Het Neoliberale Geloof 78

'Holocaust, Regionalism, and the End of Capitalism
Richard K. Moore4

Part 1 of this analysis, “The Post-Bush Regime: a Prognosis”

I developed these main themes:
• The neocon agenda has been seriously reined in by our ruling clique of elite financial players. We are in for a ‘new story’ – the ‘Gore Agenda’.• As the Industrial North continues to consume more and more energy and resources, and as resources decline, mass die-offs in the Global South are inevitable: we can expect to see the globalization of African-scale famines.• Our elite clique is in fact covertly expediting these die-offs by means of destabilization programs of various kinds. They are engaging in deliberate and selective genocide, as a way of managing the die-off process in the Global South.
I would now like to bring in some economic considerations. Consider, for example, the state of the American economy. It is a total shambles: deeply in debt, operating at an astronomical deficit, and suffering from a chronic trade imbalance. The dollar is slipping in value, and could suffer collapse any time foreign holders start cutting their losses and dumping their dollars. On top of this we have the sub-prime mortgage crisis, which then led to a global crisis in the world of credit and finance. By all indications, the US economy is headed for a deep recession or worse.In fact, under the neocon regime, many of us were expecting a total economic collapse to occur, to be followed by martial law, perhaps even of the Gestapo variety. That seemed to be the whole point of the ‘anti-terrorism’ legislation and Homeland Security – to create the infrastructure of a fascist police state. My own view at the time was that these jackboot methods were the clique’s answer to an inevitable collapse. But with the neocon agenda reined in, and an optimistic new administration on the way, the prospect of martial law now seems distant. It doesn’t fit with the new story. It is no longer in the cards. This can only mean that our clique has found some other response to a collapse scenario, some other way to deal with an economy in shambles. And what other response really could there be, than to avoid a collapse altogether, and to instead engineer an economic recovery? That’s the only way that America can keep operating, in the absence of martial law. And besides, such a move provides a needed response to a critical political situation.Under the neocons, Americans have increasingly been not only in dissent with administration policy, but have been losing faith in the system altogether. The loss of Constitutional rights, CIA torture, voting irregularities – these kind of things strike at the very heart of what America has always pretended to stand for. It is never a good thing for rulers when folks start losing faith in the system, particularly if jackboot methods are not available. It would be a very good move for the clique to bring folks back onside, back to being happy campers. New-story rhetoric can help a bit, but only an economic recovery could bring back that feeling of, “Aren’t we lucky to be Americans!” That’s how the clique likes it. A content flock is an easily managed flock. So evidently, based partly on massive investment in Gore-agenda new technologies, we can look forward to a recovery program that will get America back on its feet. In addition to investments, I think it is clear that massive government interventionism in the economy will also be required for a recovery program to succeed. In these kinds of situations there is always an important role to be played by government-funded programs that get people into employment and spur economic activity. Given the dire state of our fundamental economy at the moment, these interventionist programs will need to be considerable, amounting to a kind of ‘mini-New Deal’. And as in the New Deal, we can expect some of these programs to be of a social-welfare nature. Funding some kind of universal health care program, for example, would be one way to get some economic activity going, and it would also help in bringing the masses back onside. Perhaps some kind of real solution to homelessness could be undertaken, and that would certainly be a massive undertaking.'

Lees verder: http://rkmdocs.blogspot.com/2008/01/holocaust-regionalism-and-end-of.html

Pakistan 3

'Pakistan Warns US on Attacking Al Qaeda on Its Own

By Eric Schmitt

The New York Times

Washington - President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan warned in an interview published Friday that any unilateral attacks by the United States against Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters in his country's tribal areas would be treated as an invasion.
But Mr. Musharraf also left open the possibility of American and Pakistani forces working together in broader combined operations to kill or capture senior Qaeda leaders believed to be hiding in the rugged border area near Afghanistan.
"You're talking about Osama bin Laden; any action against him will be free, if we know where he is, if we have good intelligence," Mr. Musharraf told The Straits Times of Singapore. "The methodology of getting him will be discussed together, and we'll attack the target together."
Asked in the interview about a proposal under review by President Bush's senior national security advisers to expand the authority of the Central Intelligence Agency and the military to conduct far more aggressive covert operations in the tribal areas, Mr. Musharraf said he would oppose the conduct of unilateral strikes by American forces without Pakistani approval.
"Nobody will come here until we ask them to come, and we haven't asked them," Mr. Musharraf said in his first public statements about the proposal, which was reported in The New York Times on Sunday.
"Certainly, if they come without our permission, that's against the sovereignty of Pakistan," he continued.
"There is a perception in the United States as if what our army cannot do, they can do," he said. "This is a very wrong perception. I challenge anyone coming into our mountains. They would regret that day."
Mr. Musharraf is not alone or extreme in this view. An array of experts, including Pakistani military analysts and American counterterrorism specialists, say that United States troops would be seen as an invasion force by the Pakistani public. They argue that American raids would fail and increase public support for militants, who say they are trying to free Pakistan from American domination.
When asked Friday about expanded covert operations in the tribal areas, American officials publicly deferred to Mr. Musharraf and his top advisers.
"Certainly anything that the United States has done and anything the United States will do will be in full cooperation with the Pakistani government," said a State Department spokesman, Tom Casey.'

