THE UNITED STATES OF AMNESIA

"Why we fight?" A documentary

After a sea of lies and a tsunami of propaganda, the ugly truth behind the Iraq and Afghanistan wars finally emerged into full view this week.

Four major western oil companies, Exxon, Mobil, Shell, BP and Total, are about to sign US-brokered no-bid contracts with the US-installed Baghdad regime to begin exploiting Iraq’s oil fields. Saddam Hussein had kicked these firms out three decades ago when he nationalized Iraq’s foreign-owned oil industry for the benefit of Iraq’s national development. The Baghdad regime is turning back the clock.

This agreement comes as talks are continuing between the Washington and its Baghdad client regime over future US basing rights in Iraq. After some face-saving Iraqi objections, it is expected that Baghdad will sign a compact with Washington giving US forces control of Iraq and its air space in a manner very similar to Great Britain’s colonial arrangement with Iraq.

Interestingly, the same oil companies that used to exploit Iraq when it was a British colony are now returning. As former US Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan recently admitted, the Iraq war was all about oil. VP Dick Cheney stated in 2003 that the invasion of Iraq was about oil, and for the sake of Israel.

Meanwhile, according to Pakistani and Indian sources, Afghanistan just signed a major deal to launch a long-planned, 1680 km long pipeline project expected to cost $ 8 billion. If completed, the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India pipeline (TAPI) will export gas and, later, oil from the Caspian Basin to Pakistan’s coast where tankers will transport it to the west.

The Caspian Basin located under the Central Asian states of Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Kazakkstan, holds an estimated 300 trillion cubic feet of gas and 100–200 billion barrels of oil. Securing the world’s last remaining known energy Eldorado is strategic priority for the western powers. China can only look on with envy.

But there are only two practical ways to get gas and oil out of landlocked Central Asia to the sea: through Iran, or through Afghanistan to Pakistan. For Washington, Iran is tabu. That leaves Pakistan, but to get there, the planned pipeline must cross western Afghanistan, including the cities of Herat and Kandahar.

In 1998, the Afghan anti-Communist movement Taliban and a western oil consortium led by the US firm UNOCAL signed a major pipeline deal. UNOCAL lavished money and attention on Taliban, flew a senior delegation to Texas, and also hired an minor Afghan official, one Hamid Karzai.

Enter Osama bin Laden. He advised the unworldly Taliban leaders to reject the US deal and got them to accept a better offer from an Argentine consortium, Bridas. Washington was furious and, according to some accounts, threatened Taliban with war.

In early 2001, six or seven months before 9/11, Washington made the decision to invade Afghanistan, overthrow Taliban, and install a client regime that would build the energy pipelines. But Washington still kept up sending money to Taliban until four months before 9/11 in an effort to keep it "on side" for possible use in a war or strikes against Iran.

The 9/11 attacks, about which Taliban knew nothing, supplied the pretext to invade Afghanistan. The initial US operation had the legitimate objective of wiping out Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida. But after its 300 members fled to Pakistan, the US stayed on, built bases – which just happened to be adjacent to the planned pipeline route – and installed former UNOCAL"consultant" Hamid Karzai as leader.

Washington disguised its energy geopolitics by claiming the Afghan occupation was to fight "Islamic terrorism," liberate women, build schools, and promote democracy. Ironically, the Soviets made exactly the same claims when they occupied Afghanistan from 1979-1989. The cover story for Iraq was weapons of mass destruction, Saddam’s supposed links to 9/11, and promoting democracy.

Work will begin on the TAPI once Taliban forces are cleared from the pipeline route by US, Canadian and NATO forces. As American analyst Kevin Phillips writes, the US military and its allies have become an "energy protection force."

From Washington’s viewpoint, the TAPI deal has the added benefit of scuttling another proposed pipeline project that would have delivered Iranian gas and oil to Pakistan and India.

India’s energy needs are expected to triple over the next decade to 8 billion barrels of oil and 80 million cubic meters of gas daily. Delhi, which has its own designs on Afghanistan and has been stirring the pot there, is cock-a-hoop over the new pipeline plan. Russia, by contrast, is grumpy, having hoped to monopolize Central Asian energy exports.

