The Empire Strikes Back

The Empire moves overtly and covertly: top, a map showing Turkey and Iran, both getting some bad publicity from the US government. Bottom, Rep. Dennis Kucinich, who abandons his fight against the health insurance industry bailout bill supported by the President.

A one-two uppercut by the Empire in today's news is leaving many folks feeling sucker-punched. But that's how power works - by force.

First, the leading progressive among Democrats, Rep. Dennis Kucinich, has decided to vote in favor of the current health care "reform" bill after spending months denouncing it. Even his statement revealing this remarkable turnaround cites the multiple misgivings he has about the measure: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/03/17-9 . But, in the end, "after careful discussions with the President Obama, Speaker Pelosi, Elizabeth my wife and close friends, I have decided to cast a vote in favor of the legislation."

It's a stunning reversal, and only one explanation makes sense - the Empire said vote yes and you will get to live to fight another day. Apparently it was made clear to Rep. Kucinich that he would be facing re-election in the fall without national Democratic Party resources (with the money going to a primary challenger, no presidential visits to the district, etc) should he continue to oppose the President's health insurance bailout - er, "reform" - plan. Plainly Kucinich decided not to fall on his sword over the health care reform issue, and take the support so he has the chance to continue his job. (Read a UK report on the President's strong-arm tactics here: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/barackobama/7450237/Barack-Obama-threatens-to-withdraw-support-from-wavering-Democrats.html .)

But how much credibility has Kucinich lost with progressives by making this decision? Is it a compromise when you are threatened? Score this one a win for the Empire (and its corporate cronies).

On the international front, it's being reported today that the USA is pressuring erstwhile ally Turkey to get "on board" the anti-Iran bandwagon or face repercussions: http://www.comcast.net/articles/news-politics/20100304/POLITICS-US-TURKEY-USA/ . Ankara has recalled its ambassador to the US over the bill currently in Congress that condemns Turkey for perpetrating the massacre of Armenians in 1915, a very hot topic for Armenia and Turkey.

Ah, nothing like peer pressure from the Empire; Assistant Secretary Of State Phillip Gordon says Turkey should get in line to strengthen its credentials as "an important, responsible actor" in the Middle East - in other words, return the diplomats and back the Iranian sanctions. All actors need a script, and Ankara is improvising its lines - earning a frown from the stage managers in Washington. If the Obama Administration is going public with its threats against Turkey, imagine what's already been discussed between the governments behind the scenes.

There are geo-political energy issues swirling around the area - new pipelines crossing Turkey, Armenia, etc. taking natural gas to Europe are going to make gazillions in financial profits for many energy companies. Could it be the Turkish government is not going along with the corporatocracy? The Empire doesn't like that.

What really gave me a chortle was this statement: describing the ultimate fate of the Turkish massacre condemnation bill in Congress, Gordon said: "The Congress is an independent body and they're going to do what they decide to do." Really - they think independently? Resistant to influence?

Let's ask Dennis Kucinich.

Bomb Bomb Bomb, Bomb Bomb Iran?

All together now, to the tune of "Barbara Ann," as popularized by John McCain. The bunker-busting Blu-110 and Blu-117 smart bombs are the middle and bottom respectively.

The Empire moves in mysterious ways...or it posts its military shipping manifests in public places. Since many duties formerly performed by the US military are now outsourced to private contractors, it's sometimes harder to shield activities from the public.

Unless you live in the United States, where you will be saved from learning about such details by our benevolent corporate media.

That's why this story from Scotland is so interesting. The Navy, according to public records, is shipping hundreds of bunker-busting smart bombs to a US military base in the Indian Ocean. Now which of our many terrorist enemies might have underground bunkers that need busting? Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan? Militants in Iraq? Those pesky Hamas leaders in Lebanon and Gaza? Not them?

How about Iran! The government in Tehran been raised as a specter of global doom for the last decade by the USA. Probably because they figured out that if they have a nuclear bomb, the USA won't attack them. So it appears that the Nobel Peace Prize winner has approved moving some heavy weaponry into place for another round of saber rattling. Or something more.

Now Mr. Obama is a smoother fellow than his predecessors, so he might not go public with the overt threats for a while. But rest assured that the Iranian government is aware that the big bombs are heading over for rapid deployment, should the situation arise. For the opinions of European observers following the developments, read all about it here: http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/final-destination-iran-1.1013151

Good to see that yet another Bush-Cheney priority - using the military might of the Empire to cower those who don't want to play ball by our rules - is alive and well in the Obama Administration.

