel worthless – andwhat is dignity in Zimbabwe?We haveall been reduced to nothing, to worth-less human beings,” she said. “At leastwhen I cook the dog food or meatshavings, if I am lucky to get them atour nearby butchery, I can tastemeat. Itgives the vegetables a different flavourand I get the protein that has beenlacking in my diet.”She is not alone in her humiliation.

Harare resident Patrick Kaseke toldIWPR he felt it was important to pro-vide a “balanced diet” to his family.In what people now regard as the

golden past – just seven years ago butseemingly a lifetime away – most peo-ple, even the poor, ate well. Now themost important thing is to ensure thatthe family has something eat.“Tell mewhat is better: eating boiled

covo [a spinach-like leaf] or rape everysingle day, or eating meat shavings ordog meat on some days and covo orrape on other days?” asked Patrick. “Atmy house we call the pet food ‘mincedmeat’ because I don’t want my childrengrowing up knowing that they hadbeen reduced to the level of a dog. Itkills their spirit. To us pet food is a rel-ish we look forward to. It gives us thefeeling of the old days when we hadchicken and rice at Christmas.”One worker at a slaughterhouse

close to the city centre said there wasnow such a high demand for sawdust,pigskin and fat that they had to putsome aside for their own families.“It is meat,” he said. “Sawdust is the

remnants when slicing meat. So thereis really nothing wrong in eating it.They are cheap products but taste justlike minced meat. You must try them.”Both consumers and their govern-

ment are paying little heed to the long-term implications of a poor diet– particularly among children.As the government grapples with

the huge economic challenges facingthe country, nutrition is not on theagenda. CT

Jimmy Moyana is a pseudonym for areporter for International War andPeace Reporting (IWPR) in Harare.This article originally appeared on theIWPR web site – www.iwpr.net


INSIDE ZIMBABWE

On September 19, 2005, JasonChristy, the head of ChristyMedia and the publisherand editor-in-chief of The

Church Report, a national news andbusiness journal for pastors and Chris-tian leaders, was named executive di-rector of the Christian Coalition by theorganization’s president, RobertaCombs. “I am honored and humbled tobe chosen by the Christian Coalition’sBoard of Directors for this key posi-tion,” Christy said. “It is crucial at thistime in our nation for people of faith toengage the culture, and to realize thatat the grassroots level they can make adifference.”Less than a month later, Christy

changed his mind, deciding not to takethe position.According toWord News,Christy intimated that it would be dif-ficult to work with the Christian Coali-tion and continue running his variousbusinesses.Less than a year later, the Coalition’s

board voted to name Joel Hunter pres-ident of the organization. Hunterwas/is the senior pastor of the nonde-

nominational Longwood, Florida-based Northland Church, also knownas Northland A Church Distributed,and a founder of both the ChristianCitizen and the Alliance for the Dis-tributed Church. In late November,however, Hunter stepped down aspresident-elect (he was to have as-sumed office on January 1), saying thathe had wanted the organization tofocus on issues other than abortion andsame-sex marriage (such as povertyand environmental protection), butCoalition leaders did not. “I think theboard just got scared,” said Hunter, theauthor of “Right Wing, Wrong Bird:Why the Tactics of the Religious RightWon’t Fly With Most ConservativeChristians.”The withdrawal of the media-savvy

Christy and the forward-looking Hun-ter – albeit for different reasons –issurely indicative of a once mighty or-ganization going south. However, likeSpain’s Fascist dictator, GeneralísimoFrancisco Franco, who was kept aliveso that his death would coincide withthe anniversary of the death of another

In lateNovember,however,Hunter steppeddown aspresident-elect ,saying thathe had wantedthe organizationto focus onissues otherthan abortionand same-sexmarriage (suchas poverty andenvironmentalprotection),but Coalitionleaders did not


END TIMES FORTHE COALITIONBYBILL BERKOWITZ

CHRISTIAN COALITION

well-known fascist leader 39 years ear-lier, the Christian Coalition’s demise istaking a dreadfully long time to play it-self out. While Reports of Franco’sdeath made it into the popular culture– it became a recurring item during thesatiric Weekend Update segment onthe then-new “Saturday Night Live”program – the death of the ChristianCoalition probably won’t get the samecomedic treatment.