Energy is more important than blood in our modern world. The US is a great power with massive energy needs. Domination of oil is a pillar of America’s world power. Afghanistan and Iraq are all about control of oil.

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A LOT OF HOT AIR ON A GLOBAL SCALE

Accepted theories about man causing global warming are "lies" claims a controversial new TV documentary.

'The Great Global Warming Swindle' backed by eminent scientists - is set to rock the accepted consensus that climate change is being driven by humans.

The programme will see a series of respected scientists attack the "propaganda" that they claim is killing the world's poor.

Even the co-founder of Greenpeace, Patrick Moore, is shown, claiming African countries should be encouraged to burn more CO2.

Nobody in the documentary defends the greenhouse effect theory, as it claims that climate change is natural, has been occurring for years, and ice falling from glaciers is just the spring break-up and as normal as leaves falling in autumn.

A source at Channel 4 said: "It is essentially a polemic and we are expecting it to cause trouble, but this is the controversial programming that Channel 4 is renowned for."

Controversial director Martin Durkin said: "You can see the problems with the science of global warming, but people just don't believe you - it's taken 10 years to get this commissioned.

"I think it will go down in history as the first chapter in a new era of the relationship between scientists and society. Legitimate scientists - people with qualifications - are the bad guys.

"It is a big story that is going to cause controversy.

"It's very rare that a film changes history, but I think this is a turning point and in five years the idea that the greenhouse effect is the main reason behind global warming will be seen as total bollocks".

Nobel laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu calls for international campaigners to treat Israel as they treated apartheid South Africa.

The end of apartheid stands as one of the crowning accomplishments of the past century, but we would not have succeeded without the help of international pressure - in particular the divestment movement of the 1980s. Over the past eight months a similar movement has taken shape, this time aiming at an end to the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories captured during the 1967 military campaign.

Divestment from apartheid South Africa was fought by ordinary people at the grassroots. Faith-based leaders informed their followers, union members pressured their companies' stockholders and consumers questioned their store owners. Students played an especially important role by compelling universities to change their investment portfolios. Eventually, institutions pulled the financial plug and the South African Government thought twice about its policies.

Similar moral and financial pressures on Israel are being mustered one person at a time. Students on more than 40 US campuses are demanding a review of university investments in Israeli companies as well as in firms doing major business in Israel. From Berkeley to Ann Arbor, city councils have debated municipal divestment measures.

These tactics are not the only parallels to the struggle against apartheid. Yesterday's South African township dwellers can tell you about today's life in the Occupied Territories. To travel only blocks in his own homeland, a grandfather waits on the whim of a teenage soldier. More than an emergency is needed to get to a hospital; less than a crime earns a trip to jail. The lucky ones have a permit to leave their squalor to work in Israel's cities, but their luck runs out when security closes all checkpoints, paralyzing an entire people. The indignities, dependence and anger are all too familiar.

Many South Africans are beginning to recognize the parallels to what we went through. Ronnie Kasrils and Max Ozinsky, two Jewish heroes of the anti-apartheid struggle, recently published a letter titled 'Not in My Name'. Signed by several hundred other prominent Jewish South Africans, the letter drew an explicit analogy between apartheid and current Israeli policies. Mark Mathabane and Nelson Mandela have also pointed out the relevance of the South African experience.

An episode of the Dutch documentary program "Tegenlicht" about the Israel lobby in the USA

To criticize the occupation is not to overlook Israel's unique strengths, just as protesting the Vietnam War did not imply ignoring the distinct freedoms and humanitarian accomplishments of the United States. In a region where repressive governments and unjust policies are the norm, Israel is certainly more democratic than its neighbours. This does not make dismantling the settlements any less a priority. Divestment from apartheid South Africa was certainly no less justified because there was repression elsewhere on the African continent. Aggression is no more palatable in the hands of a democratic power. Territorial ambition is equally illegal whether it occurs in slow motion, as with the Israeli settlers in the Occupied Territories, or in blitzkrieg fashion, as with the Iraqi tanks in Kuwait. The United States has a distinct responsibility to intervene in atrocities committed by its client states, and since Israel is the single largest recipient of US arms and foreign aid, an end to the occupation should be a top concern of all Americans.