By "yet another", I'm thinking about the renewal of the Patriot Act, the refusal to totally to abolish torture as a tool, contract renewals for Blackwater - oops, I mean Xe - and expanding both the military and private contractor base in Afghanistan...well, I guess the USA didn't really change anything with the 2008 presidential election.

A different smiling face, and a little less bluster. The actions remain depressingly consistent.

"The enormous gap between what US leaders do in the world and what Americans think their leaders are doing is one of the great propaganda accomplishments of the dominant political mythology." - Michael Parenti (political scientist, author)

Same Old Story: But Now It's The Nobel Peace Prize Winner Who's Expanding The Wars

I would like to think I'll be able to retire this picture someday...but someday is not today.

I'm getting really tired of writing about the wars, but they keep going on, keep getting bigger, keep getting more and more of our tax dollars to pound down a Middle Eastern sinkhole. Except for the dollars that enrich the hundreds of thousands of private contractors and energy company operators.

That's why these wars will never end - too many people making too much money at the expense of soldiers and their families lives, and citizen tax dollars fuel the enterprise.

President Obama's speech on December 1st outlined his new plan to "surge" 30,000 more troops into Afghanistan. Yes, the Nobel Peace Prize winner is fulfilling his campaign promise to expand the US military presence in Afghanistan and continue the wars. Will Congress fight back this time?

They did not fight back against the Bush Administration war machine, even though by 2006 the Congressional Democrats could have severely hindered if not outright stopped the free-flowing money spigot required for endless war. So if they wouldn't stop their Republican political opponents, does anyone think they will stop their own party's leader?

A colleague at work told me of a Thanksgiving holiday encounter with a military officer relative just returned from a lengthy tour of duty in Iraq. "He says it's a joke over there" was the quote, and he recounted several examples related to him of excessive resource waste, luxury building materials, and unrestricted budgets available for the officer's duties. I urged him to watch Robert Greenwald's movie "Iraq For Sale" to get even more details. (http://iraqforsale.org/)

I think most people have the idea things in Iraq and Afghanistan are much different than they are portrayed in the American media. More folks need to understand that, and start hounding their congressional representatives to stop this fiscal/military madness. It's the only way this particular folly of empire can be halted.

Some other notable reactions:

From Cindy Sheehan, pointedly dead-on in her analysis, as usual - "You Get What You Vote For": http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article24089.htm

Blogger Arthur Silber expertly analyzes between the lines of the President's speech, pointing out that Obama has effectively gutted the anti-war movement, leaving an open field to continue the Bush Adminstration's war machine:

http://powerofnarrative.blogspot.com/2009/12/deadly-liar-and-manipulator.html

And Representative Dennis Kucinich uses just a few words to skewer the President's war plan - "What part of 'get out' do we not understand?"
http://www.kucinich.house.gov/News/DocumentSingle.aspx?DocumentID=157597

For America, War Is Real Good Business

"Because the United States does not look like a militarized country, it's hard for Americans to grasp that Washington is a war capital, that the United States is a war state, that it garrisons much of the planet, and that the norm for us is to be at war somewhere at any moment."

"What does it mean when the most military-obsessed administration in our history (Bush II), which, year after year, submitted ever more bloated Pentagon budgets to Congress, is succeeded by one headed by a president who ran, at least partially, on an antiwar platform, and who has now submitted an even larger Pentagon budget?"

"If...weaponry is being endlessly developed for our safety and security, and that of our children and grandchildren, why is it that one of our most successful businesses involves the sale of the same weaponry to other countries? The U.S., with $37.8 billion in arms sales (up $12.4 billion from 2007), controlled 68.4% of the global arms market in 2008."

TomDispatch.com is a valuable web site, calling itself the "antidote to the mainstream media." Tom Englehardt's excellent article, "Is America Hooked On War?" is a question for which any clear-thinking citizen already knows the answer.

"Defense" spending makes up more than half of the annual federal budget every year, and weapons industries continue to make up a major segment of our economy. Yet this wholly anti-Christian and anti-humanity government program is never questioned by the media, our elected representatives, or by most citizens of the nation.