Lees verder: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/12/washington/12pakistan.html?_r=1&ref=world&oref=slogin Of:

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/011208A.shtml

De Dollar Hegemonie 41

'$53 TRILLION AND GROWINGby
James Turk
Founder, GoldMoney.com

“We might hope to see the finances of the Union as clear and intelligible as a merchant's books, so that every member of Congress and every man of any mind in the Union should be able to comprehend them, to investigate abuses, and consequently to control them.” – President Thomas Jefferson to Treasury Secretary Albert Gallatin, 1802

Unfortunately President Jefferson’s hope has not been realized. Instead of striving for accuracy and honest reporting, the accounts of the US government have been plagued by all sorts of abuses perpetrated by politicians for decades. Any reasonable person viewing these accounts can only conclude that they have been prepared to obfuscate rather than enlighten, to mislead rather than inform.
For example, the government reports that its deficit for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2007 was $162.8 billion. In other words, expenses exceeded revenue by this amount. This shortfall of course needs to be made up by borrowing, which the report itself acknowledges by saying: “The Government borrows from the public to finance the gap between expenditures and revenues”. But a little digging into the numbers reveals that the government is borrowing far more than its reported deficit. Total federal debt during the past fiscal year actually grew from $8,530.4 billion in 2006 to $9,030.6 billion in 2007, which is a $500.2 billion increase – or more than three-times the reported deficit.
Why the big difference between the growth in debt and the annual deficit? It seems reasonably clear that the accounts were prepared and are being reported to the public to make the financial picture of the US government look better than it really is. And believe me, after reading the recently released Fiscal Year 2007 Financial Report of the United States Government, there is every reason to believe that the US government financial position is even worse than we think. The full report can be downloaded from this link: http://www.gao.gov/financial/fy2007financialreport.html
It has only been a little more than a decade ago that the US government started preparing its accounts according to Generally Accepted Accounting Principles. The Secretary of the Treasury, in coordination with the Director of the Office of Management and Budget, is required to submit financial statements for the U.S. government to the President and the Congress each year. The Government Accounting Office is required to audit these statements, but to give you an indication of the slipshod way things are done by the government, its financial statements have never received an unqualified opinion.
Here are some quotes from the 2007 Financial Report to highlight just how dire the US government’s financial condition really is. Let’s start with some comments by the Comptroller General of the United States:

Lees verder: http://www.financialsense.com/editorials/turk/2008/0109.html

De Dollar Hegemonie 40

'Saudi state bank urges govt to cut dollar exposure

Reuters

By Souhail Karam

RIYADH, Jan 12 (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia's largest state bank urged the
government to reduce the kingdom's exposure to the dolllar by investing more
assets outside the United states and gradually changing the riyal's peg to
the weak U.S. currency.

National Commercial Bank, Saudi Arabia's biggest by assets, said the world's
largest oil exporter should set up a sovereign wealth fund to invest surplus
revenues, now partly managed by the central bank, which has $285 billion in
foreign assets.

The bank's statement, prepared by its chief economist, is the latest sign of
pressure on the government to review exchange rate policy for the first time
since 1986. The central bank and officials have repeatedly ruled out any
policy shift.

"Time has come to reconsider the continued pegging of the Saudi riyal to
U.S. dollar, provided that this is done gradually, taking into account the
unfavourable impact on official reserves, which are mostly denominated in
dollars," said Said al-Shaikh, National Commercial's chief economist.

The government should set up a sovereign fund to "increase the returns on
investment of most government surpluses, which are currently invested in
U.S. Treasury bonds", Shaikh said.