IT SHOULD be noted that in its day, theChristian Coalition became the heirand-then-some to the Rev. Jerry Fal-well’s Moral Majority. Pat Robertson’sChristian Coalition (CC) set the goldstandard for Christian conservativegrassroots organizing efforts, fundrais-ing ability and lobbying efforts well intothe 1990s.At its peak,one of the organization’s

claims to fame was its highly partisanVoter Guides. In 2000, it distributedover 70million voter guides in churchesall across America, including over 5 mil-lion in Spanish (approximately 2 mil-lion of which were distributed inFlorida alone). In the 2004 electioncycle, the group claimed that it distrib-uted around 30 million voter guides,but this time in targeted states andcongressional districts, choosing in-stead to focus its efforts on areas thatwere more politically competitive.“The once-mighty Christian Coali-

tion founded 17 years ago by the Rev.Pat Robertson as the political fundrais-ing and lobbying engine of the Chris-tian right, is more than $2 million indebt, beset by creditors’ lawsuits andstruggling to hold on to some of its

state chapters,” the Washington Postreported in April of this year. “InMarch, one of its most effective chap-ters, the Christian Coalition of Iowa,cut ties with the national organizationand reincorporated itself as the IowaChristian Alliance, saying it “found itimpossible to continue to carry a namethat in any way associated us with thisnational organization.”Stephen L.Scheffler,president of the

Iowa affiliate since 2000, said that “Thecredibility is just not there like it oncewas. The budget has shrunk from $26million to $1 million. There’s a trail ofdebt ...We believe, our board believes,any Christian organization has an obli-gation to pay its debts in a timely fash-ion.”In reality, the organization hasn’t

been the same since Ralph Reed, theorganization’s baby-faced point manwho garnered serious face time on tel-evision pushing the organization’sagenda, and Robertson, the founderand chief operating officer left theCoalition.“After the founders left, the Christian

Coalition never fully recovered,” JamesL. Guth, an expert on politics and reli-gion at Furman University in SouthCarolina, told the Washington Post’sAlan Cooperman and Thomas B.Edsallin April 2006. “The dependence onRobertson and Reed was really disas-trous.”Reed resigned as the CC’s executive

director in 1997, leaving to head up hisown political consulting firm (CenturyStrategies), become head of Georgia’sRepublican Party, and to set the stagefor launching his own political career.

At its peak,one of theorganization’sclaims to famewas its highlypartisanVoter Guides.In 2000, itdistributedover 70 millionvoter guidesin churches allacross America,includingover 5 millionin Spanish


CHRISTIAN COALITION

Earlier this year, unable to slide outfrom under reports of his close connec-tion to GOP uber-lobbyist, the now-imprisoned Jack Abramoff, Reed wasdefeated in his bid to become theGOP’s candidate for lieutenant gover-nor.Robertson left in 2001 after a CNN

interview in which he defended China’sone-child policy, a position that horri-fied fellow Christian conservatives.Robertson’s China comment,accordingto the Washington Post, “was amongthe most damaging in a series of re-marks that have hurt Robertson’sstanding among evangelical Christians-- and may have hurt the ChristianCoalition as well.”“The Christian Coalition was al-

ready on life support. Robertson’s re-marks probably mean its demise,” saidformer Christian Coalition lobbyistMarshall Wittmann, who before hewas recently hired to be the communi-cations director and spokesman forSenator Joe Lieberman (I-CT), was asenior fellow at the Progressive PolicyInstitute, a think tank affiliated withthe Democratic Leadership Council andpartially funded by the Lynde andHarry Bradley Foundation.