Indeed, if the American government's addictive attachment to weapons and death is ever questioned, a likely answer will have something to do with the treasonous act of second-guessing the defense of the nation. Defending the USA against...whom, exactly? And, as Mr. Englehardt points out, if we as a nation are so afraid of other countries, why do we sell more weapons to other countries than anyone on the planet?

Essential reading, sobering statistics, and a subject that anyone who professes Christian/humanitarian ideals must ponder. Thanks, Tom.

http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175115

Obama The Tyrant? No, Just The Current Team Captain

I recently had an interesting email exchange with a respected colleague who told me that I often failed to give the Obama Administration "credit" when it was due. Announcements about new Justice Department investigations, directives and "reforms" sparked that conversation.

There have been encouraging signs: modification of some of the worst Bush-era policies in the environmental area, and the recent Justice Department announcement about investigating CIA torture activities and revamping its Civil Rights Division. But as many have pointed out, rolling back extreme right policies to a new "center" that still tilts to the right is not progress; and the CIA torture investigation ground rules could ultimately lead to another round of "punish the little guys while the big guys go free" results that are the norm for these exercises.

Despite these positive moves, in the major arenas of government action - war, surveillance, assisting corporate dominance - Team American Empire (TAE) continues to roll down the field. First, an excerpt from one of the exchanges:

"...we could definitely have a conversation about the assertion that 'overall domestic surveillance and secret prisons are okay' with the current administration.

Obama has specifically reversed and rejected Bush-era interrogation policies that allow for secret prisons (please give me examples that can show me what I’m missing), and before he was president he voted for a revised domestic surveillance program that put quite a few restrictions on what the government and private entities could and could not do (please give me examples that can show me what I’m missing).

I just don’t buy this notion that Obama somehow has a personal agenda to spy on Americans, take away their liberties, oppress citizens of other countries, and give every major corporation a big payday so he can retire happy."

(Drum roll, please) My response:

I do not believe that Mr. Obama has tyrannical or dictatorial ambitions.

He is the temporary team captain placed at the head of Team American Empire, a loose-knit collective with a single purpose: market domination and stability for financial profit. Team American Empire moves inexorably forward towards its goals via the combined efforts of the business community, its (often well-paid) cohorts in Congress and the revolving employment doors of government regulatory agencies. Every empire in history has followed the basic contours of this model. We are not re-inventing the wheel here.

The latest round of candidates for interim Empire team captain - Mr. Obama, Mr. McCain, Mrs. Clinton – all had been vetted by the major monied class. Whatever their differences, none of that trio were proposing to shut down the biggest business projects of our day: armaments and oil. And all were oppositional or purposely vague on health care reform (although I would like to believe Mrs. Clinton would have pushed hardest for meaningful change).

The guy sitting in the Presidential seat now may have the best intentions in the world, but he got to that position by being a willing team player. The current occupant, in his first six months, has undoubtedly proved he can be counted on to lead Team American Empire.

So it matters little what Mr. Obama’s personal feelings on key issues might be. The actions have been taken. In the realm of unhindered domestic surveillance, he voted to extend FISA – call me reactionary, but why does the government need to screen every email in America? Make all the new “restrictions” on surveillance you want – private communications corporations are assisting the government effort to screen everything. Maintaining a domestic surveillance network is much more about political paranoia and retaining domestic power than identifying “terrorists”.

Secret prisons – for me, it’s common sense. The President says we’ll close them, and the CIA director says they will be decommissioned. But do you trust the guys in charge of government-sponsored secrecy? The CIA and President both stated they will continue to detain and hold people for questioning – are they going to put them up in hotels? The intelligence arms of the Empire are not being reined in – they are shutting down old facilities and setting up new storefronts, just like they have throughout the post-WWII period.

Even if I believed there is a “reform”, where’s the public accountability to prove these prisons are truly closed? There is no outside-the-government oversight. The mainstream media is manipulated by the government, who knows they will rarely (if ever) begin serious investigations of its pronouncements. So how am I assured that this chapter is closed – I have to trust the President? It is not up to citizens to seek out and prove this information – it is the government’s responsibility to prove accomplishment of its promises to the citizens.