The kingdom should "diversify government investments across asset types,
countries and different currencies...to reduce risks and increase
profitability," he said.

Concerns that state investors, including those in Gulf oil exporters would
shift assets away from the dollar helped drive the U.S. unit to record lows
on global markets last year.

Saudi Arabia's neighbours are reducing dollar exposure.

Qatar's $60 billion sovereign fund cut its exposure to the dollar by more
than half over the last two years, the country's prime minister said last
year.'

Lees verder: http://www.guardian.co.uk/feedarticle?id=7219869

Martelen 90

'McConnell Weighs In on Waterboarding

By Pamela Hess

The Associated Press

Washington - The nation's intelligence chief says waterboarding "would be torture" if used against him or if someone under interrogation actually was taking water into his lungs.
But Mike McConnell, in a magazine interview, declined for legal reasons to say whether the technique categorically should be considered torture.
"If it ever is determined to be torture, there will be a huge penalty to be paid for anyone engaging in it," McConnell told The New Yorker, which published a 16,000-word article Sunday on the director of national intelligence.
The comments come as the House Intelligence Committee investigates the CIA's destruction of videotaped interrogations of two al-Qaida suspects. The tapes were made in 2002 and destroyed three years later, over fears they would leak. They depicted the use of "enhanced" interrogation techniques against two of the three men known to have been waterboarded by the CIA.
As McConnell describes it, a prisoner is strapped down with a wash cloth over his face and water is dripped into his nose.
"If I had water draining into my nose, oh God, I just can't imagine how painful! Whether it's torture by anybody else's definition, for me it would be torture," McConnell told the magazine.
A spokesman for McConnell said he does not dispute the quotes attributed to him in the story by Lawrence Wright, who won the Pulitzer Prize in 2007 for "The Looming Towers", a book on al-Qaida and the Sept. 11 attacks.
McConnell said the legal test for torture should be "pretty simple."
"Is it excruciatingly painful to the point of forcing someone to say something because of the pain?" he said.
White House spokesman Tony Fratto refused comment Saturday on waterboarding.
"We don't talk about interrogation techniques. And we are not going to respond to every little thing that shows up in the press," he told The Associated Press. "We think McConnell is doing an incredible job heading up the intelligence community, reforming it and making it incredibly effective in being able to provide the president the best intelligence on threats to the nation. We think it's vitally important he and the intelligence community have all the tools they need."
Attorney General Michael Mukasey has declined to rule on whether waterboarding is torture. An affirmative finding by Muksasey could put at risk the CIA interrogators who were given permission by the White House in 2002 to waterboard three prisoners deemed resistant to conventional techniques. The CIA has not used the technique since 2003; CIA Director Michael Hayden prohibited in 2006. '

Lees verder: http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/011308Z.shtml Of:
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/politics/wire/sns-ap-terrorist-interrogation,1,1088162.story?coll=sns-ap-politics-headlines&ctrack=1&cset=true

The Empire 335

'Across America, Deadly Echoes of Foreign Battles

By Deborah Sontag and Lizette Alvarez

The New York Times

War Torn: Part I. A series of articles and multimedia about veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan who have committed killings, or been charged with them, after coming home.

Late one night in the summer of 2005, Matthew Sepi, a 20-year-old Iraq combat veteran, headed out to a 7-Eleven in the seedy Las Vegas neighborhood where he had settled after leaving the Army.
This particular 7-Eleven sits in the shadow of the Stratosphere casino-hotel in a section of town called the Naked City. By day, the area, littered with malt liquor cans, looks depressed but not menacing. By night, it becomes, in the words of a local homicide detective, "like Falluja."
Mr. Sepi did not like to venture outside too late. But, plagued by nightmares about an Iraqi civilian killed by his unit, he often needed alcohol to fall asleep. And so it was that night, when, seized by a gut feeling of lurking danger, he slid a trench coat over his slight frame - and tucked an assault rifle inside it.
"Matthew knew he shouldn't be taking his AK-47 to the 7-Eleven," Detective Laura Andersen said, "but he was scared to death in that neighborhood, he was military trained and, in his mind, he needed the weapon to protect himself."
Head bowed, Mr. Sepi scurried down an alley, ignoring shouts about trespassing on gang turf. A battle-weary grenadier who was still legally under-age, he paid a stranger to buy him two tall cans of beer, his self-prescribed treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder.
As Mr. Sepi started home, two gang members, both large and both armed, stepped out of the darkness. Mr. Sepi said in an interview that he spied the butt of a gun, heard a boom, saw a flash and "just snapped."
In the end, one gang member lay dead, bleeding onto the pavement. The other was wounded. And Mr. Sepi fled, "breaking contact" with the enemy, as he later described it. With his rifle raised, he crept home, loaded 180 rounds of ammunition into his car and drove until police lights flashed behind him.
"Who did I take fire from?" he asked urgently. Wearing his Army camouflage pants, the diminutive young man said he had been ambushed and then instinctively "engaged the targets." He shook. He also cried.'