Almost instinctively, the Jewish people have always been on the side of the voiceless. In their history, there is painful memory of massive roundups, house demolitions and collective punishment. In their scripture, there is acute empathy for the disfranchised. The occupation represents a dangerous and selective amnesia of the persecution from which these traditions were born.

Not everyone has forgotten, including some within the military. The growing Israeli refusenik movement evokes the small anti-conscription drive that helped turn the tide in apartheid South Africa. Several hundred decorated Israeli officers have refused to perform military service in the Occupied Territories. Those not already in prison have taken their message on the road to US synagogues and campuses, rightly arguing that Israel needs security, but that it will never have it as an occupying power. More than 35 new settlements have been constructed on these captured lands in the past year. Each one is a step away from the safety deserved by the Israelis, and two steps away from the justice owed to the Palestinians.

If apartheid ended, so can the occupation. But the moral force and international pressure will have to be just as determined. The current divestment effort is the first, though certainly not the only, necessary move in that direction.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984 for his work against apartheid. He wrote this piece in collaboration with lan Urbina who works at the Middle East Research and Information Project (MERIP) in Washington, DC.

WHERE FEAR AND FUTURE COLLIDE

The video is a documentary by the BBC, called 'Dangerous knowledge'

"If we are to believe the big narrative of today - a story increasingly engineered into mainstream thought - that the fate of humanity is now torn between random acts of terror and a planet in the throes of climatic meltdown - then perhaps it is time to steady our heartbeats for a moment and rewind the tape. Why are we a civilization continuously driven by panic and sensationalism? In the first instance it would behoove us to recall that we do in fact have the mother of all terror-tales underpinning our planetary cosmology, one rooted in fear and separation: cataclysm. And until we are able to view this pathology of origins with objectivity and then move beyond it’s unconscious grip - we will remain programmed to self-destruct.

The narrative has two aspects, both of them grim and isolationist: on the one hand that of origins: the big bang….black holes……dark matter…..and an entropic Universe forever expanding and collapsing from nothingness into nothingness. On the other hand the arc of human evolution studded with great horrors, calamity and unspeakable trauma. History and mythology perpetually remind us of these deluges, superquakes, stellar impacts, super-volcanoes, plagues and such. The creation myths of all cultures hark back to these seminal flash-points within the collective experience and formation of consciousness. Our modern politik is thus conjured within the framework of such myths - and our anal-intuited reflexive worldviews emerge with geometrical precision: flight or fight, survival of the fittest, who dares wins…..full spectrum dominance and so on.

There is a need for us to free ourselves from great chunks of our mythologies - as it is these nested projections of the zeitgeist which drive us further along a fear-based trajectory. Religious fundamentalism, nationalism, patriotism and spiritual and scientific dogma are all rooted in this primæval imperative.

Small wonder that the collective heart and mind of humanity is in such torment when we continue to usher in the framing of common knowledge on the back of such ghastly scientific and philosophical postulation. It is akin to packing children off to school with a lunchbox and a map directing them over the edge of a cliff. But what is worse is that once these theories are force-fed into the mainstream - they become gospel. Once they have become atrophied into the accepted model it becomes almost impossible to evolve the discipline and the inquiry any further. Academia, public perception and the mainstream scientific community stand like sentinels around these models - as if salvation depended on them. True scientific endeavor is thus quarterized and sidelined into extinction.

Today we observe a filamentary structure to the Universe - an interconnectedness which appears to link all form and motion across all interpretations of time and space with a limitless network of electrodynamic plasma strings. The ‘big bang’ theory does not accommodate this prime observation. We in fact observe many phenomena which contemporary science is unable to explain and yet can easily be described within the Electric-Universe model ie: heavy elements, the solar spectrum, the neutrino deficiency and variability, sunspots, sunspot migration and cycles, differential rotation by latitude and depth, magnetic field strength, solar atmosphere and density and so on. All these are natural consequences of the Electric-Universe model. And yet, proponents of models such as this which baulk against the status quo - in pursuit of honest scientific inquiry continue to be ostracized and ridiculed. This appears to be a time-honored tradition within critical strains of academia and the mainstream scientific community who it seems would sooner bypass facts rather than risk endangering funding-sources, accolades and the approbation of peers rooted in a blinkered paradigm.