ROBERTA COMBS, who coordinatedRobertson’s South Carolina campaignduring his run to head the GOP presi-dential ticket in 1988, replaced him ashead of the Christian Coalition fiveyears ago. Claiming that the organiza-tion was in horrendous financial straits,Coombs cleaned house and made ene-mies.“I had to let a lot of staff go,and they

all got upset with me because theywere close to Ralph [Reed]. Of coursethey said bad things about me. But wegot a lot of that [debt] paid down overtime,” Combs told the WashingtonPost.While she may have succeeded in

cleaning house and making enemies,one thing she didn’t do was straightenout the organization’s financials, ac-cording to the Washington Post: “IRSrecords show that the Christian Coali-tion’s red ink has remounted. Its debtsexceeded its assets by $983,000 in 2001,$1.3 million in 2002, $2 million in 2003and $2.28million at the end of 2004, themost recent year for which it has filed anonprofit tax return.”“Lawsuits for unpaid bills have mul-

tiplied. The Christian Coalition’s long-time law firm –Huff,Poole &MahoneyPC of Virginia Beach – says it is owed$69,729. Global Direct, a fundraisingfirm in Oklahoma, is suing for $87,000in expenses. Reese & Sons Inc., a mov-ing company in District Heights, is try-ing to recover $1,890 for packing upfurniture when the Christian Coalitionclosed its Washington office in 2002.”The resignation of Joel Hunter pre-

cludes any chance that the ChristianCoalition might emerge as a new andforward-looking organization.“My position is,unless we are caring

as much for the vulnerable outside thewomb as inside the womb, we’re notcarrying out the full message of Jesus,”Hunter said in a late-November tele-phone interview with the WashingtonPost.“They [Christian Coalition leaders]

began to think this might threaten their

“My positionis, unlesswe are caringas much forthe vulnerableoutside thewomb as insidethe womb,we’re notcarrying outthe fullmessageof Jesus”


CHRISTIAN COALITION

base or evaporate some of their sup-port, and they said they just couldn’tgo there.” Although concerned aboutthe organization’s precarious financials,his resignation did not stem from thatfactor: “I got a look at who they owedmoney to. It’s sobering. But with theright leadership and the capability ofrebuilding a grass-roots organization,it’s not insurmountable. My churchbudget is $15 million a year ... It’s nottoo intimidating for me to think I couldhave raised that kind of money.”According to the newspaper, Rob-

erta Combs, chairman of the coalition’sfour-member board, “said that Hunter“is still a good friend” but that theyagreed during a November 21 confer-ence call that “it would be best foreveryone if he did not become presi-dent.”Combs pointed out that the organi-

zation has “been wanting to broadenour agenda for some time.But there’s away to do that. We wanted to surveyour supporters first and make surethey’re on board on new issues. Joelsaw it differently – he just wanted to go

out and do it.”Interestingly enough, when Time

magazine ran a cover story earlier thisyear headlined “The 25 Most Influen-tial Evangelicals in America,” not oneChristian Coalition spokesperson wasamongst them. With Dr. James Dob-son’s Focus on the Family, TonyPerkins’ Family Research Council, andthe Southern Baptist Convention hav-ing eclipsed the Coalition in lobbyingeffectiveness since even before PatRobertson’s leaving the organization,Hunter’s ideas represented an oppor-tunity for a new beginning.WithHunter’s resignation, it appears

that Christian Coalition leaders havesoundly rejected changing the way ithas been doing business.The organiza-tion’s long slide from its glory days torelative obscurity will no doubt con-tinue. CT

Bill Berkowitz is a longtime observerof the conservative movement,documenting the strategies, players,institutions, victories and defeats of theAmerican Right

With Hunter’sresignation,it appearsthat ChristianCoalitionleaders havesoundly rejectedchangingthe way it hasbeen doingbusiness.Theorganization’slong slide fromits glory daysto relativeobscuritywill no doubtcontinue


CHRISTIAN COALITION

ARE YOU A JOE BAGEANT FAN?Download and read his political andhumorous essays, all in pdf format, at:

www.coldtype.net/joe.html

http://www.coldtype.net/joe.html

They bemoanthe fact thatthere wasmore spinand opinionizingthan reportingalong with lessinvestigativereporting.And thenthey do it allover again