Lees verder: http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/011308Y.shtml

Beschaafde Oorlogen 2

'The Turks haven't learned the British way of denying past atrocities
It is not illegal to discuss the millions who were killed under our empire. So why do so few people know about them?

George Monbiot The Guardian

In reading reports of the trial of the Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk, you are struck by two things. The first, of course, is the anachronistic brutality of the country's laws. Mr Pamuk, like scores of other writers and journalists, is being prosecuted for "denigrating Turkishness", which means that he dared to mention the Armenian genocide in the first world war and the killing of the Kurds in the past decade. The second is its staggering, blithering stupidity. If there is one course of action that could be calculated to turn these massacres into live issues, it is the trial of the country's foremost novelist for mentioning them.
As it prepares for accession, the Turkish government will discover that the other members of the EU have found a more effective means of suppression. Without legal coercion, without the use of baying mobs to drive writers from their homes, we have developed an almost infinite capacity to forget our own atrocities.
Atrocities? Which atrocities? When a Turkish writer uses that word, everyone in Turkey knows what he is talking about, even if they deny it vehemently. But most British people will stare at you blankly. So let me give you two examples, both of which are as well documented as the Armenian genocide.
In his book Late Victorian Holocausts, published in 2001, Mike Davis tells the story of famines that killed between 12 and 29 million Indians. These people were, he demonstrates, murdered by British state policy. When an El Niño drought destituted the farmers of the Deccan plateau in 1876 there was a net surplus of rice and wheat in India. But the viceroy, Lord Lytton, insisted that nothing should prevent its export to England. In 1877 and 1878, at the height of the famine, grain merchants exported a record 6.4m hundredweight of wheat. As the peasants began to starve, officials were ordered "to discourage relief works in every possible way". The Anti-Charitable Contributions Act of 1877 prohibited "at the pain of imprisonment private relief donations that potentially interfered with the market fixing of grain prices". The only relief permitted in most districts was hard labour, from which anyone in an advanced state of starvation was turned away. In the labour camps, the workers were given less food than inmates of Buchenwald. In 1877, monthly mortality in the camps equated to an annual death rate of 94%.
As millions died, the imperial government launched "a militarised campaign to collect the tax arrears accumulated during the drought". The money, which ruined those who might otherwise have survived the famine, was used by Lytton to fund his war in Afghanistan. Even in places that had produced a crop surplus, the government's export policies, like Stalin's in Ukraine, manufactured hunger. In the north-western provinces, Oud and the Punjab, which had brought in record harvests in the preceeding three years, at least 1.25m died.
Three recent books - Britain's Gulag by Caroline Elkins, Histories of the Hanged by David Anderson, and Web of Deceit by Mark Curtis - show how white settlers and British troops suppressed the Mau Mau revolt in Kenya in the 1950s. Thrown off their best land and deprived of political rights, the Kikuyu started to organise - some of them violently - against colonial rule. The British responded by driving up to 320,000 of them into concentration camps. Most of the remainder - more than a million - were held in "enclosed villages". Prisoners were questioned with the help of "slicing off ears, boring holes in eardrums, flogging until death, pouring paraffin over suspects who were then set alight, and burning eardrums with lit cigarettes". British soldiers used a "metal castrating instrument" to cut off testicles and fingers. "By the time I cut his balls off," one settler boasted, "he had no ears, and his eyeball, the right one, I think, was hanging out of its socket." The soldiers were told they could shoot anyone they liked "provided they were black". Elkins's evidence suggests that more than 100,000 Kikuyu were either killed or died of disease and starvation in the camps. David Anderson documents the hanging of 1,090 suspected rebels: far more than the French executed in Algeria. Thousands more were summarily executed by soldiers, who claimed they had "failed to halt" when challenged.'

Lees verder: http://books.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1674478,00.html

Zie ook: http://home.planet.nl/~houck006/democratisering.html