The light-bulb and radio are just two of the incidental inventions of Nikolas Tesla - a man shunned by his contemporaries and whose works of astonishing genius were commandeered and then muffled by the capitalist devils of his day. Consigned to a penniless death at the age of 86 in a dirty hotel room in Paris this gentle Serb also invented the modern electric motor, basic laser and radar technology, neon, robotics, remote control, alternating currents, wireless communication, x-rays, cellular technology as well as star-wars tactical warfare over 100 years ago. Not only do we manage to overlook this legacy we even continue all too often to teach our children that folks like Thomas Edison and Marconi were the great inventors. Einstein was clearly a very great man - but he got it devastatingly wrong sometimes. And the wholesale intellectual reverence paid to him since his day has thwarted our journey in pursuit of true science and has instead merely embellished the most important inquiry of all with cult of celebrity and layman sensationalism. We teach our children lies and we know it.

Pioneers like Alton Harp and Velkikovsky despite being black-balled, deprived of funding and denied access to observatory time because of sound theoretical fact-finding endeavors still managed to successfully lead the way in articulating the case for an Electric-Universe - the only model which fills in all the gaps overlooked by our popular ‘expanding universe’ fairytale. A model moreover which beautifully articulates and embraces our universe and screams out ‘falsity’ at the desolate and fear-premised Big Bang model.

George Lemaitre commonly credited with the expanding Universe theory was a mathematician and also a high ranking member of the Catholic Church. It begs the question - was he simply trying to unify science and religion with the theoretical notion of a big bang…In the beginning there was light….and so on. This is not to disavow scriptures - merely to highlight the fact that mans linear interpretation of it can become literal and therefore infantile. There are dangers in remaining trapped within the constraints of such mythically inspired conceptual frameworks.

Where the ‘black hole’ theory does not stand up to much scrutiny it can at least can be described by plasma processes, which even explain our astronomical observations more effectively.The Electric-Universe model is now leading us to discoveries which thread together modern astronomy, plasma-physics and ancient mythology. Surely this is cause for celebration. Instead we insist on drumming out the usual suspects in our great fiction: dark energy, black holes, sunspots, strings, WIMP’s, MACHO’s, neutron stars et al. All of these neatly fit to become the backbone to untenable theories.

One of the grotesqueries of the current paradigm is that the public are continuously told that only ‘experts’ are able to understand the complexities of cosmology (notions such as warped 11-dimensional space, inflatons, Heteronic-M theory, dark matter etc.). The truth of the matter is that much of this intellectual complexity is sheer guff and is the net result of generations of scientific minds - often dislocated from any spiritual maturity, posing questions which simply cannot be answered with a square-rule and an algorithm.

Are we unable instead to sit upon the floor, priest and physicist alike - and agree that - where the facts do not appear to stack up we should make a real effort to avoid filling in the blanks with postulations of wishful thinking coupled with religious undertones. Had this been the case heretofore it is certain that millions should not have died in the rivers of blood which religion has wrought on humanity. Were this the case - our knowledge of ourselves would not be at the threshold of it’s great undoing after centuries of pompous intellectual and scientific assertion backed up by fearful myths and creation stories which do nothing to outline reality and everything to perpetrate ignorance, dogma and linear thinking.

Should it not concern us that our expanding Universe theory is predicated on the ‘red-shift’ (Doppler effect) assumption - an assumption we now know to be invalid and which has recently been hauled off it’s pedestal. Should we not slam our conceptual gears into reverse and head in the opposite direction or at least shrug our shoulders and confess that the common model is wrong? That we continue teaching kids from Michigan to Mozambique a theory of everything which we know to be rank impossibility. Proponents of the Electric-Universe believe so - and are poised to recalibrate the entire orientation of modern science as a result. An orientation which does everything to illustrate a geometrically precise, aesthetically resonant and elegantly conceived Universe which is not hurtling into deep space, becoming ever colder and more desolate and disconnected from it’s parts - but quite the opposite. The model illustrates a sublime interconnectedness, with a harmonious and concordant symbiosis - all the qualities which a heart and mind freed from bullshit might dream up on a perfect day.