After every election, there arepost-mortems and then, afterthat, come the studies to con-firm the presence of many in-

stitutional and deep seated flaws in ourritualized electoral-democracy.Annually, journalists acknowledge

their own limits and mistakes. Thehonest ones admit a uniformity of out-look in which the horse race is over-covered and the issues undercovered.They concede that there was a focus

on polls without explaining their limitsadequately or how polls in turn are af-fected by the volume and slant ofmedia coverage. There are criticisms ofhow negative ads and entertainmentvalues infiltrated election coverage,what Time magazine calls “electotain-ment.”They bemoan the fact that there was

more spin and opinionizing than re-porting along with less investigative re-porting.And then they do it all over again.It happened again this year, as if the

media industry and the press corpsnever learns from its ownmistakes and

is doomed to repeat them. Why? PhilTroustine former political editor of theSan Jose Mercury News, told the mag-azine Nieman Reports, “too many re-porters are cynics, not just skeptics.This leads to the sense that they arehard-bitten realists when they are sim-plistic and often biased.”They also work for corporate media

outlets who design the coverage andassign the journalists. Mostly, they arenot free or independent agents.A 2006 survey by the Committee of

Concerned Journalists of their ownmembers revealed that many journal-ists think the news media failed votersby not adequately covering this pastyear’s campaigns.“Only 3% give the press an A grade,

while another 27% give the newsmediaa B.At the same time,42% give the cov-erage a C and 27% say D or F.“The poll surveyed 499 CCJ mem-

bers between October 8 and October15th. The Committee is a national con-sortium of journalists and journalismeducators in various media.”The Mediaocracy blog, inspired by a

MEDIA MADNESS

DEMOCRACYTAKES A BEATINGBYDANNY SCHECHTER

MEDIA MADNESS

The system isNOT workingwell. OnNovember 26,three weeksAFTER theelection,the NY Timesdiscoveredthat votingmachines inFloridaswallowed18,000 votesand worrirdthat withouta verified papertrail, resultswould becompromised


book I wrote of the same name asks:“What are the particular concernsthese journalists have? By large majori-ties they feel the news media has be-come sidetracked by trivial issues, hasbeen too reactive and has focused toomuch on the inside baseball that does-n’t really matter to voters, according tothe survey.“In other words, most of the cam-

paign reporting does not deliver whatjournalists think the public wants orneeds.This is in line with other generalsurveys of reporters regarding the cur-rent state of their profession.A PewRe-search Center report in 2000 showedthat less than 40% of journalists sur-veyed said the media was fulfilling itspublic responsibilities.”

The latest study

The Project on Excellence in Journalismhas just assessed this past year’s elec-tion after extensive on day research:“On Nov. 7, a team of researchers

from the Project for Excellence in Jour-nalism monitored the coverage of 32news outlets – 18 web sites, six blogs,four broadcast networks, three cablechannels, and NPR as the results rolledin and Congress changed hands. Thisreport, ‘Election Night 2006’: AnEvening in the Life of the AmericanMedia,” breaks down that performanceby media platform and contains anevaluation of each individual outlet.”What did they find?“l. The twomost valuable things the

news media offers on these fast-mov-ing election nights now is a quick sum-mary of key results for those wantingthe headlines and deep veins of data

that users can mine on their own.Thatmay explain why TV web sites faredwell.“2. In contrast, rich narrative story

telling and snap punditry, the long suitof the morning newspaper and the TVtelecast,may be less valuable – at leastas the numbers are rolling in on thefirst night.“3.Most news organizations are still

finding their way in this new multi-media environment.Often they are try-ing to do too many things and lack theresources and flexibility to adjust to thespeed of the news. They need to makeclearer choices.“4. The Exit Poll may be more im-

portant today, not less, since users areprobing that information directly, func-tioning as their own editors – goingstate by state, looking for demographicinformation, late deciders, and more.This is not just the purview of expertsand academicians anymore.”“5. When the system works, voting

occurs without widespread problemsand the media establishment isn’t fal-tering-citizen sentinels, bloggers, andother observers, while potentially im-portant watchdogs, have a more re-stricted role.”Sorry to disagree. The system is

NOT working well. On November 26,three weeks AFTER the election, theNY Times discovered that voting ma-chines in Florida swallowed 18,000votes and worried that without a veri-fied paper trail, results would be com-promised. Their editorial was titled“Déjà vu” in Florida.” The Timesseemed shocked in concluding thatelectronic voting “could end up under-

mining democracy”COULD?Now I am the one who is shocked.

How is it that so many of our main-stream media outlets IGNORED thisproblem,and did not demand that it befixed BEFORE the election. For yearsnow, an election integrity movementhas been crusading on this issue butthey have been brushed aside, and arerarely in the news.There is no shortageof information on the subject.