The prime enterprise for Team American Empire today is total dominance - military and financial - of the Middle East. For all the talk of withdrawing troops, Mr. Obama has delivered on his promise to expand the wars/occupation/financial subjugation in the Middle East. Again, he’s not a personal tyrant – just the guy currently in charge of the ongoing (for decades to come) TAE game plan to make Middle East oil a sure thing for big energy companies. McCain or Clinton would have followed this same playbook exactly. And in the next election cycle or two, if our current electoral system is still intact (any bets?), someone else who has been carefully screened and approved will take Obama's place to captain Team American Empire.

I think it boils down to who you choose to believe when it comes to "reforms." I do not accept the "trust us" security/intelligence “reforms” of a publicly-funded government that willfully engages in financially/spiritually corrupting illegal wars for private profit.

For me, this is a an all-or-nothing game. As long as Team American Empire captain Obama keeps getting plays from the owners of industry and money – and the expanding wars, massive domestic surveillance machine, and the fight to preserve health insurance industry profits all point to that reality – there’s little joy in the occasional instance of moving a case of extreme right practice back to the (rightward-drifting) center.

Honduran Political Song For Michael Jackson To Sing

The old Minutemen punk-rock classic "Political Song For Michael Jackson To Sing" will have to be revised - here's a geo-political question to ask while the late Mr. Jackson is getting buried next week: what ever happened in that Honduras coup? Remember? The story that got buried in the USA when MJ conveniently died?

New articles in the last week take interesting views. The Associated Press issued a story on leftist/progressive leaders in Latin America going on heightened alert following the seemingly-successful ouster of the democratically elected Honduran president Manuel Zelaya. And the USA - the biggest military, trade and aid player in Latin America - is never mentioned. Hmmm....

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/08/19/ap/latinamerica/main5252359.shtml

And here is an opinion piece from The Guardian UK on the Honduran overthrow - and how the US government's relative inaction amounts to an approval of the military takeover. From the article:

" A clue...given by the (US) state department's Phillip Crowley, who explained that the coup should be a "lesson" to Zelaya for regarding revolutionary Venezuela as a model for the region."

So the Administration likes democracy as long as it's following the right guidelines - and if not, we'll take the generals supported by the rich men, thanks!
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/aug/12/honduras-coup-democracy-barack-obama

Given the very recent revelation (through declassified documents) of President Nixon working with the military dictators of Brazil to assist the overthrow of the elected Chilean government in 1972, and remembering the Iran-Contra scandal of the 1980s (which saw Honduras emerge as the pre-eminent US military home base in Latin America), the current Honduran situation should not be a surprise.

The King of Pop once sang that it doesn't matter if you're black or white. For the new Political Song For Michael Jackson To Sing, let's change that to: doesn't matter if you're a Republican government or a Democratic one - when it comes to Latin America, Uncle Sam prefers ultra-conservative military regimes to wayward, progressive elected ones.

(See D. Boon and Minutemen perform "Political Song For Michael Jackson To Sing:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2-CgCyh5YM)

Growing the Empire

The American empire continues to expand. Here's The Washington Post report on the dollar costs of our adventures in creating allies, or "nation-building" in Afghanistan: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/08/AR2009080802283.html?hpid=topnews

Mr. Obama's candidacy was generally regarded as the "stop the wars/peace" faction. Yet his expansion plans for the attempt to finally subjugate Afghanistan were plainly spelled out in his website campaign site/platform. In the times I saw him on television during 2008, he always confirmed that stance. The majority of American voters elected the "peace" president: who promised more killing, more long term deployments, more dollars for weapons.

Some congressman fret that Afghanistan has proven chronically unmanageable and a sinkhole for other "liberators" in the past century. But most of Congress have enthusiastically voted for ever-expanding military budgets and seem prepared to run this foreign government overhaul like a business - but with an improved model.

Private contractors are getting hired, although there is one "help wanted" ad according to The Post. The government is looking for a company "to bring together Afghan economic, social, legal and political groups to help build the country's infrastructure." The kind of stuff State Departments used to do. Yes, capitalism is alive and well - but it still needs the government to supply the troops riding patrols, engaging in remote firefights, getting blown up by mines, dying.

Afghanistan must be crossed by oil/gas pipelines. And those pipelines belong to companies who are not interested in a future where an unfriendly government could nationalize the business. So if it takes decades to guarantee business safety, so be it. At least - until the subjugation of Afghanistan is complete - there will be lots of friendly guns around.