This - is the fork in the road. Like all the great human paradoxes - it requires nothing more than an honest glance in the mirror to determine which road we take. That glance should at least remind us that we know little if nothing of our supreme origin nor yet our destination. In this place - of conscious unknowing - we may just find our greatest wisdom. Because it is in this place, where we lay down the armory of conceit, of pride and the machinations of ego - that Grace ever emerges."

By Sacha Stone

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The Elections and the Responsibility of the Intellectual to Speak Truth to Power

The presidential elections in the US, once again, provide an acid test of the integrity and consequential conduct of US intellectuals. If it is the duty and responsibility of the public intellectual to speak truth to power, the recent statements of most of our well-known and prestigious public pundits have failed miserably.

Instead of highlighting, exposing and denouncing the reactionary foreign and domestic policies of Democratic Party candidate Senator Barack Obama, they have chosen to support him, ‘critically, offering as excuses that even ‘limited differences’ can result in positive outcomes,and that ‘Obama is the lesser evil’ and ‘creates an opportunity for a possibility of change.’

What makes these arguments untenable is the fact that Obama’s public pronouncements, his top policy advisers, and the likely policymakers in his government have openly defined a most bellicose foreign policy and a profoundly reactionary domestic economic policy totally in line with Paulson-Bush-Wall Street. On the major issues of war, peace, the economic crisis and the savaging of the US wage and salaried class, Obama promises to extend and deepen the policies which the majority of Americans reject and repudiate.

Ralph Nader speaks on Obama


Twelve Reasons to Reject Obama

1.Obama publicly and repeatedly promises to escalate the US military intervention in Afghanistan, increasing the number of US troops, expanding their operations and engaging in systematic cross-border attacks. In other words, Obama is a greater warmonger than Bush.

2.Obama publicly has declared that his regime will extend the ‘war against terrorism’ by systematic, large-scale ground and air attacks on Pakistan, thus escalating the war to include villages, towns and cities deemed sympathetic to the Afghan resistance.

3.Obama opposes the withdrawal of US troops in Iraq in favor of redeployment; the relocation of US troops from combat zones to training and logistical positions, contingent on the military capability of the Iraqi Army to defeat the resistance. Obama opposes a clearly defined deadline to withdraw US forces from Iraq because US troops in Iraq are essential to pursuing his overall policies in the Middle East, which include military confrontations with Iran, Syria and Southern Lebanon.

4.Obama has declared his unconditional support for the position of the pro-Israel Lobby and the colonial expansionist and bellicose policies of the Jewish state. He has promised to back Israeli military attacks whatever the cost to the US. His abject servility to Israel was evident in his speech at the annual AIPAC conference in Washington 2008. Top advisers who have long and notorious links to the top echelons of the principle Zionist propaganda mills and the Presidents of the Leading Jewish American Organizations wrote the speech and formulate his Middle East policy.

5.Obama has promised to attack Iran if it continues to process uranium for its nuclear programs. Twice, just weeks before the elections, Obama’s running mate Joseph Biden spelled out a series of ‘points of conflict’ (including Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Russia and North Korea) emphasizing that Obama ‘would respond forcefully’. Obama’s senior Middle East advisers include leading Zionists like Dennis Ross, closely linked to the ‘Bipartisan Policy Center’, which published a report serving as a blueprint for war with Iran. Obama’s proposed offer to negotiate with Iran is little more than a pretext for issuing an ultimatum to Iran to surrender its sovereignty or face massive military assault.

6.Obama unconditionally supports Israel’s expulsion of Palestinians and the expansion of Jewish settlements in the West Bank, the leading cause of Middle East hostility, warfare and the discredit of US policy in the region. With three dozen Israel-Firsters among his leading campaign organizers, top policy advisers, speech writers and among the likely candidates for cabinet positions, there is virtually no hope of ‘influencing from within’ or ‘applying popular pressure’ to change Obama’s slavish submission to the Zionist Power Configuration. By supporting Obama, the “progressive intellectuals” are, in effect, allies of his Zionist mentors.