Burying the lead

Years ago, Jim Naureckas of FAIRwrote: “In journalism, it’s called ‘bury-ing the lead.’ A story starts off withwhat everyone already knows, whilethe real news – the most surprising,significant or never-been-told-beforeinformation – gets pushed downwhere people are less likely to see it ...”Why? What accounts for media or-

ganizations looking away and coveringelections the same way each year as ifthey are following routines?Says Naureckas: “Many journalists

are instinctively protective of the legit-imacy of the institutions they cover.”He then adds, “but the job of a jour-nalist is not to promote but to question.The theory behind the First Amend-ment is that the system will bestrengthened by an unflinching look atthe system’s flaws.”Toomany journalists fail to separate

the election outcomes from the self-in-terested financial interests that influ-ence them or the way incumbentsmanipulate the system to their advan-tage.Elections are often determined by

what’s called the “Air War” – TV com-mercials, many negative attacks adsthat domoremisrepresenting than pre-senting, more selling than telling. Thecost of these political ads on television,the third highest source of ad revenuesfor the industry,hasmore than quadru-pled since 1982.Today, commercial media has gone

AWOL on this most obvious responsi-bility. “Pre-election news coverage ofthe candidates has in many cases allbut disappeared,” says Paul Taylor,chairman of the Alliance for BetterCampaigns – a MediaChannel Affiliatethat advocates free airtime for candi-dates. “What little candidate coveragethat remains is devoted to incumbents,by a margin of nearly five to one, overchallengers.”In a study of media coverage,Media

Channel affiliate Norman Lear Centerrevealed that the amount of election-centered discourse provided by thetypical local station during the heightof the 2000 presidential primary sea-son was just 39 seconds a night – farshort of the five-minute standard ad-vocated by a 1998 presidential advisorycommission headed by then Vice Pres-ident Al Gore.Another MediaChannel affiliate, the

Center for Media and Public Affairs,found that the total minutes of cover-age of the 2002 midterm election onthe national network news programshad declined by 78 percent over thecoverage those networks devoted tothe 1998 midterm election.

Political devolution

All of this got worse in 2006.Themedia

“The job ofa journalistis not topromote butto question.The theorybehind theFirstAmendmentis that thesystem will bestrengthenedby anunflinchinglook at thesystem’s flaws


MEDIA MADNESS

is failing us along with the political sys-tem it allegedly covers.There is a devo-lution underway, not reform andchange.Years ago in a book called “Hail to

the Thief” on the outcome of the 2000election, I wrote: “Themedia no longer,if it ever did, stand apart from politicsas a neutral – much less objective –watchdog operating outside the politi-cal system to strengthen democracy. Inan age of corporate mergers and un-precedented media concentration, themedia have in effect, merged with pol-itics and now function as a key compo-nent of a system that Norman Mailersees, with a whiff of the Mafia theoryof Organization, as a “family.”“The American political body has

evolved,” he wrote in an essay in his

l998 anthology The Time of Our Time.“into a highly controlled and power-fully manipulated democracy overseenby a new species of aristocracy formedat the junction of four Royal Families –the ten thousand dollar suits of themega-corporations, the titans of themedia, the high ogres of Congress andthe upper lords of the White House.”In 2006, years after all the hand-

wringing over the fiasco in Florida, andthe debacle in Ohio, I see no reason torevise this judgment. CT

News Dissector and filmmaker DannySchechter is the “blogger-in-chief forMediaChannel.org. His latest filmis InDebtWeTrust.(InDebtWeTrust.com)Comments [email protected]

“The media isno longer, if itever did standapart frompolitics as aneutral – muchless objective– watchdogoperatingoutside thepolitical systemto strengthendemocracy”


MEDIA MADNESS

SUBSCRIBE TO COLDTYPEAND GET A FREE E-BOOKBY DANNY SCHECHTEREvery subscriber to ColdType getsa free copy of Danny Schechter’sbook, “Embedded:Weaponsof Mass Deception.”Get your copy by e-mailing

[email protected] type “SUBSCRIBE” in the subject line

WR I T I N G WORTH R E A D I N GF ROM A ROUND TH E WO R L D

coldtype.net

coldtype reader 10 2007

Documents