7.On the domestic front, Obama’s key economic advisers have impeccable Wall Street credentials. He gave unquestioning and immediate endorsement to Treasury Secretary Paulson’s $700 billion dollar taxpayer bailout of the richest investment banks in the US. Obama has failed to challenge Paulson or the banks over the use of Federal funds for buyouts and acquisitions instead of loans and credit to producers and homeowners. Obama’s backing of Paulson and the Wall Street bailout is matched by his meager proposals to suspend mortgage foreclosures for a three-month period, pending re-negotiations of interest payments. Obama proposes to escalate transfers of government funds to mismanaged financial institutions and bankrupt capitalist corporations, in efforts to save failed capitalism rather than pursue any new large-scale, long-term public investment programs which will generate well-paid employment for workers.

8.Obama’s economic team has openly declared their embrace and practice of ‘free market’ ideology and opposition to any effort to engage in large-scale injections of government funds in publicly-owned productive activity and social services in the face of wide-spread private sector failure, corruption and collapse.

9.Obama embraces failed private sector health plans, run and controlled by corporate insurance companies, conservative medical and hospital associations and Big Pharma. He publicly rejects a universal national health program modeled after the successful Federal Medicare program in favor of inefficient, state-subsidized private for profit plans that are costly and beyond the means of over one third of US families.

10.Obama is and continues to be an advocate for Big Agro and its highly subsidized and profitable ethanol program, which has increased food prices for millions in the US and for hundreds of millions in the world.

11.Obama advocates continuing the criminal embargo on Cuba, hostile confrontation with Venezuela’s populist President Chavez and other Latin American reformers and the duplicitous policy of promoting protectionism at home and free market access to Latin America. His key policy advicers on Latin America propose cosmetic changes in style and diplomacy but unrelenting support for re-asserting US hegemony.

12.Obama has not proposed, nor do his free market advisers and billionaire financial backers envision, any comprehensive plan or strategy to get us out of the deepening recession. On the contrary, the course of piecemeal measures presented by Obama are internally inconsistent: Fiscal austerity is incompatible with job creation; bailing out Wall Street drains funds from productive investment; and pursuing new wars undermine domestic recovery.

CONCLUSION

The intellectuals who, in the name of ‘realism’, support a politician who publicly and openly embraces new wars, billionaire bailouts and for profit, private sector-run health programs are repudiating their own claims as ‘responsible critics’. They are what C. Wright Mills called ‘crackpot realists’, abdicating their responsibility as critical intellectuals. In purporting to support the ‘lesser evil’ they are promoting the ‘greater evil’: The continuation of four more years of deepening recession, colonial wars and popular alienation. Moreover, they are allies of the mass media, major parties and the legal system which has marginalized or outright excluded the alternative candidates, Ralph Nader and Cynthia McKinney, who do speak out and oppose the war, the pro-Wall Street bailouts and propose genuine large-scale public investment in the domestic economy, a universal single payer health program, sustainable and pro-environment economic policies and large-scale, long-term income redistributive policies.

What is crass and unacceptable is the argument of these intellectuals, (an insignificant pimple on the Democratic donkey’s rear-end)that for a single moment believe that their ‘critical support’ of the Obama political machine will open space for radical ideas. The Zionists and civilian militarists totally control Obama’s war policy in the Middle East: There will be no space for peace with Iran, Palestine, Pakistan, Afghanistan or Iraq. Wall Street controls the Obama’s financial policy: There will be no space for some Cambridge progressive to sneak in a handout for families losing their homes.

If multi-million trade union treasuries have spent a hundred million dollars on each presidential campaign have failed to secure a single piece of progressive legislation in over 50 years, isn’t it delusional for our progressive ‘public intellectuals’ to imagine that they, in their splendid organizational isolation, can ‘pressure’ President Obama to renounce his advisers, backers and public defense of military escalation, to see his way to peace with Iran and to promote social justice for our workers and unemployed? LINK